I am a writer and educator. I recently completed A Hard Rain: A Memoir of Revolution, Romance, and a Radio Station about the year that I spent living in Havana in the mid-1990s. I am now working on a series of novels for young adults that feature time-traveling teenagers. I write about education for Edutopia. and work for the Oakland Public Schools as a School Improvement Coach.

Since 1995, I have been a teacher and coach in the Oakland Unified School District. From 1998 to 2000 I also attended the University of California, Berkeley, and received a Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology. I live in Oakland, California with my husband and son.

I can be contacted by email at: elenaaguilar@yahoo.com

“When we begin listening to each other, and when we talk about things that matter to us, the world begins to change. Everyone has the capacity to be able to figure out how to make a difference. Listening and talking to one another heals our divisions and makes us brave again. Why is being listened to healing? Listening creates relationship. Our natural state is to be together (though we keep moving away from each other) – we haven’t lost the need to be in relationship. Everybody has a story, and everybody wants to tell it in order to connect.”
- Margaret Wheatley Turning to One Another