Background & Experience

I am a native New Yorker who has lived all over Manhattan, from the Lower East Side to East Harlem. I moved to Brooklyn in 1993 with my husband and young son. I was an English teacher in private schools, grades 7-12, for over thirty years. Over a decade ago, I began to ease slowly into a different career, as I worked to become a board-certified multi-faith chaplain working in hospitals all over New York City. Eventually, I was named the Director of a Spiritual Care Department where I regularly taught staff and volunteers how to be more present to the needs of their patients.

Teachers and chaplains have a lot in common: we both strive to help people speak to what matters to them and to be heard. As I move into semi-retirement, I hope to do the work that I love best: to help people one-on-one who want to discover what they have to say and to say it well. The more writing says what we wish it to say, the greater the pleasure in writing.

I can show you how to untangle your thoughts and reveal more completely what you have to say. Some of my favorite teaching tools include aspects of grammar and of poetry, which deepen our familiarity with language, making writing easier.

As a teacher, chaplain, and bioethicist, I have experience reading and writing about education, medicine and bioethics. I have published or presented short pieces on how literary characters use whiteness, on medical bioethics, and on spiritual issues.

Education & Credentials

• Brown University, BA Comparative Literature

• New York University, MA English and American Literature

• Fordham University, MA Theology

• Healthcare Ethics Consultant-Certified (HEC-C)

• Board Certified Chaplain (BCC)

Acknowledgements & Testimonials

• “Sarah Spieldenner is a virtuoso teacher of literature and writing who was for me an important mentor when I was learning the art of teaching young minds how to read, think, and write.” Donovan Hohn, Moby Duck and The Inner Coast

• “Working with Sarah not only helped me with the article we worked on together, but also the tools she gave me changed how I approach writing ever since. She made me a better writer.” David Braucher, PhD

• “Wise and honest.” Lisa Barbash, Where the Roads All End: Photography and Anthropology in the Kalahari

• “Perceptive, meticulous comments.” Maria Fahey, PhD, A Guide to Reading Shakespeare’s Othello

• “Thank you for listening.” Lauren Rosenberg, PhD, The Desire for Literacy: Writing in the Lives of Adult Learners

• “Invaluable and detailed feedback.” Charles C. Camosy, PhD, Resisting Throwaway Culture

Workshops, Presentations & Publications

• National Endowment for the Humanities’ Summer Seminars and Institutes for Higher Education faculty grant recipient for:

  • Dartmouth College, Milton’s Paradise Lost

  • Duquesne University, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

• Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking, Keynote Speaker for the Humanities Teacher Institute on Toni Morrison’s Beloved

• People of Color Conference of the National Association of Independent Schools, workshop presenter on Huckleberry Finn

• University of Notre Dame, presenter at “The Mission of Academics in the Context of Suffering”

• American Journal of Bioethics, “The Buck Stops Where: The Duty of a Hospital to Provide Medical Care for Undocumented Patients”