We’re proud to publish our annual anthology, Girls Write Now Unmuted: The 2021 Anthology, now available for purchase through Books Are Magic and available soon at MahoganyBooks, Cafe con Libros, McNally Jackson Books, Amazon or anywhere books and ebooks are sold such as Barnes & Noble, Kobo and more!
In the 2021 Girls Write Now Anthology, our mentees give voice to fear and silence, demand justice, and hold nothing back. To be unmuted right now requires a new brand of bravery, and these writers show how it’s done. Using stories, poems, essays, fiction, drama, interviews and more, they report on a global pandemic, a climate crisis and the movement for racial equality. They also invite us on their personal journeys through the labyrinth of young adulthood: feeling the rich soil of a neighborhood garden beneath their fingers; traveling through time in search of their parents; inhaling the charged air where young love is brewing. In a world pushed to the precipice of change, in a society that values the tried and true over the dynamic and new, the Girls Write Now class of 2021 is breaking the chains and showing what it means to speak loud, clear and true—to be unmuted.
The introduction of Girls Write Now Unmuted is written by Robyn Crawford, a Girls Write Now honoree and the author of A Song For You: My Life with Whitney Houston. Abi Daré, the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice, wrote the foreword.
PARTNERING WITH DUTTON, FEMINIST PRESS & AMAZON LITERARY PARTNERSHIP
Girls Write Now is thrilled to be in partnership again this year with Dutton, who produced this anthology. A special thanks to the team at Dutton—Christine Ball, Maya Ziv, and Lexy Cassola, and to Feminist Press and Jamia Wilson, who produced the ebook. Thank you as well to Amazon Literary Partnership for their continued support, which directly funds the production of our anthologies.
Girls Write Now anthologies have received praise from Gloria Steinem, Roxane Gay, Meg Wolitzer, Elaine Welteroth, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jia Tolentino, Emma Straub, Jenny Zhang, Zadie Smith, Melissa Harris-Perry, Emma Cline, Morgan Parker, Emily St. John Mandel, Janet Mock, and countless others. Says People magazine, “It’s hard not to be inspired.”
The Girls Write Now anthology series has been recognized as the Outstanding Book of the Year in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and has earned additional honors from the International Book Awards, National Indie Excellence Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the New York Book Festival, the San Francisco Book Festival, and the Paris Book Festival.
PRAISE FOR GIRLS WRITE NOW UNMUTED
“To witness hearts and minds coming together to create art is a magical, precious thing. Girls Write Now does the important work of fostering this creativity by bringing mentor and mentee together, and this beautiful anthology—a showcase of diverse and significant talent—is powerful proof that we need this incredibly important resource now more than ever.”
— KRISTEN ARNETT, author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth
“My work as a writer and my values as a person were absolutely made better by game-changing teachers and mentors. I’m thrilled to work with Girls Write Now, especially as they stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and I’m so happy that they work to inspire bravery in young writers, both in their lives and on the page.”
— KILEY REID, New York Times bestselling author of Such A Fun Age
“Girls Write Now gives me hope for our future and gives young writers what we all would have given our younger selves—space to grow, generous, guidance, and the opportunity to flourish unfettered.”
— MIA MERCADO, author of Weird But Normal