Since arriving in Maine in 2015, I have been serving in one capacity or another for the Maine Council for English Language Arts (MCELA), a local affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

MCELA is a great organization doing excellent work. They do a lot to serve teachers throughout the state of Maine, and they’ve only stepped it up since the pandemic hit, volunteering a whole lot of time and attention to crafting the resources that Maine’s teachers need to help them get through this difficult time.

That’s why I was so happy to hear that MCELA’s journal, Northwords: The Maine English Journal, was awarded the 2021 NCTE Affiliate Journal of Excellence. The recent re-launch of Northwords—it had a few former lives as a journal in the 1990s and a blog a few years back—has been a labor of love for the people involved, and I am pleased to see their time and commitment pay off. Congratulations all around!