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Welcome to Nonfiction 360! Before we begin, start by introducing yourself in the forum! What’s your name and where are you from? What’s your favorite book/media at the moment? What do you know about nonfiction writing? What is your favorite nonfiction work and why?
Hi everyone! My name is Allison Sengkhounmany and I am from Texas! As of right now, my favorite book is the 2023 Girls Write Now Anthology (a little late to the game, but I love reading everyone else’s work!). In all honesty, I think learning about nonfiction writing comes from a lot of writing and therefore I think I know quite a bit from my own writing. It’d be hard to chose a favorite nonfiction work but I really enjoy personal memoirs, personal essays, and poems! Looking forward to meet y’all and further develop our nonfiction writing!
Hi! My name is Amaya Michaelides, and I’m from Ithaca, NY. I love to read books and listen to audiobooks, both fiction and nonfiction. I don’t have a single favorite book, but a couple of nonfiction books I’ve really enjoyed recently are Becoming by Michelle Obama and The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. I loved the writing and honesty of Becoming, and I found The Gift of Fear really fascinating in that it made me think differently about staying safe. This is my first year really focusing on nonfiction, but I’ve done some nonfiction writing in the past and I’m taking a journalism class this year. Looking forward to learning more!!
Hi! My name is Lilian Ndalameta, and I’m from Dallas, Texas. I enjoy watching slam poetry, musicals and reading anything fantasy. One of my favorite books is The Fault in Our Stars and though it’s not fantasy, I really like it because it formulates thoughts I’ve never been able to articulate myself.
I don’t know much about nonfiction but I’m hoping, with the help of Girls Write Now, by the end of next year I will.
Hello! My name is Izabell Mendez. I’m from New York City and currently attending a CUNY college. I’m slowly making my way through Maurice by E.M. Forster, but my favorite book is The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I haven’t read many nonfiction works, but my favorite is Also a Poet by Ada Calhoun. Calhoun’s father had interviewed artists and close friends of Frank O’Hara (my favorite poet!) in hopes of writing a biography of his idol, but the project fell through. When she discovers these recordings as an adult, she sets out to do what her father could not. The memoir weaves in transcriptions of the interviews with the author’s experience trying to prove herself as the one capable to finally finish this decades-long project. As she digs through the past and analyzes her father as a young man in the recordings, she is also struggling to mend her relationship with the aging father she knows and has struggled to connect with her whole life. I was initially drawn to the book’s focus on O’Hara, but the thematic content as well as the organization overall really spoke to me. As for writing nonfiction, my piece for last year’s GWN anthology was a personal nonfiction story. However, I would be interested in exploring nonfiction writing beyond pieces those that draw on personal experience. I’m looking forward to exploring the world of nonfiction!
Hi! I’m Victoria Stapley-Brown, a returning mentor working with Izabell Mendez for the second year in a row :). I live in Brooklyn. I’ve been enjoying nonfiction biographies lately, usually about women, most recently, Ronnie Spector’s memoir Be My Baby and a biography of the French medieval writer Christine de Pizan. So hard to narrow down my favorite – perhaps Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl, who used to be the food critic for the New York Times. It’s about her experiences becoming the NYT food critic and realizing right away that everyone could identify her – she was recognized on her flight moving to New York! – and so she creates a few personas to put on when she’s testing restaurants and goes to each as all three. It’s fascinating to see how she is treated as the different personas. Ruth Reichl is known for having given some really famous and high-end restaurants rather scathing reviews, and you see why in the book. She is such a beautiful and descriptive writer. Even though I’m not really a foodie, I actually love restaurant critiques – I love Pete Wells’ reviews in the NYT too!
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