AMANDA LEIGH LICHTENSTEIN is a writer and editor from Skokie, Illinois, a small suburb just outside of Chicago. Her essays and reported stories have appeared in Pysche (Aeon), Atlas Obscura, Al-Jazeera-English, CNN-Parts Unknown, The World, Global Voices, The Poetry Foundation, AramcoWorld and BRIGHT, among others.
Amanda currently serves as the senior managing editor of SAPIENS, a digital anthropology magazine, published at the University of Chicago Press. Prior to this role, she worked as a digital editor and reporter with The World, a global news radio program and podcast co-produced with GBH Boston and Public Radio Exchange. Amanda also worked with Global Voices as a regional editor and reporter for sub-Saharan Africa.
Former arts, culture and education consultancy clients include the Chicago Humanities Festival, European Union, Busara Promotions, Boston University, and the Danish Center for Culture & Development, among others.
For over 10 years, Amanda taught poetry and performance in Chicago Public Schools and communities, where she designed and sustained unique programs with community-based arts and cultural organizations, museums, and universities. She's directed and collaborated on projects and programs related to arts, culture, education, civic engagement and cultural exchange. Amanda has lectured on international arts policy, culture, and education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, Goucher College, The College of New Jersey and Columbia College Chicago, among others.
Amanda is a 2006 poetry fellow at The Vermont Studio Center, 2002 poetry finalist with the Illinois Arts Council, 2009 Scottish-US Teaching Artist Exchange fellow, and 2009 MacArthur Foundation International Connections grantee (Tanzania).
In 2005, Amanda co-founded and led Break Arts, an arts and education collaborative with educator Rachel McIntire with projects in Honduras and Mexico. In 2010, Amanda established MANENO, a monthly poetry series in Zanzibar. In 2012, she founded and established Long Live the Girls, a girls' empowerment through creative writing initiative in Ethiopia. And in 2016, she co-founded The Kanga Book, a project focused on the history, culture and art of East Africa's iconic kanga textiles. In 2018, Amanda co-designed and led "Split Between," a four-day creative nonfiction writing workshop for women in coastal Zanzibar, with Carolyn Defrin, along with "Tizama Juu!/Look Up!" a creative writing walking tour in Stone Town.
Amanda's essays on teaching, learning, and travel appear in The Equity Collective, Global Voices, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Teaching Artist Journal, and Teaching Tolerance, Art in the Public Interest, Selamta (Ethiopia Airlines) & Passionfruit, among others. Amanda's literary work appears in journals such as Punch Drunk Press, Fortunate Traveller, Hypertext, Another Chicago Magazine, Horseless Review, La Petite Zine, Painted Bride Quarterly, Wicked Alice, In Posse Review, Paul Revere's Horse, Contrary, and Konundrum. An avid fan of book & letter arts, her letterpress projects include (W)holiness, a poetry chapbook, and A Personal Dictionary of Terms, a letterpress, limited-edition deck of cards.
Amanda earned a BA in English with a focus on urban education & East African studies from Kalamazoo College and an EdM in Arts in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied curriculum theory & critical pedagogy. She holds an advanced certificate in Swahili from the State University of Zanzibar and completed advanced bookmaking and letterpress courses at Columbia College Chicago's Center for Book & Paper Arts.
Amanda proudly serves a board trustee with the Skokie Public Library.
As a longtime thrifter and avid vintage collector, Amanda launched an online vintage project in 2023 called Travel Far Now Vintage. You can check out her collections on Etsy and read her monthly newsletter that meets at the crossroads of vintage & memoir.
Amanda currently serves as the senior managing editor of SAPIENS, a digital anthropology magazine, published at the University of Chicago Press. Prior to this role, she worked as a digital editor and reporter with The World, a global news radio program and podcast co-produced with GBH Boston and Public Radio Exchange. Amanda also worked with Global Voices as a regional editor and reporter for sub-Saharan Africa.
Former arts, culture and education consultancy clients include the Chicago Humanities Festival, European Union, Busara Promotions, Boston University, and the Danish Center for Culture & Development, among others.
For over 10 years, Amanda taught poetry and performance in Chicago Public Schools and communities, where she designed and sustained unique programs with community-based arts and cultural organizations, museums, and universities. She's directed and collaborated on projects and programs related to arts, culture, education, civic engagement and cultural exchange. Amanda has lectured on international arts policy, culture, and education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, Goucher College, The College of New Jersey and Columbia College Chicago, among others.
Amanda is a 2006 poetry fellow at The Vermont Studio Center, 2002 poetry finalist with the Illinois Arts Council, 2009 Scottish-US Teaching Artist Exchange fellow, and 2009 MacArthur Foundation International Connections grantee (Tanzania).
In 2005, Amanda co-founded and led Break Arts, an arts and education collaborative with educator Rachel McIntire with projects in Honduras and Mexico. In 2010, Amanda established MANENO, a monthly poetry series in Zanzibar. In 2012, she founded and established Long Live the Girls, a girls' empowerment through creative writing initiative in Ethiopia. And in 2016, she co-founded The Kanga Book, a project focused on the history, culture and art of East Africa's iconic kanga textiles. In 2018, Amanda co-designed and led "Split Between," a four-day creative nonfiction writing workshop for women in coastal Zanzibar, with Carolyn Defrin, along with "Tizama Juu!/Look Up!" a creative writing walking tour in Stone Town.
Amanda's essays on teaching, learning, and travel appear in The Equity Collective, Global Voices, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Teaching Artist Journal, and Teaching Tolerance, Art in the Public Interest, Selamta (Ethiopia Airlines) & Passionfruit, among others. Amanda's literary work appears in journals such as Punch Drunk Press, Fortunate Traveller, Hypertext, Another Chicago Magazine, Horseless Review, La Petite Zine, Painted Bride Quarterly, Wicked Alice, In Posse Review, Paul Revere's Horse, Contrary, and Konundrum. An avid fan of book & letter arts, her letterpress projects include (W)holiness, a poetry chapbook, and A Personal Dictionary of Terms, a letterpress, limited-edition deck of cards.
Amanda earned a BA in English with a focus on urban education & East African studies from Kalamazoo College and an EdM in Arts in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied curriculum theory & critical pedagogy. She holds an advanced certificate in Swahili from the State University of Zanzibar and completed advanced bookmaking and letterpress courses at Columbia College Chicago's Center for Book & Paper Arts.
Amanda proudly serves a board trustee with the Skokie Public Library.
As a longtime thrifter and avid vintage collector, Amanda launched an online vintage project in 2023 called Travel Far Now Vintage. You can check out her collections on Etsy and read her monthly newsletter that meets at the crossroads of vintage & memoir.
