Tonya Blue is an educator, author, workshop presenter, and Founder of Blue Purse Publishing. Her mission is to equip new teachers with the tools and strategies to impact their relationship with students (urban education). Tonya makes a lasting impression by showing how today’s issues affect a student’s behavior in the classroom, their feelings about authority and self esteem.
Tonya Blue is a native of New Haven Connecticut and has been a teacher for 12 years. She graduated from Morgan State University with a B.A. in English and a M.A. in Secondary Education from Towson University. During her time at Morgan University she was an active participant in the theater department and a member of Alpha Psi Omega Nu Phi Cast.
She began her teaching career in Baltimore City at Dunbar Middle School where she taught eighth grade and later moved to Harlem Park where she taught sixth and seventh reading and language arts. She presently teaches 8th-grade English in Baltimore County. During her tenure with Baltimore County Schools she has encouraged her students to find their voice through Center Stage.
Being interested in retaining new teachers, she has armed them with classroom management techniques in her professional development workshop on Assertive Discipline. This spring she will host a workshop for high school juniors and seniors called "Through their eyes", which focus on the issues and pressures faced by today's teens, as well as the characters in her novel.
Tonya Blue is a graduate of the Hurston Wright Writing Academy held in Washington, DC at Howard University. Tonya was honored at the Gems (Gaining Empowerment through morals and support), A Woman’s Work in a Lady’s Life Brunch. She has made guest appearances on a local talk radio show 1330 A.M. WJSS “The Carpenter’s House Ministry.” She was the featured author at Delta Sigma Thetas May Week and speaker at the Phi Delta Kappa Founders Luncheon.
Her book is currently being used at Baltimore Community College in the sociology department. She is currently working on a supplementary workbook for a new teachers workshop entitled “Working on the child within me to impact the ones around me” in 2012. Tonya currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland.
Dear Diary, I woke up wet again. My t-shirt and my underwear were wet, but for different reasons. I have been having the same nightmare since I moved to this hell hole. I can still feel the pain and smell his breath. I can still see my mother’s face and hear her screaming, calling me a bitch and telling me to get out of her house while she was hugging my brother. I don’t know how I feel about anything anymore.
I am suppose to start my sessions with that lady named Ms. Betty this week...
