Therese Gleason (Carr) grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. She has lived in Madrid, Spain; Columbia, South Carolina; Washington, D.C., and most recently, Worcester, Massachusetts. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and a Master’s degree in English from the University of Kentucky (UK), where she was awarded the Wilhelmina Barrett Award for Poetry from the Honors Program and a Gaines Fellowship in the Humanities. While at UK, she received an undergraduate research and creativity grant to walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Spain. Therese has an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University. When she is not teaching or writing, she enjoys spending time with her husband, three children, and puppy, all of whom make her laugh every day.
Language/Literacy Teaching, Tutoring, and Educational Consulting
Therese has twenty-five years of experience as an educator. Before returning to the classroom in 2014, she spent over a decade working in the field of educational research at the local, state, and federal level, writing and managing federal grants to develop interactive large-scale and classroom-based assessments designed to reduce barriers to testing and increase educational access and equity for all learners, particularly culturally and linguistically diverse and neurodiverse students. A facilitator for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Sheltered English Immersion Endorsement (SEI) course for teachers, she has taught English composition, creative writing, ESL, Spanish, and literacy to learners in settings including universities, community colleges, adult and community education, and public and private K-12 schools. She holds Massachusetts educator licensure in Spanish (K-6), English as a Second Language (K-6), and endorsements for Bilingual Education and Sheltered English Immersion. A Wilson Dyslexia Therapist with Level II Certification, in Wilson Reading System, she currently teaches multi-sensory structured literacy as a reading interventionist for children with learning differences. She has also completed over 40 hours of graduate coursework in Educational Psychology, Research, and Literacy at the University of South Carolina and Fitchburg State University.
Community Service
Therese is a board member of the Worcester County Poetry Association, and Chair of the Advisory Board for the Worcester Clemente Course in the Humanities, an award-winning college-level seminar for highly motivated low-income adults seeking to build better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities. She has volunteered her grant-writing expertise resulting in funding for two projects from local foundations: a Worcester Arts Council grant providing a weeklong residency by Crocodile River Music and African Arts in Education at St. Peter Central Catholic, where she teaches, as well as a Creative Engagement Grant from the Greater Worcester Community Foundation awarded to the Worcester County Poetry Association to amplify the voices of diverse creatives in the community and increase audience engagement.
Therese Gleason 