About Us

Staff

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  Darcy Thompson

  Director

  Darcy has been at the helm of LSP since its inception in 2013, and has been devoting his energies to the organization full-time since October 2015. Prior to his work with LSP, Darcy worked on the national staff of Teach For America for over eleven years, during which time he conducted research on teacher effectiveness in urban and rural schools, helped refine the organization’s framework for effective teaching, led their national STEM recruitment efforts, helped found Teach For America – Appalachia, and managed and secured large federal grants.

  Darcy has been a high school teacher in Helena-West Helena, AR and Chicago, IL, and has designed and taught writing courses at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He gained his first experience working on a book project as a graduate research assistant, when he helped develop the award-winning anthology Black Like Us: A Century of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual African American Fiction. Darcy has lived in Louisville since 2003, and has enthusiastically adopted the city as his home. He is thrilled to combine his enthusiasm for stories and books with his lifelong commitment to education as an engine for social justice.

  Contact: darcy@louisvillestoryprogram.org

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  Joe Manning

  Deputy Director

  Joe is the project lead for the book project with authors at the Kentucky School for the Blind. Joe worked closely with the authors of Our Shawnee in the early stages of LSP’s pilot project. In 2013, Joe was offered a Jackson Fellowship in the prestigious creative writing program at Hollins University where he studied and wrote toward a Master of Fine Arts degree and where, as a Teaching Fellow, he developed the curriculum for and instructed two semesters of the undergraduate writing workshop, “The Fundamentals of Writing Poetry and Fiction.” After completing his graduate work in the spring of 2015, Joe returned to Louisville, the hometown of his heart, where he previously wrote award-winning essays, columns and features for the Louisville Eccentric Observer and the Louisville Paper. He is continuously writing narrative non-fiction, recently completed a draft of his first book of essays entitled Certain Relevant Passages. In addition to his current work with LSP, Joe works with the Backside Learning Center teaching English as a second language to workers at Churchill Downs.

  Contact: joe@louisvillestoryprogram.org

Board Members

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  Cassiopia Blausey

  Director of School Choice

  Jefferson County Public Schools

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  Quaniqua Carthan

  Director of Planning and Data Management

  Cities United

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  Jennie Jean Davidson

  Partner

  Better Together Strategies, LLC

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  Yvette Gentry

  Project Director

  Metro United Way Black Male Achievement Initiative

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  LaTanya Henry

  President

  LMH Accounting & Consulting

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  Stephen Kertis

  Founder and President

  Kertis Creative

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  Anne McKune

  Senior Program Officer, Mission & Impact

  Community Foundation of Louisville

Partners

Financial Supporters