Nancy Heil Knor

The Story Behind The Dyslexic Fiddler Crab: A Survival Guide for Students

Nancy Knor has served as an educator with a passion for neurodivergent communities for over thirty years. She is currently a neurodivergent specialist in Leesburg, Virginia where she enjoys empowering dyslexic students to use their unique gifts and tell their important stories. She is Orton Gillingham and NILD certified, and her most recent achievement--The Dyslexic Fiddler Crab: A Survival Guide for Students--has received endorsement from renowned figures including Dr. Edward Hallowell and Dr. Thomas Armstrong. Nancy believes every child has a powerful message to share with the world, and she is passionate about making writing accessible for all students through writing, speaking, and teacher training.

The Story Behind Woven: A Peace Corps Adventure Spun with Faith, Laughter, and Love

The idea for Woven began in 1989 when Nancy served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the K’ekchi Mayan village of San Pedro Columbia in Belize, Central America. As a new teacher-volunteer, Nancy worked alongside the villagers to create the first-ever San Pedro Columbia Library. While the library was a huge success, Nancy noticed that the books often centered around unrelatable, "American" themes. She longed for her friends to have a book where Mayan characters were the protagonists and where their village was the setting. She knew she could not write a book from the Mayan perspective — that was a job for a Mayan writer — but she could write one from her perspective as a Peace Corps Volunteer. And so, she wrote Woven — a book filled with letters, journal entries, and spiritual reflections from her two years in Belize. This book takes place in the lovely village of San Pedro Columbia and is dedicated to Nancy's K’ekchi friends — the true heroes of her story.