Tavia Stewart

Tavia Stewart is nonprofit founder, leader, writer, curator, and educator living and working in Oakland, CA. She is currently a co-founder and COO at Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe, a made-in-Oakland youth writing center—a place where Oakland youth can be brave and write. Chapter 510 works with Oakland students ages 8-18 and publishes over 20 youth-penned books each year. The vision: that all Oakland youth write with confidence and joy.

Before co-founding Chapter 510, she spent 10 years building National Novel Writing Month, was an editor and publisher for Watchword Press, and founded Invisible City Audio Tours (ICAT) where she published three literary walking audio tours in the Bay Area. With Watchword Press, she co-curated Whole Story, a series of art events engaging a community of visual and performance artists around one or more poems or stories written by local authors.

She has also interned, volunteered, and worked for 826 Valencia, McSweeney’s Publishing, ZYZZYVA, Oakland First Fridays, and the Oakland Book Festival. She is the co-author of Ready, Set, Novel (Chronicle Books), and has developed fiction-writing curriculum and written workbooks for young writers of all ages.