You Have Opinions, Now Write Them! GWN Pair Takes on Op-Eds

By Emily Sarita and Jana Nordstrand
Girls Write Now Mentor-Mentee Pair

Girls Write Now pair Jana and Emily reflect on their experiences at the Journalism: Op-Ed Workshop and share some of the insights and wisdom they learned! 

We look forward to the Girls Write Now workshops. Truly. Each time we can sit down with our peers, learn about a different genre of writing, and listen to a talented guest speaker, we are newly inspired. We are empowered. We often have a renewed sense of our abilities as writers.

Catherine Orenstein, the guest author and founder and director of The Op Ed Project, blew us away. She seemed to exemplify the intelligent, confident, and female writer that we all know we have within ourselves. She told us not to be afraid.

Sometimes, we are afraid to write our opinions, to say what we think, to stand-up for what we believe in and let people know—men and women alike—how we feel about something. We have opinions. Now, we just need to write them.

In the workshop we wrote our rants and our raves. We all had many things to rant about…we had to think a little harder about things to rave about (isn’t that strange?).

A few things we learned:

• People aren’t always going to agree with what you write. Write it anyway.
• Think about your audience when you are writing your Op-Ed. Who are you trying to convince?
• Provide evidence for your claim, make your reader think, and don’t ever talk down to your reader.
• Give people something to talk about. “Did you read the such and such piece by so and so? That is one smaaart woman” (that’s what we hope they say, as we pass “them” on the street).

Fact: We are women writers living in New York City.

Opinion: We are the most talented women writers in New York City and our opinions, our Op-Eds, could change the world.