Girls Write Now Media
Anthologies
Each year, Girls Write Now publishes a print anthology showcasing the work of today’s next-generation voices. These books showcase stories that surprise us and stretch our understanding of the world and ourselves. Our anthologies have received praise from Gloria Steinem, Amanda Gorman, Roxane Gay, Meg Wolitzer, Emily St. John Mandel, Janet Mock, and countless others. Says People magazine, “It’s hard not to be inspired.”

Metamorphosis: Girls Write Now 2026 Anthology
To truly understand Girls Write Now, zoom out and observe a complex, multi-dimensional organism, constantly and consciously in the making. Its contours come into focus, and each word dissolves and evolves: Girls becomes a spectrum across gender, race, age, and poverty; Write spans genres, media, and disciplines; Now stretches across three decades and counting. Resolved into its component parts—G. W. N.—its very being refracts: a nonprofit, but also an incubator of art, a developer of professions, a community that heals. Made for writing and mentoring—and, in turn, for training, curating, and fortifying coalitions of artists, educators, and leaders. Rooted in New York City, branching outward: statewide, national, even global. Dubbed the Collaboratory: intimate, versatile, cutting-edge; designed to move with AI, a volatile marketplace, and our own psyches. For Girls Write Now, Metamorphosis is not only the title and theme of this anthology—it is a state of being.
Our Digital Story Collection
Our Digital Story Collection
What the Lake Knows
Written during a moment of writer’s block, this piece explores the tension between silence, observation, and the desire to create.
Hey, how’ve you been?
Throughout life, people and relationships come and go, often leaving us with lingering questions. In this piece, I explore those unanswered questions and seek closure through the process of asking them.
Vanilla, Pandan, and Everything In Between
This descibes an integral part in my journey to accepting the Vietnamese part of my heritage, eating a traditional Vietnamese cake every year on my birthday.
Things Left Unsaid
In times of despair, there is no one to turn to but the secrets that unfold from the ones you once trusted.
The Scent of Freedom
Freedom is the ability to choose. Choose what your life looks like, and soap gives me that freedom.
How Writing Changed Me
This is a multimedia version of my writing piece How Writing Changed Me to demonstrate how writing made a huge impact on my life.
Aching Open
When faced with the width of the world, what can we choose?
A History of Runners
an ode to running in the form of a prose poem
a poem where she moves her head away after José Olivarez
I have heard that the body remembers what the mind does not. Whoever’s mind this poem is birthed from, I pray that your body heals from this memory.
“Writing is taking the reins of my life into my own hands”…Davia Schendel and Carolyn Zheng’s Life@GWN
“Writing is taking the reins of my life into my own hands”…Davia Schendel and Carolyn Zheng’s Life@GWN