GirlsWriteNow's blog

In this month's GWN genre workshop, I got to meet Julie Powell—as in, the author of Julie and Julia. It was an incredible opportunity, but I'm glad I wasn't too star stuck to genuinely evaluate her Craft Talk. After all was said and done, I learned that Julie Powell is an amazing woman—and when I say amazing, I mean amazing.

Right away, I could tell that she was completely honest. She shared with the group that some of the information she included in Julie and Julia did not appear exactly as it occurred in reaity, and some details were even made up. There are authors who would fight to say that everything in their book is real, and that it came from some factual person or place, but it takes a real author to say that yes, their imagination had a hand in their work.

If you were to step foot in my kitchen, you would probably laugh at its size. I do. It's about ten feet long and four feet wide. There's an average-sized refrigerator, a small gas stove that is on its way out and every time you try to turn on the gas you have to light it using a match. Then we have our scratched up counter and underneath that is a series of small drawers with peeling paint and chipping wood holding various utensils. Above that we have a cabinet with more spices than I can count, bags of pasta, soup packets. The list goes on. There’s also another cabinet that houses all the cans of beans, granola bars, chips, expired vegetable shortening, and the bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips that I always pilfer from so that my parents never suspect anything. The kitchen can barely fit three people, which is the size of my family. But it is hard to imagine how just one small place can hold so much food, let alone so many memories. Every item, from the refrigerator to the breadbox, holds a moment that I relive every time I enter that crammed space. 

The December 10th Craft Talk with Julie Powell was one of a kind with humor and wit. She told the Girls Write Now community about the trials & tribulations of becoming a successful writer, and entranced us all.  She spoke of her experiences while writing Julie & Julia, including her obsession with cooking (+ blogging) every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year.  From loosely written blog posts came a national bestseller, which inspired the popular movie of the same name.

Listening to such a well-known writer and hearing her about writing and editing process was a fascinating experience.  She stated that there is a fine line between being sensitive to people in her memoir and telling the honest truth.  She learned early on in her memoir career that even if changing a story works for the book, it could damage friendships and turn the story into something dangerously untrue. 

By Lashanda Anakwah
Girls Write Now Mentee

Josh Groban!

Wait, who is he again? It dawned on me that I hardly knew who he was, and only after doing some research did I realize I was familiar with all of one of his songs, You Lift Me Up. None of that seemed to matter as I rushed from Penn Station to the Girls Write Now Headquarters.

I was running late. My foolish optimism made me believe that if I rushed out of school, I would have enough time to make it. The elevator door opened on the 18th floor, and I wondered if anyone could hear me panting. "I made it," I said to no one in particular, as I crossed the threshold into the GWN office.

A few minutes after I arrived, mentors and mentees alike headed out the door. We were going to Madison Square Garden to see Josh Groban live in concert. My first concert! We waited at the press entrance where we received our guest passes, and there was a bit more waiting before the stocky security guard announced it was time to enter the building.

By Kristen Demaline
Girls Write Now Mentor

Every year, after Thanksgiving, I start to check the mail more eagerly. I know that on some otherwise ordinary December evening, I will arrive home after work, meetings or rehearsals to find a cardboard box from my mother. Hurriedly, I’ll leap the stairs as fast as I can, burst through the door and use my keys to cut through the packing tape where a special gift awaits. After prying open the pretty poinsettia-patterned tin, irresistible smells of confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, butter, and chocolate will waft up. The wax paper layers will bear the same kinds of homemade cookies my mom has baked every year since I was little and that is the way I like it. A hug in a box.

By Marcela Grillo
Girls Write Now Mentee

At our Girls Write Now Found Poetry Workshop I was reminded of why I love poetry so much: It’s honest, unadorned, and so rich with feeling. Being a writer you kind of figure that poetry is just spilling out what you feel onto a page; but often the most inspiring words are the most unexpected. A poem about your favorite place becomes a sacred memory: in this workshop my grandfather became a beacon to lost traveling souls, and his porch in Puerto Rico became a safe haven.

What if a poet comes up with a line you fall in love with, a line you cannot forget? What if it is a line that sparks you to create your own poem? Amazingly, such a type of poetry exists. Found Poetry is poetry that takes words from somewhere else and reorganizes them to form a new creation. Whether with a single line or  a whole paragraph, we writers have this innate ability to let our unique voices be heard, separately or together.

By Nyiesha Showers
Girls Write Now Mentee

I specialize mainly in Journalism, having worked for HarlemLIVE, an online teen publication for five years. I love journalism because I get to educate and inform people about the prevalent issues going on in society. Although journalism has opened many doors for me, like introducing me to lots of people, I feel like it’s stunted my creativity a bit. As a child, I wrote poetry, short stories and a host of other creative writing. Working at a news publication, there isn’t much room for creativity. Journalism is strictly about the facts.

I joined Girls Write Now to tap back into my creativity. This past summer, I wrote a script, which is about the history of disciplining children in different cultures. It’s a creative piece, but it still has a message. I also plan to study film in college, so creativity is a must. So far, the workshops have been really helpful in allowing me to recollect my love for fiction and poetry.

By Yesenia Torres
Girls Write Now Mentee 

White walls are painted with the smiles that radiate off our faces just as our laughter vibrates off the two walls of windows that surround the Girls Write Now headquarters. Placed upon each of our chairs is a well known blue packet with bold letters stating “Poetry Workshop: Found Poetry Remix” Ah... poetry, the genre I already felt at home with. I allow the excitement to build up while hoping the rest of my fellow women writers feel the same.

After grabbing a couple of bagels to fill up my plate, I settle down in my seat with my mentor beside me. The workshop begins with Colleen Barry leading the way into the opening lines exercise. We take Ruth Forman’s poem, “If You Write Poetry”, and create our own original poems. With that done, we are introduced to the marvelous guest author Idra Novey, an American poet, professor, and translator. She has had her poems, translations, and reviews published in many literary journals and magazines while being recognized along the way with many awards for her writing such as the 2008 Amy Award from Poets & Writers. With all those accomplishments under her belt, she steps into the center of the room speaking English and Portuguese. Her charismatic energy engulfs the room to the point that I can’t help but smile. She even discusses teaching in the Bard College Prison Initiative.

By Georgia Soares
Girls Write Now Mentee

The lights fade out and dim sunlight enters through the windows. From far behind, a woman comes silently, dressed in a discreet beige coat. She looks around suspiciously, keeping her hands in her pockets. As soon as she reaches the front, she turns back and takes out a magnifying glass, as if to search for clues, announcing: “Don’t move! FBI!” She looks serious and alert, as if she really were from the FBI.     

This is how our first Girls Write Now workshop about crime fiction opened, as an attempt to personify the investigation and suspense we would talk about. The workshop was a great opportunity to learn about how to write a story full of suspense, crime and details that draw the reader’s attention. We learned how to insert essential elements that compose a crime story, and we had the delight of hearing Katia Lief’s advice on how to write books. It was valuable to learn how details serve as the catcher of attention and how the first page can determine whether a reader will be engaged to continue reading or not.

By Emely Paulino
Girls Write Now Mentee

Walking back into the GWN office after summer vacation was a mixture of relief, familiarity, and excitement. It was the first workshop of the year, Crime Fiction writing. There were more new faces than old; some excited, some nervous. My mentor Jess and I sat in our usual spots near the window and chatted about what we anticipated in this workshop. The first exercise was to create a character, starting with a name, age, and gender. Then we were asked to personalize them more with defining physical characteristics, favorite outfit, hobbies, talents, friends and enemies. After several minutes developing our characters, it was announced that our job was to kill them! I knew we were in a room filled with writers when almost everyone gasped; we had already grown fond of our characters. A wave of giggles and chuckles started off the first craft-talk of the year, with author Katia Lief as the guest speaker.