Don’t wait another minute! We’ve extended our deadline for our FREE college prep series this summer. Now’s your chance: register by June 3rd to write your future with Girls Write Now!

Are you a high school girl in New York City? We want to help you get on the road to college and your career with our FREE Girls College Bound Summer Workshops! Attend one or more workshops to learn from the pros: receive cover letter and resume help at Morgan Stanley, write and revise a top-notch college admissions essay in your own voice and style, and get personalized editing advice from an expert woman writer. We’re here for you — so register now!

• Resume and Cover Letter Writing — June 19, 4-6:30PM 
• College Essay Writing — July 10 OR July 17, 10:30-3PM
• One to One College Essay Editing — July 24, 10:30-3PM

(Can’t decide which workshop to attend? Come to all three!)

• Questions? Email college@girlswritenow.org or call 212.336.9330.

“If it weren’t for Girls Write Now, I couldn’t have gotten this far… I have faith in my writing, and I know from now on I will achieve and I will be successful.” — Yodalin Peralta, mentee

Life is better in twos. Girls Write Now is now accepting applications for mentors and mentees to join in fall 2013.

Deadline extended: apply to Girls Write Now by JUNE 15 to start your next chapter. Check out the writing of our current class, get a glimpse of what it means to go digital, or experience a workshop first-hand on our blog.

Penguin employees, get your sneakers on! And witness the power of matching an intergenerational community of readers and writers with the industry that gives them a voice.

This year’s annual Penguin Walk will support Girls Write Now! On June 14, 2013, Penguin employees will walk — in teams and individually — along the Hudson. Everyone who participates in the Penguin Global Walk can fundraise until the morning of the walk and compete for prizes, which will be awarded to the individuals and team that raise the most money.

All funds raised by Penguin will directly support Girls Write Now’s writing and mentoring programs. Our students are 90% high need, 90% girls of color, and 20% immigrant. We’ll be cheering for Penguin walkers every step of the way as — together —we shape the future of women in publishing.

Penguin employees, get started on your fundraising now with our FirstGiving fundraising page.

Be a Girls Write Now Mentor

Share your voice, empower hers. If you are a professional woman writer, teacher, or community leader passionate about sharing your craft, learn more about joining our volunteer mentor class starting fall 2013. Apply now

Are you a New School graduate student? Interested in becoming a multimedia mentor? Check out our fall 2013 digital writing program and earn internship credit! Apply now

Be a Girls Write Now Mentee

Ready to take your writing to the next level? Write your story. If you are a teen girl in grades 9-12 at a NYC public high school for the 2013-14 school year, learn more about joining our mentee class of 2013-2014.Apply now

Get to College

This summer, get one step closer to the job and school of your dreams! Attend one or more of our free Girls College Bound Summer Workshops for application help from the pros. Receive cover letter and resume insight from the women at Morgan Stanley, write and revise a top-notch college admissions essay in your own voice and style, and get personalized editing advice from an expert woman writer. Register now

• Want to find out more about Girls Write Now before you jump in? Join us at CHAPTERS, our signature reading series, to get a glimpse of our girls in action.

Cue stage right…

All of that changed during the latest Girls Write Now workshop on Site Specific Plays. We started the day with a conflict — but, thankfully, it was one we created during the Opening Lines exercise. It was amusing how many of us had stories about conflicts taking place on subway cars! As it turns out, a place as specific as a subway car is often rife with possibility for conflict — and makes for endless dramatic entertainment.

We were then introduced to playwright and actor Erika Sheffer, whose first play, Russian Transport, premiered at The New Group in January 2012 and has been read at Naked Angels, Primary Stages, The Woodshed Collective and Personal Space Theatrics. With such a positive reception for her first play, one might think that the writing process came easily to Erika. But she spoke candidly about how long the play took her to write, and how crucial the editing process is to her writing. Sure, it hurts to edit and cut things that have taken so long to write in the first place, but you have to allow yourself to feel the hurt and push through it. To drive the point home she read an excerpt from the final version of her play, followed by the first draft of that same passage. We were amazed to hear how much more developed and nuanced the final version was by comparison.

Erika encouraged all of us to continue taking classes and making connections to fellow writers, especially after college. She stressed the importance of finding time to create, no matter how challenging our daily lives become.

Later in the workshop we took our newfound knowledge about site-specific conflict and broke into small groups, where we co-wrote a skit and then performed it for our fellow mentees and mentors. Suddenly, I was transported back to those high school performances I had long since tucked away in my memories: the giddy energy of creating a believable performance with peers and the joy of performing, no matter how small the role. It turns out that the stage door is always open, no matter how long you’ve thought it was closed.

Indeed, story is at the center of everything Jessica does. She emphasized that story is the most powerful device for creating empathy for characters and for taking audiences along on journeys they may never have expected to go on — or, even more radically, to relate to. While she acknowledged that much of what she writes is political, her politics only come into play in the parameters and boundaries she selects to frame a story; after that her focus is on the story alone.

Jessica also pointed out that she hadn’t started out as a writer, yet through the process of creating The Exonerated with her writing partner and now husband Erik Jensen, she became one. She learned how to research, how to craft a compelling story and how to listen to speech to create engaging dialogue. Most importantly, though, she learned to edit. Writing, Jessica said, is just as much about generating ideas and letting them flow out on to the paper as it is about repeatedly refining those ideas into a completely new finished product.

Later in the workshop, we mentors and mentees had the opportunity to try out being playwrights and actors ourselves. In small groups we reimagined the conflict scenarios we had written about during the opening lines activity. We wrote dialogue that mimicked everyday speech, and explored the role of setting on character interactions.

I felt nervous about sharing our writing through acting. Much to my surprise, though, when our turn to perform came, I had a lot of fun seeing the words we had written on our pages transformed into a living, breathing, in-person experience.

It turns out writing doesn’t have to be so far removed from the stage after all.

• New York Times India Ink Blog, The Mumbai/NY Photo Project: Education Heroes
  “Mumbai and New York may both be the financial capitals of their respective countries and home to vibrant economies, but the cities have struggled since their birth with persistent social inequity. Poor children in particular often struggle to get decent education and care, despite the presence of world-class educational institutes in both cities.” Read more

• Women’s Media Center, Mentoring the Next Generation of Women Writers
  “On the surface, Alice Sheba and Paldon Dolma don’t seem to have much in common. Alice is 87, Jewish, and a born-and-bred New Yorker; Paldon is 17, a Buddhist, and from Tibet. Yet, as they talk intently, their heads bent over some sheets of paper on a tiny table in a New York City Barnes and Noble bookstore, one can see they are completely comfortable with each other.” Read more

• WBAI City Watch, Interview with mentee-mentor pair, Gina and Kate
  “[Girls Write Now is] pretty much a home away from home for all the girls, mentee, mentor… anyone.” Listen to the interview

• School Library Journal, Sesame Street’s “Maria” Opens GWN’s Reading Series
  “An audience of 230 budding writers and their loved ones greeted Sonia Manzano with cheers and excited whispers on March 22, welcoming the celebrated Latina actress and 15 Emmy Award-winning screenwriter as the special guest speaker for the opening event of Girls Write Now’s CHAPTERS Reading series.” Read more

• Bust, The Girls Write Now Awards
  “In celebration of the women who inspire [Girls Write Now], Girls Write Now is hosting an awards ceremony honoring novelist Tayari Jones, chairman Emma Cookson, and filmmaker Tamra Davis.” Read more

• Brokelyn, Help wanted write away: Be a writing mentor for Girls Write Now
  “Hey, all you lady writers of Brooklyn, how do you feel about sharing some of that talent/confidence/ fortissimo you’ve built up over the years with a budding teen girl scribe? Well, now’s your chance to do just that…” Read more

These women embody the values we strive to cultivate in our girls: dedication to hard work and craft; commitment to honest, fearless story-telling; and creative leadership in a world where the stories of girls are often devalued, demeaned, or just plain disappeared.

The event will be held in the gorgeous 632 on Hudson, an exclusive West Village townhouse with an an astonishing collection of antiques and artifacts from around the world. All funds raised at the event will help support our expanding roster of programs for underserved and motivated high school girls throughout the city — so snag your tickets today before we’re all sold out!

The 2013 Girls Write Now Awards is being held thanks to our lead sponsor, Paul Saunders; our sustaining sponsors Bartle Bogle Hegarty and SJL Attorney Search; and sponsors Baird Foundation, EILEEN FISHER, and Palisade Capital Management. Major props to our in-kind sponsor 632 on Hudson, and media sponsor Bust Magazine. To join as a sponsor, email development@girlswritenow.org or call 212.336.9330.

PLUS! Check out our library of videos and excerpts from our dazzling March reading with Guest Author Sonia Manzano (Maria from Sesame Street and author of The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano), who inspired an audience of over 250 friends and supporters! And set the stage for our readers to step up to the mic. Check out original mentee pieces from the evening such as Kristasiah’s mesmerizing “The Killer is Me” and Brianna’s touching tale of sibling love and fear, “Hurricane Connor”.

Guest Author Sonia Manzano with mentee Ava, March 22 2013

“If it weren’t for Girls Write Now, I couldn’t have gotten this far… I have faith in my writing, and I know from now on I will achieve and I will be successful.” — Yodalin Peralta, mentee

Life is better in twos. Girls Write Now is now accepting applications for mentors and mentees to join in fall 2013.

Apply to Girls Write Now by MAY 15 to start your next chapter. Check out the writing of our current class, get a glimpse of what it means to go digital, or experience a workshop first-hand on our blog.