Noa Jones is an educator and a writer of creative fiction and nonfiction. She is also the editor of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s books What Makes You Not a Buddhist and The Guru Drinks Bourbon. She taught creative writing at Hunter College and has been published in many magazines and newspapers including the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Tricycle, Vice, and Conde Nast Traveler and she contributed a chapter to Global Perspectives on Spirituality in Education (Routledge, 2013). She is the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships for her writing, including a Pushcart Prize nomination, First Prize in the Gilmmertrain Fiction Open, a Hemera Foundation artist fellowship, Djarassi Artist residency, Vermont Studio Center residency, and other awards.
She has a journalism degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a minor in arts management, an MFA in creative writing from Hunter College and a Masters of Science Degree in Education (MSEd) from the University of Pennsylvania.
Noa led the establishment of the Middle Way School of the Hudson Valley in Upstate New York in 2017. She works with closely educators and dharma advisors on the curriculum framework and materials developed at the school. She provides MWE’s advisory services to partner schools.
Noa has worked for the Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, since 2001 in a variety of roles—from personal secretary to film PA to Communications Director of Khyentse Foundation. In 2010, Rinpoche sent her to the Kingdom of Bhutan to develop education alternatives in association with the Ministry of Education, the Royal Education Council, monasteries, and a number of NGOs. The Druk 3020 curriculum she developed in 2011 helped introduced progressive education methods and content into the monastic setting. Druk 3020 has continued to be implemented and refined at the Chokyi Gyatso Institute in Eastern Bhutan.
