Our Instructors
Elisabeth Sharp-McKetta
Fiction & Poetry
Elisabeth McKetta teaches writing for Harvard Extension School and Summer School since 2012 and was awarded the James E. Conway Excellence in Teaching Writing Award in 2018. She also teaches poetry for the Oxford Diploma in Creative Writing. She is the author of ten books including a biography, a writing guide, five books of poetry, a children’s book, an anthology of women’s resilience stories, and the novel She Never Told Me About the Ocean. Her poetry and prose have won awards and been published widely.
McKetta holds degrees from Harvard (BA, English), Georgetown (MA, English), and University of Texas (PhD, English). Much of her work focuses on the intersections between fairy tales and life writing. She lived three years in a tiny house with her young family, an adventure she discusses in her 2019 TEDx talk, “Edit Your Life Like a Poem.”
Elizabeth H. Filippouli
Non-fiction & Connecting with Memory
Elizabeth Filippouli is a journalist, writer and social entrepreneur whose work sits at the intersection of storytelling, global dialogue and social change. For more than two decades, she has championed international collaboration and amplified the voices of women from diverse cultures, bringing to light powerful and often untold stories that shape public conversation.
In 2011, she founded Global Thinkers Forum, an international non-profit platform incubated at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, dedicated to advancing women’s empowerment and youth development through mentoring, leadership initiatives and cross-cultural exchange. Through its programmes and global network, the organisation connects emerging leaders with influential thinkers and changemakers around the world.
Alongside her work in social entrepreneurship, Filippouli writes across genres, exploring political, historical and social themes through journalism, literature and theatre. Her creative work seeks to provoke reflection and dialogue on the ideas and forces that shape societies. Her play Alexander the Great: Between Dreams and Imagination was produced at the British Library in London in February 2023.
She is the author of From Women to the World: Letters for a New Century (2021), a collection of reflections and voices that speak to the challenges and possibilities of our time. Her studies include MA in Journalism (London City University), EMBA in Strategy & Innovation (Said Business School University of Oxford), ALM in Creative Writing (Harvard Extension School), Executive Diploma Shaping Change in the Information Age (Harvard Kennedy School of Government).
Filippouli is London-based and has lived in Greece, Qatar, the US.
