Heather Tills

I'm passionate about language. By day, I teach English language acquisition courses and support multilingual students in a secondary school setting to build the literacy skills they need to communicate in U.S. classrooms and beyond. When I am not teaching, I spend my time reading, mostly young adult fiction and literary prose. I have found a lovely group of friends with whom I have been using stories to study topics related to social justice and to relearn the true history of the United States by delving into literary voices that have not been traditionally centered in our society. I also participate in writer's workshops in my local community to give myself the structure I need to move forward in writing a memoir that explores the topics of perceived obligation to family, grappling with the addiction of a loved one, and the ways that collective grief can suppress truth.

I fundamentally believe that language reaches beyond words and into the ways that ideas are represented visually. For that reason, I am currently trying to expand my repertoire of tools to communicate by slowly building my skills using programs such as Procreate and Adobe Illustrator, as well as grounding my artistic practice in the more tactile mediums of watercolor and embroidery, to expand my ability to dissect and convey ideas.

If any of this resonates with you, please reach out! I'd love to continue building my community of fellow lovers of language and art.