About Our Company
My family believed fervently in the power of education.
My mother was a school librarian, and my maternal grandmother a history teacher. I was blessed with teachers who understood that I needed to be secure in who I was — and where I came from — to make my way in a world that too often dismissed my history and my culture. They knew that knowledge of self was not a luxury, but a shield and a compass.
Sadly, today’s educational landscape — even in the “best” schools — still leaves much of our story untold. And now, we face something even more dangerous: coordinated attacks on information, on history, and on the very right to learn the truth. Across the country, books are being banned, curricula censored, and whole chapters of our collective story erased. Black history, Indigenous history, queer history — all are being targeted. These attacks are not just about what’s in textbooks; they are about who gets to belong, whose lives are valued, and whose voices are heard.
Our culture is richer than most schools ever teach and deeper than the media ever celebrates. Our stars — Beyoncé, Baldwin, Angelou, Ailey — shine brilliantly, but beyond them lie constellations of brilliance that too many will never know. We have shaped dance and drama, art and architecture, music and more. We have transformed what America eats, how it dresses, the words it speaks, and the spaces it inhabits.
That is why I created Creative Curriculum Ventures — so our children don’t just know the stars, but explore the galaxies. So they inherit not a half-told history, but a full, unapologetic, and unshakable understanding of who they are and the worlds they have shaped.
About Our President and Founder
Education has been a cornerstone of Willa Taylor’s professional journey. She holds a Master of Education degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Concordia University, a Master of Fine Arts degree in Film Studies from American University, a Certificate in Culinary Arts from Kendall College, and a Bachelor of Liberal Studies from Excelsior University..
A published author, she is an adjunct professor at DePaul University. Taylor is also an accomplished storyteller who performs nationally and teaches storytelling across Chicago. Using storytelling with businesses, government agencies, and community-based organizations, she helps to build more inclusive work cultures, develop their capacities to engage with their clients/constituents, and better communicate their missions and visions.
Taylor’s contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Arts Advocate Award from Ingenuity, the Exemplar Award from the August Wilson Society, and the Leadership in Community-Based Theatre and Civic Engagement Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
Taylor is a veteran of the US Navy.
In her 30 years as an arts educator she has developed curriculum for students, trained classroom teachers in drama-based instruction, and worked with public libraries nationally to develop arts-based civic projects. Partnering with Disney Theatricals, she developed sustainable musical theatre programs in Chicago elementary schools; created Stage Chemistry, a STEM program that uses performance production to teach physics and math; and established initiatives that use writing, storytelling and creative practices to build capacity for social service organizations.
