Cheryl Buchanan, co-founder of Writers Without Margins, is an attorney who learned the power of storytelling and silence-breaking when she worked for a decade on more than 500 cases of childhood sexual abuse. She later earned her MFA where she taught at Emerson College. Her essay, "From Crowd to Community: We are Boston," featured in the textbook, "From Twitter to Tahrir Square," explores the psychology of crisis communication in the age of social media and guerrilla journalism. Cheryl has been the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Boston Mayor's Poetry Prize, and the Naugatuck River Review's Narrative Poetry Award as well as nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize and twice for Best New Poets. Cheryl has received the 2018 National Association for Poetry Therapy’s Social Justice Award and her work is showcased in the documentary, "In Their Shoes: Unheard Stories of Reentry and Recovery," a Wahl Street Productions film now available on major streaming platforms.