Sharon Frances

Sharon Frances is the executive and artistic director of Well Beings Studio, a nonprofit project that supports families impacted by cancer through literature and the arts. She is also a gender diversity and LGBTQ inclusion specialist in K–12 schools, trained in the Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools Program, and the author and self-publisher of four children’s literature books. Frances was formerly associate professor of education in the Elementary and Bilingual Education Department at California State University, Fullerton, where for eleven years she worked as a teacher educator specializing in language arts, visual arts integration, social justice, and bilingual education. In that role, she developed programs to support just, equitable, and inclusive teacher preparation, with the goal of creating safe, welcoming schools for gender diverse and LGBTQ children and youth. She has authored two books on social justice in education: Gender Diversity and LGBTQ Inclusion in Schools and the Arts and Emergent Bilingual Youth: Building Culturally Responsive, Critical, Creative Education in School and Community Contexts. She previously taught as a bilingual K–8 teacher in California and Texas. A poet, author, and speaker, she writes about children and youth surviving difficult times. Frances received her PhD in curriculum studies from Arizona State University.

updated 2025