In partnership with publishers Open Road, Penguin Group, Random House Children’s Books, and Writers House, Girls Write Now explored this year’s theme New Worlds, celebrating the incredible diversity and creative fearlessness of our intergenerational community. In May, special guest speaker Gayle Forman, journalist and award-winning author of If I Stay and Where She Went, joined the stage with our talented teen writers in SoHo’s Scholastic auditorium.
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Girls Write Now Readers
Kaadiana Barnes & Kathryn O’Dell, Manhattan: Two Different Worlds; Swati Barua, Transcending Walls; Joanne Lin, White Frost; Beauty; Fresh Blue; and Too Early; Amanda Day McCullough & Samantha Carlin, Things I Learned While Smoking Cigarettes; Ashley Sandino, The Awakening; Chandanie Devi Hiralal, To Know Happiness; Kaytlin Carlo & Ashley Rose Howard, Coffee Talk; Tema Regist, Untitled; So I Keep Running; and Where Are You Now?; Tessa Lee-Thomas, Snow; Paldon Dolma & Alice Sheba Canick, No One Can Get Diarrhea; Katherine Martinez, i will love your bones (‘till the day you die); Kirstie Plasencia, Noah and Me; Lawrencia Terris, Be There and Be Pretty; Jennifer Bean, Time Never Ends & Or Does It?; Luljeta Kulla Zenka, These Torturous Knitting Lessons That I Survived; Moie Uesugi, Rooted; Alexus Colbert & Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, Siters and Lakeside; Ireen Hossain, On the Right Track.
Excerpts
- Kaadiana Barnes & Kathryn O’Dell, Manhattan: Two Different Worlds
“Home
Of the African American Times Square, along the strips of 125th street
Home
Of people the strip of land between the East River and the Hudson
Home
Of the hoodlums creating a circle to start a war in the streets
Home
Of double parking, run into the deli for a pack of Pall Malls” Read More
- Katherine Martinez, i will love your bones (‘till the day you die)
“now here’s the thing,when i was younger
i dreamt as a child
and loved as a woman.” Read More
- Ashley Sandino, The Awakening
“Dyrek wakes up startled, as if someone has been standing alongside his bed watching him, and then suddenly forcibly pressed the air-filled pillow into his face. With all the confusion running through his mind in addition to the beaming bright, white lights on the ceiling, it had been literally impossible for him to have a calm rest.” Read More
Emcees
- Shannon Daniels is an active mentee and Youth Board member at Girls Write Now. For the past two years, she has worked with her unceasingly supportive mentor Whitney Jacoby to produce creative nonfiction and poetry, usually with an activist or expository theme. Shannon won a Gold Medal in poetry in this year’s Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She hopes to inspire other young women to express themselves through the written and spoken word.
- Whitney Jacoby is a National Accounts Manager at Simon & Schuster, handling eBook sales in the digital group. Previously she sold and marketed Simon & Schuster titles to independent bookstores. She is finishing up her second year working with Shannon as a mentor with Girls Write Now. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn where she can be found reading, taking on elaborate cooking projects, snuggling with her two cats and — more often than not — watching Pretty Little Liars.