A book, scholar Rudine Sims Bishop said, can be window, a mirror, or a sliding glass door. So can a relationship. In this collection, “Windows and Mirrors”, Girls Write Now mentees and mentors create bridges across lines of difference. As they peek into each other’s worlds, see themselves reflected in their counterpart, and step into each other’s reality, they forge bonds that last far beyond the school year.
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.
For our submission, we chose to take a picture everyday (6:30 PM EST and 5:30 PM CST) of whatever was around us at the time. One moment, two perspectives.
We wanted to present our generational stories to look for connections across various women’s experiences throughout time. We compared the expectations our society imposed on women in our families, including traditions, female stereotypes, and norms.
New York skyscrapers are far from the sky-scraping Smoky Mountains, and in combining our stories, we shared our fierce pride for our homes and the inherent poetry there is in growing up in these places.
We used a website to showcase our ever-changing writing styles and emphasize the connection between what we read and what we write from childhood till now!
Lena and Courtney are both New Yorkers—but they live in different boroughs: Brooklyn and Staten Island. After a year spent on Zoom, they gave one another tours of their respective corners of the city.