Events

Three Ladies Write Now authors, and current Girls Write Now mentors, will read their own original pieces along with two teaching artits from Teacher & Writers Collaborative. Readers include our own Grace Bastidas, Mary Roma, and Erica Silberman, plus teaching artists Nicole Callihan and Sheila Maldonado.

The Reading will take place at GWN Headquarts, at Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 520 8th Ave, NYC.

This event is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served! So, come hear this all women line up of diverse and exciting writers.

Nicole Callihan's poems, stories and essays have appeared in many publications including Painted Bride Quarterly, Forklift, Ohio, New York Quarterly and lingo. She was a finalist in the Iowa Review Award for Literary Nonfiction and was named notable reading for The 2004 Best American Nonrequired Reading. Currently at work on a young adult novel-in-verse, she teaches at New York University and lives with her husband in Brooklyn. She is a teaching artist with Teachers & Writers Collaborative.

Grace Bastidas realized her calling 15 years ago as a reporter for the school paper at Newtown High School in Queens. From there she went on to become the arts & culture editor for Fordham University’s student publication. After working as a senior editor at the Village Voice, she decided to give freelance writing a shot. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Post, New York Magazine, and other publications. When she chooses to stray from her hometown, she can be found anywhere in the world feeding her wanderlust. This is her second year mentoring with Girls Write Now.

Sheila Maldonado grew up in Coney Island between Surf and Mermaid Avenues, across the street from the Atlantic Ocean. Her family is still there when they're not in their house in Honduras. She is now an amateur Mayanist, a backup singer in a Latin music school band, and president and sole member of the Björk Fan Club, Washington Heights Chapter. Her poems have been published in Rattapallax, Meridians, Promethean, and as part of the Center for Book Arts Broadsides Reading Series. She received an M.A. in Creative Writing from CCNY, a B.A. in English from Brown, and has worked as a teaching artist for Teachers and Writers Collaborative since 2003.

Mary Roma teaches writing to undergraduates at Boricua College and at New York University, where she is also an academic advisor and tutor. She graduated with an M.F.A. in Writing from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts and has an M.A. in English Literature from New York University. Her writing has appeared in PLANET magazine, and she’s assisted in the English translation of Ground Zero, The Day the World Changed by Japanese photographer Yasuhide JoJu. In 2000, she curated a reading series of emerging and published writers at Good World Cafe on the Lower East Side. Currently, she’s working on a memoir and short stories. This will be her second year with Girls Write Now.

Erica Silberman has written fourteen times for theAtrainplays, a twenty-four hour theatre project. Her plays have been produced or developed at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Metropolitan Playhouse, Weird Sisters, Six Figures, First Light Productions, Playwrights Horizon, and New World Stages. She was a featured writer on NPR’s “Studio 360” in a piece about writing under pressure of deadline. Erica writes both screenplays and musicals, and is currently producing a short film. This past summer she taught poetry at the Cooper Union Outreach program. Erica is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and is the co-president of The New York Coalition of Professional Women in Arts & Media. This is her second year with Girls Write Now.