Bridget Moore, an English language arts teacher at Golden Ring Middle School, was selected from among 1,800 international applicants to receive one of 20 grants from the Sustainable Arts Foundation.
The $5,000 grants are designed to benefit artists and writers who are parents. Moore plans to use her grant to develop online lessons about children’s literature. The lessons will focus on children’s literature that reflects diverse backgrounds and often is not taught in schools or in homeschooling curriculum.
Moore, a Baltimore City resident who has been a Baltimore County teacher for two years, received the grant partially based on an excerpt from her upcoming young adult novel. The book, “Dr. Marvellus Djinn’s Odd Scholars,” will be published this fall by MVmedia, LLC. Although Moore has had numerous short stories and poetry published, this will be her first published novel.
The novel is an historical fantasy that Moore has described as “’Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ meets ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ meets ‘Kindred.’” The story is based, in part, on her research about African American amusement parks and magicians in the 1920s. Moore, who refers to her Golden Ring Middle students as “amazing,” said that five of them served as beta (or test) readers during the novel’s development and offered her valuable feedback.
Originally from New Jersey, Moore earned a bachelor’s degree in English and creative writing from Rutgers University and is pursuing a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction at McDaniel College. A teacher for 11 years, Moore worked for Baltimore City and Prince George’s County school systems before joining BCPS.
