ANTHOLOGIES
Girls Write Now Unmuted: The 2021 Anthology
Girls Write Now is thrilled to be in partnership again this year with Dutton, who produced this anthology. A special thanks to the team at Dutton—Christine Ball,Maya Ziv, and Lexy Cassola, and to Feminist Press and Jamia Wilson, who produced the ebook. Thank you as well to Amazon Literary Partnership for their continued support, which directly funds the production of our anthologies.
In the 2021 Girls Write Now Anthology, our mentees give voice to fear and silence, demand justice, and hold nothing back. To be unmuted right now requires a new brand of bravery, and these writers show how it’s done. Using stories, poems, essays, fiction, drama, interviews and more, they report on a global pandemic, a climate crisis and the movement for racial equality. They also invite us on their personal journeys through the labyrinth of young adulthood: feeling the rich soil of a neighborhood garden beneath their fingers; traveling through time in search of their parents; inhaling the charged air where young love is brewing. In a world pushed to the precipice of change, in a society that values the tried and true over the dynamic and new, the Girls Write Now class of 2021 is breaking the chains and showing what it means to speak loud, clear and true—to be unmuted.
Foreword by
Introduction by
Read What's Inside
Browse our collection of stories from inside the book. Complete with notes from the author and anecdotes from our mentees and mentors.
Girls Write Now Unmuted Print Anthology
Stories from Inside "Unmuted" Coming Soon!
Stories from Inside "Unmuted" Coming Soon!
Cross-Pollination
Cross Pollination is a podcast featuring Mentor Tingting Wei and Mentee Nayeon Park, as they explore their respective identities as Chinese and Korean Americans and how those identities have shaped their childhoods in America.
Hopeless Causes
Bordering the line between patient and friend, Dr. Olivia Bowen and Crystal Chavez discuss an incident that has affected one of Crystal’s relationships. The two work through ‘the incident’, showing Dr. Bowen’s intentions are not what they seem.
Speaking on Queer Boricua YA Fauxmance and Family
For episode 6 of Speaking in First Draft, Mentee Jamilah Araf interviews Mentor Elle Gonzalez Rose about her debut novel Caught in a Bad Fauxmance.
Tales of Nature
How is the environment we live in really affected by our actions? These poems bring insight into the relationship between humans and nature, in the best and worst of times.
Speaking on Night Emotions
This week’s theme is dreams. Episode five of Speaking in First Draft dives deep into the raw emotions that come up in relationships and in first-draft writing.
Speaking on Family Worlds
This week brings you a special episode where both of our guests, Ayah Al-Masyabi and Anne Hellman White, share the first drafts of their current works in progress.
Remembrance: An Index From My Grandmother
with moons. you taught me such cryptic languages. I would spend the rest of my life decoding them.
Untitled
You do not expect the kindness. It comes in splashes, like an outpour after a long drought.
pretty and warm and good
my walls stare at each other in confusion, in uncertainty of how to treat this unknown stranger named kindness
Simple Recipe for Ten Minute Ginger Tea
frame family in doorway, huddled on charcoal couch, ad break muted in favor of bad jokes, laughter gentle–wait for the punchline to pour gush of warmth into mugs, clink spoon to make sonorous honey hum to mellow ginger buzz
Praise for Here & Now
From the Literary Community
Intersectional Voices in Editorial Print Committee
Every year, the Intersectional Voices in Editorial (IV Edit) Print Committee brings their talents to the task of editing, producing, and promoting this fresh collection of writing from today’s emerging voices. The committee is made up of mentors, mentees, and other volunteers who are passionate about diversifying the publishing landscape.