Mentor Biographies (2011-12)

Allison Adair Alberts is a fifth-year PhD candidate at Fordham University, where she is writing a dissertation entitled “Female Suffering in Medieval and Early Modern Literature.” Allison teaches composition and literature classes, and recently founded Rhētorikós: Excellence in Student Writing, a journal which features the best undergraduate writing at Fordham. When she is not reading or scribbling in a notebook, Allison is on a perpetual search for the best southern cuisine in New York City, since she is a southern transplant herself. Allison is delighted to begin her second year with Girls Write Now.

Jennifer Nicole Bacon is an assistant professor in special education at Iona College, located in New Rochelle, New York. She earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Maryland, College Park, a Master of Education degree in Special Education from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Development from Mount Vernon College. Jennifer has participated in educational and writing projects in the United States and Africa. She has been featured on Dialogue, Poet’s Corner and the Cedric Muhammad Black Coffee radio program and was an Associate Editor for phati’tude Literary Magazine. Jennifer has always had an interest in the expressive and therapeutic arts and special education. She is the recipient of the 2010 Book-in-a-Day writing fellowship in Tuscany, Italy, the 2009 recipient of the Poetry Alive grant award for therapeutic poetry, and the 2008 recipient of the Pursue the Dream: Chris Mazza Award for Poetry Therapy. Her article “Culturally Responsive Poetry,” is published in the March 2011 Journal of Poetry Therapy. Her research on the poetry writing experiences of African American adolescent girl poets writing in order to uncover their multiple identities will be presented at the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences and the Expressive Therapies Summit in the fall of 2011.

Colleen Barry came to NYC to read and write books. A native of Seattle, WA, she graduated last June with an honors degree in Creative Writing, Art History and French from Western Washington University. As of the moment, she is writing her first novel, putting together a collection of poems, trying to teach herself Icelandic, learning to center clay on a pottery wheel, brushing up on her volleyball skills, and working as a Publishing Assistant at Random House, Inc. She has been a volunteer and community advocate with Big Brothers Big Sisters, 826NYC, The Center for Expressive Arts and Experiential Education and Children's Hospital. Her writing has appeared in the Whatcom County First Prize Essay Anthology, Robot Melon and BestPoem, among other places, and she was awarded the Centrum Scholarship to attend the 2010 Port Townsend Writer's Conference. She loves to teach because she loves to learn, and hopes that an MFA is in her near future. Her appetite for both words and leafy green vegetables is insatiable. This is her first year with Girls Write Now, and she could not be more honored and thrilled.

Grace Bastidas realized her calling fifteen 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 Grace’s fifth year with Girls Write Now.

Alex Berg is an associate producer of video at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and iVillage. In 2010, she earned her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, where she reported extensively on women in prison. She has taught writing at the Auburn Correctional Facility, a maximum-security men’s prison, and journalism at the Ella Baker School, an elementary school in New York City. A native Philadelphian, Alex enjoys running along the East River and listening to obscure punk music in her spare time. You can learn more about her at alexnessaberg.com . This is her first year as a mentor with Girls Write Now.

Amanda Berlin is a native of North Jersey, and a ten-year resident of New York City. She attended The George Washington University in Washington, DC, where she majored in Journalism. Amanda currently works in marketing and publicity as a writer and strategist and has been published in Forbes.com and Teen Identity Magazine. She recently launched the webzine, The Thrivivalist, dedicated to offering tips and supporting our efforts to thrive, not just survive and also has her own blog at amandaberlin.com . Amanda has volunteered as a counselor and writing specialist at a camp for girls who lost a parent to death, for NYCares and FreeArts both in New York City, and in 2007 traveled to the Philippines with the non-profit organization Rotaplast International as the group’s “photojournalist.” Photos from her trip were featured on Voluntourism.org. This is Amanda’s second year with Girls Write Now.

Jana Branson is currently a publicist at The Door Marketing Group. Prior to joining The Door, Jana worked for John Wiley & Sons where she specialized in cookbook PR. She began her career in book publicity at Novello Festival Press in North Carolina, after spending a year as a food writer for Creative Loafing in Charlotte. She received her MA in Literature from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her BA in English from Appalachian State University. This is Jana’s third year with Girls Write Now.

Christina Brosman , a native of Scottsdale, Arizona, has lived in New York for six years. A graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, she received her BFA in Dramatic Writing in 2008. As a television concentrate, she was drawn mostly to comedy writing. Following graduation, she co-wrote the web series Obelisk Road and the web series pilot Standard Deviants. She spent 2010 as the East Coast Press Coordinator for NBC Entertainment, working with the publicity team on shows such as Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 30 Rock, and Law & Order: SVU. She is currently a proud member of the Talent department at ID, the entertainment industry's largest independently owned operated public relations firm, where she helps to execute the campaigns that define and shape the public image of some of the world's leading actors. Christina is psyched to be back for her second year with Girls Write Now.

Siobhan Burke grew up in Northampton, MA, with a one-year hiatus in the village of Castlegregory, Ireland, at age 9. As a fifth-grader in the Irish countryside, she discovered a love for writing short stories inspired by her adventures there. In 2004, she moved to New York to attend Barnard College/Columbia University but soon took a break from her studies to join the national touring company of Riverdance, pursuing another interest she had developed during her Irish travels. After a few months on the road, she returned to Barnard to complete her B.A. in American Studies and continue her study of dance. Siobhan brings her dance experience to her writing as an associate editor at Dance Magazine and as a dance critic for The Brooklyn Rail. She has also been published in The Columbia Journal of American Studies and Dance Teacher magazine. She currently dances for several choreographers and interdisciplinary artists in New York. She blogs at phaseshifting.tumblr.com.

 

Seattle native Jalylah Burrell received her B.A. from Spelman College, her M.A. from New York University and is currently a doctoral student at Yale University. She has been blogging since 2004 and has remained active in new and social media, which is also a subject of her research. As a print journalist, she has contributed to VIBE, The FADER, the Village Voice, the Portland Mercury and ENCORE among other publications. She loves music and in 2006 she founded 52 Jazz to cultivate a diverse community of open-minded jazz fans from novices to aficionados by coordinating outings to low cost and free jazz events. She has also been a deejay since high school at the Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong and has hosted the radio show, There Ought To Be More Dancing, on WYBCx for the past two years. She has worked as an oral historian since college, most recently at the national oral history project StoryCorps. A long time Brooklynite, she recently moved to Harlem and loves it. This is her first year as a Girls Write Now mentor.

 

Susan Burton is at work on a memoir, The Invention of the Teenage Girl, to be published by Random House. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Mother Jones, New York, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. She is a former editor of Harper's and a former producer of This American Life. Her radio documentaries have won numerous awards, including an Overseas Press Club citation, and she received a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to do stories about teenagers. She is the co-author, with Hyder Akbar, of Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager’s Story, which was named one of the ALA’s top-ten best books for young adults in 2006. The film Unaccompanied Minors, which was directed by Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig, is based on one of her radio essays. Susan was the second-prize winner of Seventeen magazine’s fiction contest in 1993, and she graduated from Yale in 1995. She now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two sons.

Samantha Carlin was a Girls Write Now mentee in 2002 – 2003, and is happy to return to the program as the first GWN mentee alumna to become a mentor. Writing for as long as she can remember, Samantha explored her passion for words throughout GWN and high school. She holds a BA in American Studies from Barnard College, where she also studied playwriting and worked for various off-Broadway companies. After graduation, she interned for a Broadway producer. Currently she works at The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity by day. By night, Samantha writes fiction, and blogs on The Thump. In her writing, she likes to explore the depths of everything–from relationships to pop-culture, humanity, and current events. Her inspiration and energy comes from friends and family, conversation, traveling, music, working out, yoga, reading, the arts, and trying new things. Samantha’s writing has received awards, readings, and publication from GWN, the Taglit-Birthright Alumni Essay Contest, Barnard College, The New South Young Playwright’s Festival, and The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, among others. Right now, her big project is writing her first novel. Samantha has a twin sister who often gets mistaken for her on the New York City subway.

Meg Cassidy is a senior publicist at Free Press Books. Prior to moving to NYC to work in publishing, she taught 7th and 8th grade English with Teach For America in New Haven, CT, and also coached the girls' basketball team. Meg grew up in Milwaukee, WI, and received her BA from Saint Mary's College in Indiana, where she was a writing and women's studies major. She also volunteers as the Alumni Coordinator for Prairie Hill Waldorf School in Pewaukee, WI, and with InViolet Repertory Theatre. Meg loves running, reading, and eating bagels on the Brooklyn Heights promenade, often all in the same morning. This is her first year with Girls Write Now.

Mayuri Chandra has worked in the arts for nearly 10 years for a number of non-profits and museums. She was born and raised in New Jersey but has lived in Washington, D.C.; Charlottesville, Virginia; Ankara, Turkey – where she taught English – and Cambridge, Massachusetts – where she obtained her Masters in Arts Education from Harvard, and also taught drawing classes. After graduate school, she worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, developing education programs. Currently, she writes curricula for arts programs in schools in NYC. Some things she loves: Broadway shows, public art, travel, independent bookstores and exotic foods. This is Mayuri’s second year as a mentor, and she is so excited to be a part of Girls Write Now.

Jackie Clark is a poet living in Jersey City, NJ. Her poetry has been published in over 20 online and print literary journals. She is the author of two chapbooks, Red Fortress (H_NGM_N) and Office Work (Greying Ghost Press), and her third chapbook, I Live Here Now, is due out from Lame House Press this winter. For Coldfront Magazine (coldfrontmag.com), Jackie curates and edits Poets off Poetry, a monthly series where poets write about music, and Song of the Week, a weekly series where poets write about one song in 150 words or less. Jackie earned her MFA in Poetry at The New School University in 2008 and can be found online at nohelpforthat.com.

Rachel Cohen's 94-year-old grandmother likes to say Rachel is the only person she has ever known who's been certain of her career choice since she was 5. Meanwhile, her father started training her at a young age to watch his favorite football team, the Washington Redskins, with him. Her dream of becoming a writer and her interest in sports came together once she arrived at Duke University and made a somewhat arbitrary decision: She realized freshmen reporters on the school newspaper got better assignments in sports than news. After graduation, this Massachusetts native made her first visit to Texas for what was supposed to be a three-month internship at The Dallas Morning News. It turned into seven years, during which she became an expert in the exotic culture of Texas high school and college football. She joined The Associated Press at its New York City headquarters in 2007 as a general assignment sports reporter, which means every day is an adventure. She might be interviewing a senator about the NFL's antitrust exemption, covering curling at the Olympics, or attending the press conference of one of Tiger Woods' mistresses. This is Rachel's second year with Girls Write Now.

Linda Corman became a reporter many years ago in order to support her fiction writing, emulating she thought, Dickens and Dostoevsky, who both earned a pittance a word for their fiction that newspapers published. She became a reporter but never published a word of fiction because keeping up with the news took over her life. As a result, she’s still trying to finish a first novel. But, she’s no longer in the newspaper business and is now writing for hire, so she no longer has the journalism excuse. Having written about business and economics for newspapers, magazines and other media, she now writes on related topics for management consulting firms, nonprofits and the occasional financial institution. She is looking forward to a second year with Girls Write Now, to spur on and be spurred on by an inspiring group of writers.

Therese Cox is a writer, performer, teacher, and artist living in Brooklyn. A Chicago native, Therese received her BS in Performance Studies at Northwestern University and her MA in Educational Theatre and English at NYU. She has studied Irish literature at University College Galway, led drama workshops with the Activate Youth Theatre Company in Cork, and sung with the Trinity College Chapel Choir in Dublin, Ireland. Her fiction has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail and she writes about cities, typography, architecture, and road trips on her blog, Ampersand Seven. She plays accordion and sings in the indie folk band Balthrop, Alabama, and is an adjunct instructor of English at the City University of New York. She is at work on a coming-of-age novel set in Dublin. This is Therese’s second year with Girls Write Now.

Caitlin E. Curran is a Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based journalist, web producer, and music critic. Currently, she web produces for The Takeaway, a national morning news program co-produced by WNYC Radio and Public Radio International, in collaboration with The BBC World Service, New York Times Radio and WGBH Boston. She has also helped launch a political news website, The Fiscal Times, and a new website for the non-profit Teach For America. Previously, Caitlin lived in Cambridge, Mass., and worked as a web producer, reporter, and contributing writer for The Boston Globe and The Boston Phoenix, an alternative weekly newspaper, which gave her the opportunity to ride bikes with street artists, dress up like a drag king, and have a phone conversation with Annie Leibovitz, all for the sake of stories. She has also written for The Washington Post, Spin, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, Glamour, and FREEwilliamsburg. Caitlin was born and raised in Ellicott City, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore, and attended Gettysburg College, in Pennsylvania.

Kristen Demaline Kristen Demaline has been a writer ever since she launched a newspaper out of her basement as a grade-schooler. She continues to self-publish (far less messily) via mskristenmd.wordpress.com . A poet who also loves to work in creative nonfiction, Kristen recently graduated from Milano the New School with an M.S. in Urban Policy Analysis & Management. She also holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies from The University of Cincinnati where she attempted to thrill undergraduates by teaching via performance art and developed her chai tea addiction. A native of Lakewood, Ohio, Kristen earned her B.A. in English and Women’s Studies from The College of Wooster, where she served as the editor and a four-year staff writer for the student newspaper. She was also published in the campus literary magazine and participated in the Women’s Theatre Collaborative as a playwright and performer. She was a founding contributor to the GPIA/Milano Idealist Graduate Student Blog, and enjoys practicing yoga, running, cooking, and living in Astoria. Kristen is thrilled to return for her second year with Girls Write Now. It is an honor to share the practice of writing with such an amazing, talented community!

Amy DiLuna is a senior editor at TODAY.com. She's always wanted to be a journalist: After internships at Seventeen magazine and Newsweek, she landed her first full-time job at the New York Daily News, where she was a features editor and also directed the paper's fashion coverage. At TODAY.com, online home of the nation's #1 morning news program, she writes and edits original stories on a variety of topics. Her work day begins at 7 a.m., which is the earliest she's ever been awake. New England born and bred, Amy graduated from Dartmouth College, where she worked at the alumni magazine. Luckily, winter is her favorite season. This is her first year with Girls Write Now, and she couldn't be more excited.

Tobi Elkin is a versatile and creative writer/editor/interviewer who has spent more than a dozen years as a business journalist reporting on digital marketing and media trends for a variety of trade publications. She has worked both as a full-time staffer for publications such as Brandweek, Advertising Age and MediaPost Communications' Online Media Daily email newsletter, and as a full-time freelance writer/editor for business and consumer outlets including AOL, First Wives World, Fox Interactive Media and The Huffington Post. As editor-in-chief of MediaPost’s Media and OMMA magazines, Tobi had a knack for curating, packaging and promoting themed content. She began her journalism career stringing for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper, then migrated to the Associated Press where she reported on everything from extreme weather, dairy farming and college football, to the birthday celebration of a 114-year-old woman, then the oldest living person, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. She places a premium on creativity and unconventional approaches to storytelling. As a Writer/Analyst at eMarketer, Inc., Tobi brings an analytical sensibility to her role as an interviewer. She is at work on a collection of short stories.

Amy Feldman is a writer, editor and journalist. Her articles have appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek, Fast Company, Forbes, Inc., Institutional Investor, Money, The New York Times, the New York Daily News, Reuters, Time, and other publications. She has also edited for World Policy Journal, and taught non-fiction writing for Gotham Writers’ Workshop. Amy started her career at the long-since-forgotten Inside Chicago magazine before moving to New York to get a master’s in international affairs at Columbia University. She lives in Manhattan with her dog, Sadie, a goofball chocolate lab. This is her second year with Girls Write Now

Sara Femenella was born and raised in New York City. She received her MFA in Poetry from Columbia University and has worked for the past three years at Poets & Writers Magazine. She is a contributing editor at Dossier Journal and her work has been published in Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, Verse, the Normal School, the Saint Ann's Review, Jerry Magazine and Dossier Journal, among others. She lives in Brooklyn with her boyfriend, their pug June and Lola the cat. Currently she is at work on her first book of poems, titled, In Case of Emergency.

Rachel Friedman is the author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure (Bantam Books, 2011). She was born in Manlius, a very glamorous suburb of Syracuse, New York. She spent the first eighteen years of her life there, until, rather unexpectedly, she got restless – a state that has persisted into the present. She has worked, lived and/or traveled in over twenty countries. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the creative nonfiction program at Rutgers-Newark, she teaches literature at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. More about her at www.rachel-friedman.com.

Jillian Gallagher has been a devoted lover of words and language for as long as she can remember, always known for having her nose in a book or an overflowing notebook by her side. She considers herself lucky to have been able to carry this passion into her professional life. She currently works in business development at Siegel+Gale, a global strategic branding firm, where she crafts compelling content to win the hearts and minds of prospective clients, in addition to bringing her copyediting prowess to projects across the company. Outside of her time in the agency world, she actively works to hone her fiction writing skills, both individually and in classes with Gotham Writers’ Workshop. Jillian graduated from Fordham University with a degree in Communication and Media Studies, and is thrilled to begin her first year with Girls Write Now.

Kristi Goldade’s first published words appeared as an opinion column in her hometown newspaper. She left that Minnesotan farming community to get an English degree at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. While there, she wrote stories for the school’s website and alumni newsletter and participated in a Writing for Social Change seminar that prompted her to join the Peace Corps. She served in eastern Ukraine as an English teacher. She also organized leadership workshops for language students, wrote a grant to build her school a journalism center, and blogged about her travels. Today Kristi is a graduate student at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute in the Literary Reportage concentration. She writes human interest pieces because she loves a good life story. She likes experimental radio and she blogs at geekristi.tumblr.com . This is Kristi’s first year with Girls Write Now.

Heather M. Graham is fond of saying, “I am what I want to be when I grow up.” Now a senior editor at iVillage, she got her start as an intern in 1998 when she moved to New York City to pursue a career in journalism. Since then, Heather has written for several web sites, including Papermag.com, NYMag.com, Mediabistro.com, as well as New York Moves magazine. She holds a master’s degree in Journalism & Mass Communication from New York University where she started her own webzine. Heather also spent three years teaching journalism in the Girl Scout Scholars program for girls 12-17. She writes poetry, short stories, and personal essays. This is her second year as a mentor with Girls Write Now.

By the age of 13, Jessica Greer had lived in St. Louis, Phoenix, Chicago, and Montclair, New Jersey. This early exposure to a range of landscapes, accents, food and people, sparked an affinity for the great joys of traveling, of exploring, of venturing onto foreign territory. This affinity is still unraveling. Whether playing competitive soccer across Brazil, spending half a year studying in Melbourne, Australia, or venturing into neighborhoods in Philadelphia to teach creative writing to local youth, Jessica is in love with the spontaneous moments of beauty, surprise, even joy that we, if fortunate, stumble upon on such journeys, and has always been compelled to explore diverse pockets of life through writing. After graduating with an English Degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Jessica taught for a brief period in Brooklyn, NY and then muscled her way into a competitive (and shrinking) publishing industry. She recently made a move from Publisher’s office at Ballantine Bantam Dell, to the publicity department within The Random House Publishing Group. Jessica has been published in hellobeautiful.com, spends much of her time writing short stories, and hopes that a masters degree in writing awaits her sometime in the future. This is Jessica’s second year as a mentor with Girls Write Now, she’s thrilled to be back.

Nora Gross is a second-year mentor currently pursuing a Masters Degree at the Steinhardt School of NYU in Sociology of Education. Her research focuses on adolescents and the way that they build their identities, particularly their academic identities, in relationship to stereotypes. Before attending graduate school, Nora founded and directed a Writing Center at a charter high school on the West Side of Chicago. In that position, she enjoyed developing one-on-one teaching relationships with students, training students to be writing coaches for their peers, and creating school-wide programs for academic and creative writing. In addition to her work as an educator, Nora is on the Board of Directors of Common Cents, an educational non-profit that runs a variety of service learning and civic engagement programs in schools throughout New York City and the country. In her spare time, Nora pursues her passion for documentary photography, studies and performs Middle Eastern dance, and is attempting to write a children's book with some college friends about racial segregation in American schools.

Ehmonie Hainey spent 10 years as a research scientist before switching careers to follow her true passion of working in business and media. After graduating from Syracuse University, she worked for several media companies in New York City before launching her online blogazines, WhatsHaute.com and HandbagDuJour.com, where she is the editor in chief. In addition to writing for her own sites, her work has appeared on Bella Online, beso.com, Shecky's, and Examiner.com. When she's not writing about fashion, beauty and handbags, she’s either exploring New York City, pursuing her passion for amateur photography, out shopping or working on her first novel. This is Ehmonie's first year as a mentor with Girls Write Now.

Emily Hazel is an associate editor at Lee & Low Books, an independent publisher focusing on diversity in children’s books. Prior to becoming an editor, she worked at a literary agency. A graduate of the Oberlin College Creative Writing Program, Emily has led creative writing workshops for youth in Massachusetts, Ohio, South Africa, and New York. Her first collection of poetry, Body & Soul, was published as a finalist in the 2005 New Women’s Voices chapbook competition sponsored by Finishing Line Press. In 2008, she was awarded a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in a national competition for emerging poets. One of Emily’s favorite things about writing—as well as cooking and mixed media design—is the creative process of bringing together very different elements to make something cohesive and original. She enjoys collaborating with other artists and loves poetry that feels lived-in, like a favorite pair of jeans. As a transplant to NYC who grew up climbing trees in Massachusetts, she is inspired by exploring new places and is magnetically attracted to every green space she can find in the city. This is Emily’s second year as a Girls Write Now mentor.

Jessi Hempel is a senior writer at FORTUNE, where she covers technology and social media. Jessi joined FORTUNE in July 2007. Previously, she worked with BusinessWeek, most recently serving as their innovation department editor, where she worked on cover stories and special reports. Prior to this position, Jessi worked as a staff editor, covering philanthropy, technology and youth. Before joining BusinessWeek, Hempel worked for TIME Asia and various nonprofit organizations. Jessi is a graduate of Brown University and received a Masters in Journalism from The University of California at Berkeley.

Nancy Hooper is a science writer whose work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Discover, People, The World Book Encyclopedia, and LIFE magazine. She is the author of Stopping Scoliosis: The Complete Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment (3d edition, Avery); and co-author of Total Concentration (M. Evans), and of Trade Secrets From a Three-Star Chef (Doubleday). She has won several writing awards, including a Jesse Neal Award for Editorial Excellence from the American Business Press, and an Oscar in Agriculture from DeKalb AgResearch. She has taught writing to high school students and ESL language arts skills to adults, volunteered at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, and currently divides her time between New York City and Sag Harbor, where she enjoys practicing the piano, experimenting with portrait photography, and cooking for friends. This is Nancy's second year with Girls Write Now.

Ashley Rose Howard is a writer, event planner, and professional blogger. She began her writing career at New Jersey Monthly, then moved to New York City to work in advertising at BBDO Worldwide, which led to a wealth of freelance experience in public relations, event planning and blog writing. Ashley has contributed to several online publications including NJ.com Health & Fitness and Life2PointOh.com. She also contributes as an Event Coordinator at Tribeca Events planning celebrity chef galas for non-profits such as City Harvest and Autism Speaks. In her spare time, this yoga enthusiast is often found brainstorming book ideas in tree pose or offering free life coach advice. This is Ashley’s first year as a mentor with Girls Write Now.

Demetria Irwin is the Senior Editor at MadameNoire.com, a wife and a lover of cities. Between conducting celebrity interviews, editing the work of awesome writers and penning her own work on women's lifestyle topics, Demetria thoroughly enjoys her fun and challenging job. As a freelancer writer, she wrote for a diverse range of publications including the New York Amsterdam News, City Limits, Clutch and The Boston Globe. The Detroit native is working on the draft of her first novel and is something of an amateur genealogist. This is Demetria’s second year as a mentor with Girls Write Now.

Katherine Jacobs is an associate editor at Roaring Brook Press. After spending the first 22 years of her life in western Michigan, Kate spent two years in Romania teaching English with the Peace Corps and one year in Honduras working as a school librarian. While she still dreams of life as an international nomad, her true calling is children’s books. Kate has a master's degree from the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College in Boston. At Roaring Brook she edits picture books, middle-grade and young adult novels, and nonfiction (and sometimes poetry, too). She’s a sucker for a good story, characters who make her cry, a place that ignites her senses, and any writing with a sense of history. This is Kate’s first second with Girls Write Now.

Whitney Jacoby is a native New Yorker, living in Manhattan until the age of 11 and spending her middle and high school years in the suburbs of NYC. She attended Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where she focused on Gender Studies and Literature, receiving a BA in Liberal Arts. After college she returned to New York and has been in the publishing industry ever since. She has been at Simon & Schuster for three years, where she is currently an Account Manager, helping independent bookstores bring S&S titles into their stores. She has her dream job, as she gets to read and talk about books all day with others who have a passion for books. Outside of work, Whitney loves reading and watching movies, but her true passion is food, as she loves cooking and eating at new restaurants. Whitney is so excited to start her first year at Girls Write Now!

LaToya Jordan is a poet from Brooklyn, New York. Her poetry has appeared in Mobius: The Journal for Social Change, The November 3rd Club, The Splinter Generation, and qarrtsiluni. She received an MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in poetry from Antioch University, Los Angeles. She works full-time as the Assistant Director of Communications/PR Manager for New York Law School, where she is responsible for publicity, internal communication, social media, and writing articles for the school’s alumni magazine. Her love of writing showed up at an early age; she used to write soap operas and short stories for her friends in junior high school. She continued to hone her writing skills on the yearbook staff at Edward R. Murrow High School and as a reporter for her college newspaper, The Tangerine. She blogs about her writing life at www.latoyalikestowrite.com. This is LaToya’s second year as a mentor with Girls Write Now.

Mary Pat Kane is a writer and storyteller with a background in photography and video. She has a Masters Degree in Social Work. Before New York, Ms. Kane resided in Philadelphia where she created 8 one-woman shows and received three Pennsylvania For The Arts grants. She garnered several photo awards, including first prize in the Philadelphia Magazine photo contest and published regularly in 3 alternative newspapers and less frequently in the major papers (unions!). She publishes now in the Philadelphia Daily News and in the past with The Christian Science Monitor. In NY, Ms. Kane has performed at HERE, Cornelia Street Cafe, the Bitter End and Nuyorican Poets Café, becoming a 'regular' at the MOTH Storytelling Slams. She teaches storytelling with the MOTH Community Workshop and is a teaching artist with Brooklyn Arts Council. She was trained as an artist in the schools by Community Word Project. She has two very new blogs – "Ms. CRANKY" and "WISPS." Three summers recently, Kane performed in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which brought out many old friends and was a delight. She is honored to work with GWN and hopes to add both knowledge and joy to its illustrious program.

Karen Kawaguchi is a partner/owner of K Works Global, which offers writing and project management services to Pearson, Cambridge University Press, and other publishers. Her work life has taken many unexpected and surprising turns: marketing strategist for telecom companies, branding consultant, middle school ESL teacher, Standard & Poor’s financial writer, and writer/editor for Pearson. She is the author of AEP Award winner, Every Teacher’s Toolkit, and co-author of Texas ELPS Toolkit (both Pearson Longman). Her proudest moment as a teacher: watching eight of her ESL students being inducted into the Honor Society. She has been a College Summit writing coach and a mentor at a teen residential program. Born in Tokyo, she has lived all over the U.S. More than 20 years ago, she moved from Texas to New York and knew she had finally landed at home. She has a music degree from Wesleyan University (CT) and a teaching certificate from St. Martin’s University (WA). In her spare time, she dreams up ideas for children’s books, is addicted to sampling books on Amazon, and regularly escapes from Scarsdale to enjoy the city. This is Karen’s first year with Girls Write Now

Before writing for Glamour, Huffington Post, Slate, Smith, St. Petersburg Times, Narrative, and New York Press, Heather Kristin was home-schooled with her twin sister in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Her unpublished novel Brooklyn to Bombay was a finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. An essay she wrote appears in the 2011 anthology Live and Let Love which was featured on Good Morning America and Chelsea Lately. Oprah’s Lifeclass “The Truth Shall Set You Free” (10/13/11) featured Heather live followed by memoirist Jeannette Walls. Recently she was honored by the State of New Jersey General Assembly for her dedication on women’s issues and is thrilled to be returning for her fifth year as a mentor for an at-risk teen at Girls Write Now. Heather is currently writing a memoir and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and baby daughter Daisy.

Wendy Lee is the author of Happy Family, which was named one of the top debut novels of the year by Booklist and received an honorable mention from the Association of Asian American Studies. She is a graduate of Stanford University and New York University’s creative writing program. After college she spent three years in China as an English teacher and copyeditor. The recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Corporation of Yaddo, she lives with her husband in Astoria, Queens, and works as an assistant editorat HarperCollins Publishers. You can find out more about her at www.wendyleebooks.com . This is her second year with Girls Write Now.

Hilary Leichter is an MFA candidate at Columbia University's School of the Arts. Her stories have appeared in the Indiana Review and The L Magazine online. She also writes short plays, performs in the occasional musical, and sings the blues. This year, she will be teaching an undergraduate workshop at Columbia and finishing a collection of short stories. She is very excited to be starting her first year as a mentor with GWN!

Dr. Patricia G. Lespinasse received her PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. As a doctoral candidate at Columbia, Dr. Lespinasse worked for the Center for Jazz Studies and served as an Associate Editor of The New Black Renaissance: The Souls Anthology of Critical African-American Studies, edited by Dr. Manning Marable. Dr. Lespinasse's research interests include twentieth century American and Caribbean literature, African American literary and cultural studies, popular music studies, and feminist criticism and theory. As an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature for the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University, she teaches courses in African American Literature and Literature of the Caribbean Diaspora. Currently, Dr. Lespinasse is a post-doctoral Associate in African American Literature at Rutgers University where she is completing a manuscript about women and jazz in 20th century African American and Caribbean Literature.

Lynn Melnick's poetry has appeared in many print journals, including The Paris Review, A Public Space, LIT, jubilat, Gulf Coast, The Brooklyn Rail and Boston Review, as well as online in publications like The Awl, Poetry Daily, Narrative and Guernica. She received a BA in creative writing and American literature from UC Santa Cruz, and an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. She also writes freelance book reviews and press pieces, and is currently completing work on a novel. She was born in Indianapolis, grew up in Los Angeles, and currently lives in Brooklyn with her amazing husband, also a poet, and their two amazing little girls. She is a huge fan of Emily Bronte, Sylvia Plath, Dolly Parton, Ms. Magazine, David Lynch, documentaries, autumn holidays, summer dresses, new shoes, soft cheeses, her couch, her neighborhood and her slow cooker.

Nancy Mercado is an executive editor at Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan Children's Group working primarily on middle grade and young adult novels. Her favorite book at the moment is Bake Sale by Sara Varon (because any book that features a friendship between a cupcake and an eggplant is her kind of book), one of her favorite books as a child was The Pigman by Paul Zindel (because what could be cooler than reading a book that takes place in your hometown?), and the book that she is currently an evangelist for is The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines. Born and raised in Staten Island, and a graduate of the State University at Albany with a B.A. in Spanish, this is Nancy’s third year with Girls Write Now.

Katherine Nero is a native Chicagoan who fell in love with New York City during her first visit when she was seven years old. She has written, produced and directed numerous short films. Her film, Wedding Bell Blues, debuted at the Black Harvest Film Festival and was awarded Best Short at the MAAFA Film Festival. In 2001, Katherine was selected as a finalist for the ABC/Disney Screenwriting Fellowship. She freelanced on various film and television productions, including writing assignments for the ABC daytime dramas One Life to Live and General Hospital. Katherine is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she earned a BA in Political Science and a MA in Radio-Television-Film. She enjoys book discussions, film festivals, travelling, exploring conspiracy theories, and blogging about movies at cinemanero.wordpress.com. Katherine will direct her first feature-length film, For the Cause, in October 2011. This is her second year with Girls Write Now.

Amanda Orenstein holds a Master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology and spent nearly eight years practicing in public and private school settings. She recently followed her true calling and made the great leap into the world of publishing. Prior to joining John Wiley & Sons as an editorial assistant, she learned the ropes writing articles for New York Family magazine and interning at the Trident Media Group. When not reading, she loves traveling, baking, crossword puzzles, and blogging about her favorite children's books at bookgems.wordpress.com. She's called Manhattan home for the last ten years and is constantly amazed at all she has yet to discover about this great city. This is Amanda's first year with Girls Write Now.

Born in Scotland, Claudia Parsons has traveled the world as a journalist for Reuters, working in Turkey, Italy, Spain, Iraq and now New York. She has written about everything from war zones to musical theater, the financial crisis to motor racing, earthquakes to the U.S. presidential campaign. She is now an editor in the investigations team at Reuters. This is her second year as a mentor at Girls Write Now. The first year she tried her hand at fantasy fiction for the first time and wrote her first poem in nearly 20 years. She needs more practice.

Jess Pastore works as a fundraising coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation. She has been reading and writing as much as possible since before she can remember. Since graduating from Bryn Mawr College, where she studied writing, communications, and the Growth and Structure of Cities, she has worked for a wide range of nonprofit organizations. As part of that community, she has come to believe in the power of the written word to inspire others, promote worthy causes, and ultimately transform lives. When not crafting proposals, appeals, or letters to donors, she enjoys reading and writing both short stories (about just about anything) and poetry (mostly about trains), and editing and proofing the writing of friends and family. In Astoria, she can be found gardening on her balcony, planning future travel, and experimenting with new and exciting culinary uses for butter. This is Jess’ third year with Girls Write Now.

Jessica Pishko is originally from Texas where football reigns supreme. As a rebellion, she majored in French and English in college and first began writing fiction, persisting despite a mortifying experience in her first workshop. She graduated from Harvard Law School where she wrote a thesis on international law and gender violence. After law school, Jessica moved to NYC where she has lived ever since. She worked at a couple of large law firms, focusing on securities litigation while also volunteering her time to represent women in custody and divorce proceedings stemming from domestic violence. Finally, she left the law to focus on her writing. Jessica is completing her M.F.A. at Columbia University in fiction and also teaches first-year writing there. Her writing appears on Anderbo, elimae, and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood. She is doggedly at work on a novel about a law school professor and a student who become embroiled in scandal. Jessica is also a certified yoga teacher. Her hobbies include cooking and playing with her Chihuahua, Sammy. She is thrilled to begin her first year as a mentor at Girls Write Now. .

Gillian Reagan is public editor at Capital New York (www.capitalnewyork.com), a digital media news site that covers politics, media and culture in the city. She joined co-founders and former New York Observer editors Josh Benson and Tom McGeveran when the site launched in beta in June 2010. Gillian previously worked as a reporter at the Observer, where she covered culture, tech and media. She was also previously media editor at The Business Insider (www.businessinsider.com). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and Bloomberg Businessweek, among other publications, including a suburban Massachusetts newspaper where she wrote obituaries. In her spare time, she blogs (gillianmae.tumblr.com), codes websites, runs half-marathons, bikes to the beach, bakes vegan recipes, and wanders The Strand's aisles. She is thrilled to be working with Girls Write Now for the first time this year.

Alissa Riccardelli grew up outside of New York City and has been living in Brooklyn for the past three years. She currently works as the Communications Manager for the NYC Teaching Fellows program, and has previously worked as an adjunct writing and literature instructor. She graduated with a BA in English from Manhattanville College, and then went on to complete an MFA in Fiction at Sarah Lawrence College. She particularly loves coming of age and contemporary literature, and anything written by Jeffrey Eugenides or Amy Hempel. Alissa has also studied at the Chenango Valley Writers’ Workshop, and most recently at the Tin House Summer Writing Workshop in Portland, Oregon. This is her second year with Girls Write Now.

Rory Satran is the Content Director at Opening Ceremony. She has produced several short films for the company, and was a featured panelist at SVA's 2010 Fashion Film Festival. Rory was Managing Editor of Self Service magazine in Paris from 2006-2010, as well as an editorial and new media consultant for fashion and luxury brands including Miu Miu, Chloé, and Chanel. Rory’s freelance writing and photography have been featured in The Washington Post and several magazines, and her fiction is represented by the Irene Goodman agency. She has had her work anthologized in About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror. Rory studied Comparative Literature and Art History at UC Berkeley. This is her first year with Girls Write Now.

Kathleen Scheiner is a freelance writer, editor, and proofreader, specializing in horror, sci-fi, fantasy, graphic novels, and manga. Occasionally she edits a romance to pay the bills. Her work has been published in Dance International, L’Ecran Fantastique, Toxic, Publishers Weekly, and the anthology Memoirs of Meanness. Her interests include art, dance, roller derby, reading, and of course, writing. She only likes to write with fountain pens (has used Safari Lamy for the last few years) and on quadrille paper—a habit she picked up while living in Germany as a child.

Ingrid Skjong is an editor and writer who moved to New York City from Minnesota eight years ago. She is currently executive online editor at Niche Media (publisher of Gotham, Hamptons and other lifestyle magazines). She is an avid runner (from 5Ks to marathons), has done triathlons, has a penchant for heavy metal and loves to travel. The moment she realized journalism was for her? Her freshman year in college, when Vogue magazines made for much more entertaining reads than chemistry books. This is her third year with Girls Write Now.

Elaine Stuart-Shah is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer specializing in travel, culture, and the arts—particularly dance. Her articles have appeared in a range of national and regional publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Dance Magazine. She has also worked as an editor at Modern Bride and Child magazines and dabbled in marketing and copywriting. Elaine had a brief ballet career before attending college at Georgetown University. She is currently a graduate student in the Literary Reportage program at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, where she is working on a book about dance. This is her second year with Girls Write Now.

Jennifer Tench is an executive editor in the K-12 division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt where she creates and edits educational language arts materials for middle and high school students. Over her twelve years at HMH, she has worked on literature anthologies, novel study guides, and teacher materials. She’s also had the opportunity to work closely with trade authors for unit introductions and other features. Her latest freelance project was a graphic novel adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s short story All Summer in a Day. Before moving to New York, she lived in Austin, Texas,

Michele Thomas is the managing editor at The French Culinary Institute in New York City. She has a wide range of writing experience, which includes covering health and nutrition as a freelance journalist; writing and editing for a national newspaper service; and writing and editing K–12 textbooks and teaching materials for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, Harcourt School Publishers, Pearson Education, and Houghton Mifflin, among others. She has also authored two science books for middle-school children, and currently teaches on faculty with the Saturday Writing Program at Legal Outreach, a nonprofit organization based in Long Island City. Between 2006-2011, she served as a mentor, and then board member, and advisor for Girls Write Now. The Brooklyn native, knitting nut, and avid foodie can usually cook or knit her way out of trouble and enjoys sharing her crafty ways whenever possible. Michele lives in Brooklyn with her cats, Stitches and Mimzy, and several spatulas. This will be her sixth season mentoring with Girls Write Now.

My-Thuan Tran is a global health consultant, where she works with international journalists and advocates on public health issues that impact developing countries. She also executes public health media campaigns in South Asia, Latin America and across Africa. My-Thuan (pronounced Me-Twon) was previously a reporter at the Los Angeles Times where she covered immigrant communities and breaking news. Her reporting took her to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Bangkok, Thailand, where she covered political unrest during the anti-government protests of 2010. She has reported about why Vietnamese dominate the manicure business, price wars between Vietnamese-owned Cajun crawfish restaurants and the legacy of the Khmer Rouge genocide. My-Thuan plays the dan tranh, a 16-string traditional Vietnamese zither. She enjoys running across Manhattan, perusing New York’s eclectic festivals, cooking and a great cup of coffee.

Kate Trebuss , a born and bred Canadian, moved to New York in 2009 to pursue a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Before coming to New York, Kate completed her BA Hon. at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the University of Toronto, and her MA in English Language and Literature also at the University of Toronto. Upon finishing her MA, Kate packed up and moved to South America for six months, where she taught English to Chilean public school students while teaching herself Spanish out of a dictionary and a university textbook. When she’s not reading or writing about narratives of third world and global health, Kate is traveling, hiking, playing basketball, cooking, hosting dinner parties, or out exploring the mad city of New York. She still has days when she can’t help but marvel at the fact that she really lives here. She’s particularly fond of getting lost in the East Village, running in Central Park, strolling along the Highline, and sampling the culinary delights of the city. Kate couldn’t be more delighted to be joining the Girls Write Now family as a first year mentor.

Nakisha Williams is a writer and reporter who covers style and entertainment news for outlets including Us Weekly magazine, InStyle.com and BET.com. The California native (and New York resident) studied Print Journalism at Howard University in Washington, DC, and has since covered coast-to-coast red carpets from LA’s Golden Globe Awards to New York Fashion Week. When she’s not interviewing entertainers and dishing on Hollywood’s happenings, Nakisha writes social media content for brands on Twitter and Facebook. This is her second year as a Girls Write Now mentor.

Josleen Wilson started writing as a child and has never stopped. She is author of more than thirty definitive nonfiction books illuminating contemporary issues in American life. Many have set the standard in their field, including such groundbreaking works as Woman: Your Body, Your Health, Surviving Family Life, and Good Health for African Americans. She also has written and produced several award-winning short documentaries, among them Own Your Own Future, a film about HIV+ women in prison. Founding a successful after-school writing program for Harlem RBI, she taught and mentored young girls toward developing more fully realized lives. A former creative director for a major advertising agency (her "second career"), Josleen has been a force in developing talented newcomers in that industry. She continues to write under the banner of her own consulting firm, Sparks Fly Up Creative Solutions. This is Josleen’s fourth year with Girls Write Now.

Allison Gaudet Yarrow is Deputy Web Editor of the award-winning website of The Forward newspaper, and the creator and host of the Yid Lit podcast, which interviews authors of literary fiction and nonfiction, and is available on forward.com and iTunes. She has published essays and journalism in the Huffington Post, Newsweek, Slate, CNN.com, and Poets & Writers magazine. Allison profiled the country's first black woman rabbi, covered disaster relief efforts after destructive flooding in Nashville and documented a trip across New York City in a hearse, searching for famous dead people. Previously, as an Associate Producer at NBC News Productions, Allison produced health, celebrity and philanthropy segments for a nationally syndicated program hosted by Hoda Kotb, and long-form documentary hours for MSNBC. She is a biker and a popcorn fanatic who grew up in Macon, Georgia. Other loves include Southern fiction, cooking with butter and the beach. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Ben Yarrow, a speechwriter and communications consultant. This is her first year with Girls Write Now.