Maria Helstola is a drama teacher and a Finnish language and literature teacher. She started her career a decade ago in Italy teaching English and drama in a private high school. After that she has worked as a teacher of Finnish and drama in secondary school and high school in Finland. She is a board member of Finnish Drama Education Association (FIDEA) and a previous editor of FIDEA-journal (2010-2017). She has edited a collection of articles with a colleague (published 2015) on how to use drama in teaching language and literature. This spring she will publish a book on how to use process drama in teaching literature. The topic of her book is Kalevala, the national epic of Finland. She has delivered several trainings for language teachers on how to use drama in classroom in Finland. She has also delivered workshops for language teachers in Bulgaria (Center for Creative Training, Sofia and Plovdiv).