About Me
Take What you need and leave the Rest.
Tonya Blue- Shelby is an Executive Coach, educator, author, collage artist, and playwright. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from Morgan State University and a Master’s degree in Secondary Education from Towson University.
Tonya realized her perception of education needed clarity. Teaching was more than good lesson planning, student/ teacher rapport, and pedagogy, but self-care and awareness.
As a full time professor, Tonya promotes this belief while coaching and working with teacher candidates as they prepare for the educational field. Tonya hosts the Mastering the Art of Teaching Wellness Retreat, workshops on teacher trauma and stress and also facilitates student/ adult collage art workshops. Her desire to help the whole woman led her to create Inside Ella’s Closet, a nonprofit organization that collects and distributes professional attire for college students and women in transition.
Tonya wrote and starred in the one woman show “I AM.” The show was based on her first novel “I Am the Children I Teach" and debuted in 2016. Her second novel, "My Life is Not a Sermon" was released in June 2019. The anticipated third novel "From A to A: Teaching with Trauma" will be released in 2022. Tonya is an avid traveler, reader, theater goer, and teapot collector. She lives with her husband Paul in Maryland.