Ilana Drake
Mentee

Mentee Ilana Drake is a first year college student who has written extensively about gender equality and political upheaval in her work for Girls Write Now and beyond. From her graphic design series “You Need to Listen” to her article for Ms. Magazine on sexual assault at college campuses, she explores the many facets of gender oppression in her own life and in her community, including recent attacks on abortion rights in the United States.

Recently, she has raised her voice against an abortion ban currently being considered in Tennessee where she attends college. She was quoted in Teen Vogue saying, “I’m afraid of how that’s (the ban’s) going to impact my peers, how that will impact people on my college campus, and how it will impact every citizen of Tennessee.”

Jordan Gass-Poore’
Mentor

Mentor Jordan Gass-Poore’ is an investigative journalist and podcast producer whose writing has appeared in NPR, the Guardian and The Times.

In 2015, she interviewed Sarah Weddington, the Texas lawyer who, at 27 years old, became the youngest person to ever win a Supreme Court case when the court ruled 7-2 in her favor in Roe v. Wade. She told Jordan, “I don’t think they’re ever gonna overturn Roe.” In light of the recent decision, this interview offers chilling insight into the efforts by state legislatures to weaken abortion rights over the decades since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

Roxane Gay
Girls Write Now Honoree

Roxane Gay is arguably the most influential feminist writer of our times with a dazzling body of work that spans essays, a memoir, a comic book, a novel, a newsletter, a podcast and viral Tweets. She is also a champion and friend of Girls Write Now. Roxane most recently inspired our community during an Earth Day conversation on our Twitter Space about the role of writing in environmental activism.

She has written passionately about bodily autonomy and penned an opinion piece for the New York Times about the leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

“Whoever leaked it wanted people to understand the fate awaiting us,” she writes. “At least, that is what I am telling myself. And thank God somebody did, so we know. So we can prepare. So we can rage.”

Jia Tolentino
Girls Write Now Honoree

Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the essay collection “Trick Mirror.” Previously, she was the deputy editor of Jezebel and a contributing editor at the Hairpin. In 2020, Jia spoke to our class of graduating mentees about feeling “this dazzle and anger and urgency… that comes from revolution and change.”

In her most recent article for The New Yorker, Jia laid out the consequences of Roe v. Wade being overturned and the “widespread criminalization of pregnancy” that will follow.

“We are not going back to the pre-Roe era, and we should not want to go back to the era that succeeded it, which was less bitter than the present but was never good enough. We should demand more, and we will have to.”