Guest Speakers

Girls Write Now Guest Speakers
2008-2009 Season

Judy Blundell, Keynote Speaker at Girls Write Now Day
Author of What I Saw and How I Lied and winner of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

Ingrid Hu Dahl, Guest Speaker at Editing Workshop
Editor of Youth Media Reporter a founding member of the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls (Brooklyn, NY) and guitarist in Boyskout.

Erin Darby & Ana Henao, Guest Speakers at Orientation Workshop
BOLD. BEAUTIFUL. BREAKTHROUGH: These words define a wildly popular line of couture t-shirts by Smart is Cool, or simply, SIC. Even better, they embody the dynamic women, Erin Darby and Ana Maria Henao, who launched SIC.

Janice Erlbaum, Guest Speaker at Memoir Workshop
Janice is the author of GIRLBOMB: A Halfway Homeless Memoir and Have You Found Her: A Memoir, and a former contributor to BUST magazine from 1994 through 2007.

Meghann Foye, Guest Speaker at Editing Workshop
Deupty Editor at Seventeen and former employee of Woman's Day and For Me. She got her start covering fashion and beaut at elle.com in Paris.

V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan, Guest Speaker at Journalism Workshop
Sugi, a fiction writer and journalist, lives in New York. She has reported for The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sepia Mutiny, and The American Prospect, among others. 

Melanie Maria Goodreaux, Guest Speaker at Playwriting Workshop
Poet, playwright, actress, director, and native of New Orleans. Her plays Saydee and Deelores, Walter. Bullets. and Binoculars, Mo’Batz’ Ride, Controle’s Predicament, Sometimes It’s Very Much About Ownership, and Katrina Who?! have been featured at several theaters in New York City and Los Angeles.

Annette Gordon-Reed, Keynote Speaker at the Annual Winter Reading
Professor of law at New York Law School, professor of history at Rutgers University and author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Ms. Gordon-Reed the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Katori Hall, Guest Speaker at Playwriting Workshop
Actor, journalist and playwright-performer from Memphis, Tennessee. Her award-winning play, Hoodoo Love, received its world-premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre November 1, 2007. Her other plays include: Remembrance, Hurt Village, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, The Mountaintop, and Freedom Train.

Nellie Hermann, Guest Speaker at Fiction Workshop
Author of The Cure for Grief, which received national acclaim in such publications as Time, Elle, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and others. She works as a writing teacher in the Narrative Medicine Program at Columbia Medical School

Marlon James, Special Guest Speaker at Girls Write Now Day
Born in Jamica, Marlon James has seen his work recognized by The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Puschcart Prize and more. His novel, The Book of Night Women, has been called "darkly powerful" and a true "tour-de-force."

Andre Lancaster, Guest Speaker at Orientation 08-09
Andre is the Artistic Director of Freedom Trian Press and author of four plays: Hope Courage, The Trumpet Man, Descendants of Freedom: a futuristic queer hip hop odyssey, and I Am Not a Hero.

Jennifer 8. Lee, Guest Speaker at Journalism Workshop
Jennifer 8. Lee is a metropolitan reporter at The New York Times and author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles which explores how Chinese food is all-American. At the Times, she has written about poverty, the environment, crime, politics, and technology.

July May, Guest Leader at Mentor Training Part II
Julie is Pyschoanalyst and Creative Arts Therapist as well as the Director of Public Relations for the Institute for Expressive Analysis. She also has

Parker Pracjek, Guest Speaker at the Fiction Workshop
Parker is the Program Director at Urban Word NYC and is also an educator, arts administrator, and performing artist. 

Marianne Pillsbury, Guest Speaker at Songwriting Workshop
Marianne is a songwriting teacher at the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. In 2004, she released her debut album, The Wrong Marianne on her own indie label and in 2005 released The Hot EP. She won Best Alt/Rock Song in The Great American Song Contest.

Amy Robach, Keynote Speaker at the Annual Spring Reading
Amy is the Saturday TODAY anchor and serves as a national correspondent forthe Nightly News on NBC. She graduated from the University of Georgia with honors, and received a bachelor of arts in journalism.

Lisa Ann Sandell, Guest Speaker at Poetry Workshop
Author of Song of the Sparrow and  The Weight of the Sky. After an internship at a news magazine in Israel, she moved to New York City and is now an editor at Scholastic. 

Dr. Catherine Savini, Guest Speaker at Mentor Training
Catherine is a Lecturer in Discipline at Columbia University.

Dodai Stewart, Guest Speaker at Editing Workshop
Senior editor at Jezebel.com, Dodai has also worked at This Old House, Entertainment Weekly, and J-14, and has written for Modern Bride, Jane, YM, Glamour and New York magazine, among others.

J. Courtney Sullivan, Guest Speaker at Journalism Workshop
Courtney is a Brooklyn-based writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, In Style, Men’s Vogue, the New York Observer, Tango, and in the essay anthology The Secret Currency of Love. Her first novel, Commencement will be published in June 2009.

Jean Thompson, Feautred Reader at the Annual Spring Reading
Distinguished author of Do Not Deny Me, Who Do You Love, and Throw Like a Girl, Ms. Thompsonhas been a National Book Award finalist and made the New York Times "100 Notable Books" list.

Renee Watson, Guest Speaker at Mentor Training
Renee is a teaching artist for the Community Word Project. She studied Creative Writing at The New School and graduated with a certificate in Drama Therapy.

See list of guest speakers from previous seasons