Read Write Now

Authors and artists get this question all the time: who inspires you? Well, our young teen writers have been our inspiration from the start.
Our recently launched partnership with VIDA: Women in Literary Arts got us thinking about inspiration, your teen years, and that one book that changed it all. So, while we asked our mentees about what they were reading in school, we also started asking the incredible women in our community about the first book that changed their life.
We’re thrilled to share the first iteration of this Read Write Now list! Tell us, what book transformed your teen years?
 

• MAYA NUSSBAUM, Founder & Executive Director of Girls Write Now: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• GLORIA STEINEM, feminist icon, author & activist: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• LOIS LOWRY, author of The Giver: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

• JENNA BLUM, author of Those Who Save Us: Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
• FARAI CHIDEYA, author of Kiss the Sky: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• TAYSHA CLARK, Girls Write Now Youth Board Co-Chair: The Madness Vase by Andrea Gibson
• BRIDGETT M. DAVIS, author of Into the Go-Slow: Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether

• RACHEL FERSHLEISER, Author & Publisher Outreach at Tumblr: Forever… by Judy Blume
• SARAH HEPOLA, Editor at Salon.com: The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
• FARRIN JACOBS, Editorial Director at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
• GLORIA JACOBS, former Executive Editor of Ms. magazine & Girls Write Now Board Member: The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
• BEENA KAMLANI, Senior Editor at Penguin Random House: Villette by Charlotte Brontë
• CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE, author of The Orphan Train: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• DOROTHEA LASKY, author of Thunderbird: Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
• CHIRLANE MCCRAY, writer & First Lady of New York City: Poem for a Lady Whose Voice I Like by Nikki Giovanni

• ROBIN MORGAN, author & activist: The Brontë Sisters
• CATHERINE GILBERT MURDOCK, author of The Dairy Queen Trilogy: Watership Down by Richard Adams
• MARIANE PEARL, author & Managing Editor of Chime for Change: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke and Victor Hugo
• LISA SEE, author of China Dolls: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• SHIZA SHAHID, Co-Founder & CEO of The Malala Fund: Kartography by Kamila Shamsie
• JOYCE SIDMAN, author of What the Heart Knows: Ariel by Sylvia Plath
• BELLA THORNE, actress and author of Autumn Falls: Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley
• MIRIAM TOEWS, author of All My Puny Sorrows: Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
• CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE, author of Americanah: Enid Blyton’s series
• PAMELA PAUL, editor of the New York Times Book Review: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• JUJU CHANG, ABC News Nightline Co-Anchor: Star Trek series of novels

More jaw-dropping selections from our awe-inspiring community to come!