Mary Ann Smith directed the Bay Area and California Writing Projects and served as Director of Government Relations and Public Affairs for the National Writing Project. She is coauthor (with Sandra Murphy) of Writing Portfolios: A Bridge from Teaching to Assessment, coeditor (with Miriam Ylvisaker) of Teachers’ Voices: Portfolios in the Classroom, and coeditor (with Jane Juska) of The Whole Story: Teachers Talk About Portfolios. According to Smith, everything important she knows about writing is thanks to her many years teaching middle and high school students and to the thousands of great teachers and colleagues she has worked with around the country through the Writing Project.