About Pier Penic

Pier Smith-Penic is a modern day African-American who has been flying in the homeschooling community for several years.  She received her B.A. in English Literature from Pine Manor College in 1988. She did her graduate studies in Literature (British, African-American, Russian, Folk and Irish) at The American University in Washington D.C. 1992 and taught College Writing and Freshman Comp I at The American University. She has been featured in the International Who's Who of Professionals 2001 for her writing. Her opinion commentaries have appeared in the periodicals, "The Christian Science Monitor," "Fungasa," "East of the River" and "Raising Black and Biracial Children."

An educator, reading specialist and writer, Pier Penic has been a volunteer at Sherwood Regional Library since 1999. In 2000, she helped coordinate The Black Author's Book Discussion Group which is Fairfax County Library's longest running and most successful book club. She has organized lectures, panel discussions and book talks for Sherwood Library. She has brought local and national authors to Sherwood Library such as national entrepreneur Cake Love's Warren Brown, Paula Penn-Nabrit, Dr. E. Ethelbert Miller, Tuskegee Airman Curtis Robinson, A'Leila Bundles,, Historian Carroll Gibbs, Washington Post editors Jabari Asim, Kevin Merida, Micheal Fletcher, Neely Tucker and Lonnae O'Neal Parker. Pier brought and helped organize the literary series "Reading African Authors" with Dr. Michele Simms Burton.

Pier has also worked for the GMU's Fall for the Book Festival moderating, organizing panel discussions and recruiting speakers and authors. Today, she coordinates and directs The Black Author's Book Discussion Group for the library and continues to being speakers and coordinates book signings in addition to having served as President of the Friends of the Library. In 2000, Pier also started the Children's Book Discussion Group now called Rising Words, Rising Images-a popular book discussion group for homeschooling teens. She also coordinated  African American Read-In which featured children's authors, refreshments, free books, storytelling and crafts.

She has also worked with and coordinated programs at Arlington County Library, D.C. Public Library and Prince Georges County Libraries. She has coordinated programs for The Kennedy Center's Multi-Cultural Children's Book Festival, The Alexandria Black History Museum, The National Park Service and has done storytimes at Sisterspace and Books, Borders Books and Barnes and Nobles. She is presently a contracted art educator with the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and the Anacostia Community Museum. She has been featured and interviewed on BET News about a story dealing with African-American homeschooling as well as on WOL 1450 A.M. radio in Washington DC.

Presently, Pier Penic teaches at The Smithsonian Museum and coordinates their children's programs ages 3-15 for Community Day and Studio Africa.  She is also the founder and director of Culture at Home, an academic and support group for African American homeschooling families.  Pier Penic has recently become a part of the Black Literary Awareness for Cultural Knowledge homeschooling network to combine efforts in increasing Black awareness, cultural expression, and self pride in homeschooling communities. For a detailed listing of all Culture at Home classes currently available, please click here.