We’re pleased to announce that Dan Moulthrop has joined the Ohio City Writers board. Currently the “Curator of Conversation” at The Civic Commons, and previously the host of WCPN’s The Sound of Ideas, Dan is perhaps better acquainted than anyone in Cleveland with the model that inspired OCW.

“I was among the first classroom teachers who worked with 826 Valencia in San Francisco when Nínive Calegari and Dave Eggers opened its doors in 2002,” he writes in a letter of support for OCW. “My students and I were working with 826 to edit, design and publish our school’s literary magazine. The work 826 did with my small cadre of eight children in producing a professional quality publication touched the lives of hundreds of students at San Lorenzo High School in California.”

Moulthrop went on to co-author Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers, with Eggers and Calegari. The book’s message has since grown into The Teacher Salary Project.

Dan replaces Judith Mansour, who resigned from the board due to the demands of her new job, chief of staff at Cuyahoga Community College. The former executive director of The LIT: Cleveland’s Literary Center, Judith will remain an adviser to OCW.

Also new to the adviser bullpen are Toby and Melanie Maloney, co-founders of mental floss magazine; Angie Schmitt, former newspaper reporter and founder of Rustwire.com (“A voice for change in the Industrial Midwest”); Thomas Beach, chairman of the English Department at St. Ignatius High School, and Glenn Odenbrett, project director at GLISTEN (Great Lakes Innovative Stewardship Through Education Network). Glenn is also involved with Great Lakes Young Writers.