Asia Calcagno is a writer, educator, and arts leader and practitioner with a passion for culture building and storytelling. She started her career as a 9th grade English Language Arts teacher and moved on to working at several youth-facing nonprofits supporting their emotional, social, and mental wellbeing in the workforce and on college campuses across the country. She has served in arts administration for over 5 years and currently serves as the Director of Programs at Young Chicago Authors where she designs high-quality writing and performance-based programming and events for thousands of Chicagoland youth annually.
Asia believes that the arts, and writing specifically, not only promote literacy but are critical for socioemotional learning, self-awareness, and liberation and that having access to quality arts-based programming is necessary. She wants to create more intentional and well-funded spaces where youth get the chance to lead, be heard, and create freely.
Asia holds an MFA from Bennington College and was selected as a 2022 Luminarts Creative Writing Fellow which awards excellence in creative writing.
