Lara Bergen

Lara began her career in literacy advocacy as a children’s book editor with the (then) Penguin Putnam Group, and later as a children’s book writer, authoring dozens of picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade novels for publishers such as Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and Disney. A graduate of Princeton University, Lara went on to earn a Masters in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia, and to teach high school English with the NYCDOE, where she saw her own ELA classes transformed through the incorporation of a school newspaper into her curriculum and the idea for Press Pass NYC was conceived. Lara officially founded Press Pass NYC in 2021 and now works full-time as its Executive Director.