Fall 2025
Explore Tour
Explore the creative and storytelling pathways Girls Write Now offers through a multimedia, multi-genre experience with mini courses, exploratory studios, and one-on-one pair sessions. Build new skills and deepen existing ones across fiction, journalism, publishing, and formats like video, podcasting, and visual storytelling. Ideal for mentees working across media or focused on specific projects, this Journey offers the flexibility to tailor your learning experience to your goals.
Girls Write Now Collaboratory
This Journey is Closed, but You Can Pre-Enroll in a Spring 2027 Journey Now!
Learning Objectives
Explore Tour Community Experiences
Mentees and mentors in this Journey are required to attend at least one Girls Write Now Community Experience each month. You can find upcoming events in your portal under the “Events” section.
Below are the Community Studio weeks for the Fall 2025 cycle. Registration for Community Studios opens on the first day of each month throughout the cycle.
- November studio period: 11/10-11/25
- December studio period: 12/8-12/19
- January studio period: 1/12-1/26
Explore Tour Courses
Horror: Becoming an Architect of Terror
This course is designed to provide insight into the genre, how it’s executed across mediums, various icons in the sphere of horror, and prompts to write your own horror story.
Graphic Design Fundamentals
This course is designed to provide budding writers with essential graphic design skills to enhance their storytelling and engage their audience. Through a blend of hands-on projects and discussions, students will learn how to create visually appealing content that complements their writing.
Poetry 101
In this mini course, you will learn about poetic form and poetic devices, explore sharing your writing in multimedia and learn to reimagine your writing through revision.
Magical Realism
In this mini course, you will learn the history of the genre, understand the nuances of the genre, explore transforming the ordinary into something extraordinary and drafting your own original pieces.
Photopoetry: A Synthesis of Photography
In this course you will learn about composition and angles in photography, delve into similarities and differences between poems and photographs, and explore how photopoetry unites poets and photographers.
Podcasting Fundamentals
This course is designed to help develop your overall knowledge of podcast genres and to get you started with basic podcast creation. Specific topics range from writing for an audio format to best recording practices at home.
Romance Fiction
This course is designed to help develop your understanding of the romance genre. Specific topics range from subgenres, tropes, and back cover copy for romance novels.
Social Media Fundamentals. This course is designed to give you the tools you need to create engaging, relevant, and impactful social media for your personal projects, brands, and any kind of professional account. Even for the chronically online, this course will provide new and valuable insights for how to get the most out of social media for yourself or your brand.
Video Fundamentals
This mini-course explores the three key stages of video production—pre-production, production, and post-production—while introducing techniques that help bring compelling content to life.
and more…
Explore Tour Mentoring
Mentees and mentors in the Explore Tour Journey will be matched for one cycle. Each pair will meet two times per month and, as a pair, attend all of the community events listed above.
What Past Participants Have to Say
All Journeys within this Adventure focus on discovering new genres, mediums, and topics to inspire mentees and mentors to create together. Learn more about the other Adventures offered at Girls Write Now below.
Explore Tour is a Journey in the Explore 360 Adventure.
Explore All Journeys
Explore All Journeys
Explore Tour (Fall 2026)
Explore all of the creative and storytelling pathways Girls Write Now has to offer through a multimedia, multi-genre experience that includes mini courses, exploratory studios, and one-to-one pair sessions.
Teach GWN (Fall 2026)
In this Journey, members of the GWN community will develop curriculum and facilitate a community studio for one or more cycles within GWN’s Collaboratory structure.
The Career Journey: Inside Book Publishing (Fall 2026)
This Journey is for mentors curious about breaking into publishing, mentors already in the industry who want to pass on what they know, and mentees serious about building a career in books. Together you'll map the roles across publishing houses and literary agencies and get into the nuts and bolts of what each one actually does.
Explore Tour (Spring 2027)
Explore Girls Write Now’s creative and storytelling pathways through a multimedia, multi-genre experience featuring mini courses, exploratory studios, and one-to-one pair sessions. Develop skills across fiction, journalism, publishing, video, podcasting, visual storytelling, and more.
Independent Study (Spring 2027)
Create your own experience with our Independent Study Journey. Mentees and mentors meet as a pair, attend events of interest, and use coursework to support creative projects and personal goals. Along the way, you can connect with others during a mid-cycle mixer designed to spark inspiration, share ideas, and build community. The Journey culminates in a showcase where participants present the work they have developed throughout the cycle and celebrate their accomplishments together. Mentees and mentors will benefit by gaining greater independence in their learning, deepening their creative practice, and building meaningful connections while pursuing self-directed goals.
Teach GWN (Spring 2027)
In this Journey, members of the GWN community will develop curriculum and facilitate a Community Studio for one or more cycles within GWN’s Collaboratory structure. Each cycle involves facilitating three Community Studios, one per month. Mentees and mentors will gain valuable skills in leadership, teaching, and community building. Mentees and mentors can facilitate a Community Studio either independently (if they are 18 or older) or together as a pair.
Screenwriting: Crafting Short Film Stories (Spring 2027)
This two-cycle Journey guides participants from crafting a short film script to bringing it to life on screen. In the first cycle, mentors and mentees focus on developing compelling stories, dynamic characters, and engaging dialogue, learning the essentials of screenwriting for short films. In the second cycle, participants move from script to screen, exploring the practical aspects of video production, including planning, collaboration, and bringing their creative vision to life. By the end of the journey, mentees will have both a polished script and hands-on experience in producing their own short film.
Lead Community Change (Part 2) (Spring 2027)
Lead Community Change is a dynamic two-cycle Journey that harnesses the transformative power of storytelling to drive social impact. Aspiring young leaders and activists will unleash their creativity to develop and implement innovative community-based social activism projects, supported by GWN’s rich storytelling resources.
Speak Your Truth: Spoken Word Poetry (Spring 2027)
Explore the power of spoken word poetry as a form of storytelling, self-expression, and social commentary.
Journalism: The Art of Profile Writing (Spring 2027)
Every person has a story to tell, and profile writing offers a way to share those stories with the world. In this Journey, mentees and mentors will learn how to build trust with subjects, conduct respectful interviews, and maintain the writer’s role as observer rather than confidante. The Journey emphasizes a holistic approach that considers subject, writer, and reader.
