We are proud to present an essay by Carolyn Austin, honorable mention in the 2025 Writing for Life Contest in the age 13-15 category.
I used to think families were supposed to look a certain way, like in picture books where mom, dad, and kids smile together in matching sweaters. At father-daughter dances at school, I stood against the gym wall and watched other girls in my class twirl in their fathers’ arms and felt like I was missing an essential piece of myself. My family felt like a half-finished sentence, or like a book missing a page.
When my dad left us, my mom told my brother and I that he wasn’t ready to be a father. He never said goodbye and for a long time I thought it was something my brother and I did. My mom didn’t let me believe that. She never stopped loving us and taking care of us. My mom showed me that we are enough, and over time I’ve learned that it wasn’t something we did wrong; it was really a problem with him.
At the school Christmas sale, I started buying two gifts for my mom. I got one from the Mom table, and one from the Dad table. My mom keeps a #1 Dad trophy on her bookshelf, and a Dad coster she uses every day on her desk. We made a joke out of it, but I still felt a little sad every time I wrapped up a Dad gift and put it under the tree. I carried that sting until I was eight years old and a pain in my knee pushed my family into the hardest chapter of our life.
I was playing in the woods with my friends when suddenly my knee felt like it was being torn apart. I fell to the ground in pain, and the other kids got a wagon and pulled me home. I had a fever and felt like I was dying. My mom rushed me to the hospital where three words changed my life: “you have leukemia.”
I didn’t know what to say. All I could think to do was to reassure my mom that everything was going to be okay, even though I didn’t know what was going to happen. Having cancer was extremely difficult, but one of the hardest parts was that my dad only called my mom once to ask if we needed anything. She told him that we hadn’t needed anything so far, so we didn’t need anything then, either, and hung up. He never contacted us again. I hated that he didn’t care enough to see me or talk to me. But cancer changed everything I thought I knew about my life.
“When I put my story on paper, it stops being just mine and it becomes something that can comfort, or inspire, or console. It reminds other people that they aren’t alone.”
I watched my mom take care of me when I was sick. She never wavered, and even though I knew she was afraid, she never let me see it. My brother played chess with me on FaceTime when I had to stay in the hospital, and held my hand when I had to take medications that made me really sick. Together, the three of us were unbreakable. I saw, finally, that we are a complete family.
I want to share my experiences with other people who are also going through what I went through, either feeling sad about having an absent parent, or about facing a serious illness, or just the challenges of being a teenager. The more I write, the more I realize that my story matters. Sharing my experience builds bridges between me and other people. When I write about feeling like my family or my life has a missing piece, another kid reading it might recognize that same hollow ache. And when I write about realizing my family is actually whole, they might see their family differently, too.
My mom is a writer, and she talks a lot about the power of words. I’ve learned she’s often right: connection is how we heal, and writing is one of the best ways to connect with one another. When I put my story on paper, it stops being just mine and it becomes something that can comfort, or inspire, or console. It reminds other people that they aren’t alone.
The hardest time of my life taught me the most important lesson: love doesn’t need a specific configuration to be real. When I write, I’m processing my own pain, but I’m also creating space for other people to process theirs.
My family became whole the moment I stopped waiting for someone else to complete us. I hope writing about it helps other people find their wholeness too.
About the Writing for Life Contest
Girls Write Now proudly joins forces with Chasing Spirits to present the inaugural “Writing for Life” Writing Prize. This award honors the free, rebellious spirit of fourteen-year-old Maya Logan Eileraas, who used the pandemic to write their novel and fought for writing as a lifeline while in foster care and mental healthcare facilities. Together, we amplify the vitality of today’s most promising young writers who use the power of their creative voices to confront the world around them.
This year, we asked girls and LGBTQIA+ writers aged 13-19 to respond to the prompt: Describe an especially difficult time you have faced, or something you have struggled to navigate, as a teenager. How has writing helped you to survive and creatively transform your experience into new understandings of self, home, and well-being?
The results were stunning reflections on mental health and the desire to find support during isolating times.
Maya's Story
About The Novel Chasing Spirits
Chasing Spirits honors the audacity and integrity of Maya Logan’s chosen path and the creative expressions that sustained them: intricate brushstrokes on canvas, poetic verses echoing their deepest thoughts, melodies strummed in solitude, and the midnight aromas of freshly baked confections.
After six months on the run from DCFS custody, hospital emergency rooms, adolescent psychiatric wards, police cars, strangers’ apartments, ambulances, and temporary shelters, Maya Logan was found unconscious in a group home in north Los Angeles.
Late one night in May 2021 during a global pandemic, fourteen-year-old Maya Logan Eileraas ran away to live with their girlfriend in Bel Air. “Nothing left to lose,” they posted on social media. Searching for their own truths around identity, home, family, world, and belonging, Maya Logan was fiercely determined to author a new life.
More than a tribute to an extraordinary teenager’s bold journey into the wild, gift for storytelling, and art of self-invention, Chasing Spirits is a stunning meditation on what it means to love, a nuanced exploration of the infinite complexity of the human psyche, and an unflinching look at a rebel heart whose light was extinguished too soon.
Centering Maya Logan’s novel, penned during the isolation of remote learning, as a testament to their profound introspection and boundless imagination, Chasing Spirits brings together investigative journalism, personal reflections, short stories, artwork, social media posts, and secret journals.
