Uma Asher's article "Transparency provides clearer vision of flaws" is published in the Centre Daily Times on November, 19, 2011. In this piece, Uma discusses a series of events that took place at Penn State University, showing the university's culture of silence/silencing in the face of racial, sexual discrimination and seeking of labor rights. She writes "Institutions should value dissent so they can be self-correcting, and transparency allows criticism." Uma Asher is a journalist in New Delhi who studied at Penn State. She is also the Collective Board Member of CTWI and the author of the blog Mukta's Laugh.

Pramila Venkateswaran was selected as the 2011 Walt Whitman Birthplace Long Island Poet of the Year.   Pramila Venkateswaran is the author of Thirtha (Yuganta Press, 2002), Behind Dark Waters (Plain View Press, 2008), Draw Me Inmost (Stockport Flats, 2009), and Trace (Finishing Line Press, 2011), has a doctorate from George Washington University and teaches English and Women's Studies at Nassau Community College, New York. She is also the Collective Board Member of the CTWI.

As covered in the New York Times, this year, Pramila also won the First Prize in 2011 String Poet Prize with her poem "Kummi Dance", which refers to a folk dance of South India, from where Pramila's family originates. The poem extols her grandmother’s musical gifts: As a young woman, her grandmother “would have danced the Kummi dance with her friends in the temple, during festival seasons.” You can also listen to Beth Anderson's composition of the poem at the String Poet's site (right hand corner), as performed by Anderson (piano) and David Wong (violin).

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