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This post was written by communications intern, Madison Campbell.

Our senior girls were just as successful as ever this year, with a 100% graduation rate from high school. The graduates will be moving on to attend an extremely impressive list of colleges and universities, including University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse University, Howard University, Pomona College, Stanford University, Pace University, Skidmore College, Harvard College, College of Staten Island, New York University and more. Our mentees have come so far and have accomplished so much, and we are so proud of them!

Here are a few of the GWN mentees who will soon be beginning their freshman years at college:

Carmin Wong has been a mentee for two years, and will be attending Howard University this  fall. Carmin’s mentor, Hadia, says, “I have seen her grow and develop a distinct and strong voice, and as a teacher and friend, it has been an honor and a pleasure to be a part of her journey. I cannot wait to see her take on the world. And she will!” Carmin and Hadia wrote a powerful piece together called “Who Am I,” which discusses race, identity, and how others perceive them. Check it out below!

Second year mentee Karla Kim graduated from Hunter College High School, and will be attending the University of Pennsylvania this  fall – with a National Merit Scholarship! Karla’s mentor, Sherry, explains, “Helping her discover herself as a writer has reawakened my joy of the craft.” This past April, Karla wrote and performed a piece titled, “Dear Christina Yang: Farewell to My Person,” which was also featured on the Huffington Post.

Angelica Rozza, third year mentee, will be attending State University of New York at New Paltz this  fall. She graduated from Long Island City High School, and won a Merit Scholarship to State University of New York at Potsdam. Angelica says of her mentor, Joanna, “Without her support and motivation, senior year and the college application process would have been a nightmare.” Angelica wrote and performed a piece titled, “The Woman Upstairs” at our June CHAPTERS reading.

“Malala Yousafzai and Girls Write Now share the notion that one young woman’s voice can open up great possibilities. I like to think that’s true.” –Suzzy Roche

In honor of Malala Day, Girls Write Now is proud to present “Ode to Malala,” a music video that was born two years ago when mentee, Priscilla Guo, was moved to write a poem about 15-year-old Pakistani education activist, Malala Yousafzai, who was shot on her way to school. For us at Girls Write Now, Malala Day represents everything we’re working for. A girl’s voice matters, and Girls Write Now is making that happen, one girl at a time.

On June 12th, Malala turned 17. To honor her and her ever-important work, the Girls Write Now community is sharing this music video as we as an organization also head into our 17th year.

We are all Malala. We all have stories to tell. Let yours be heard. Watch this video and support the next generation of women writers. A portion of the proceeds will also benefit the Malala Fund.

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Girls Write Now presents “Ode to Malala,” which was born through a collaboration of creative forces. Priscilla Guo, a graduating fourth year mentee headed to Harvard this fall, wrote a poem inspired by Malala and performed it at the 2012 International Day of the Girl and at Lincoln Center. Legendary folk singer-songwriter Suzzy Roche, Priscilla, and third-year mentee Najaya Royal collaborated on adapting the poem into lyrics, which Suzzy then put to music. When we debuted it at the 2014 Girls Write Now Awards, honoring Dawn L. Davis, Roberta Kaplan, and Gloria Steinem, Gloria Steinem said after hearing it for the first time: “That was the best song I’ve ever heard. Absolutely great!”

The song was performed by students of the Princeton Atelier 496 program, a program Toni Morrison helped start in 1994, under the guidance of Suzzy Roche and Meg Wolitzer, and recorded by Stewart Lerman. The filmmakers Andrew Zox and Daniel Zox, directed this outstanding music video in multiple locations throughout New York City. They said of the process, “it was incredible filming a music video to a song inspired by Malala Yousafzai, written by a young female poet, and performed by a legendary female folk artist.” “Ode to Malala” is now available on iTunes.

We are so thrilled to share it with you!

Learn more about the Girls Write Now girls involved:

Priscilla Guo is a rising freshman at Harvard University. In 2014, Priscilla was named one of Business Insider’s “Most Impressive High School Graduates.” She was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg to serve as a youth representative on the New York City Youth Board and is tasked with advising the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development on growing youth programming. Priscilla founded her high school’s UNICEF chapter and served as its President for four years. An impassioned champion for girls’ education, Priscilla serves as a National Teen Advisor to Girl Up, a United Nations Foundation campaign that empowers American teens to raise awareness and funds for U.N. programs that aid some of the world’s hardest-to-reach adolescent girls. She also recently worked with Congresswoman Grace Meng on the Girls Count Act, which ensures girls receive birth certificates, documentation that is critical for accessing education, health and social services and career opportunities. As a writing fellow for NYCAN, she wrote and researched articles for education reform. Priscilla has been a mentee and Poetry Ambassador at Girls Write Now for four years. She says of Girls Write Now, “It has been my sisterhood of the traveling pens.”

Najaya Royal’s mother heard about Girls Write Now when she was eleven, and Najaya waited eagerly to apply. School was not always a safe place for her, much like Malala. In middle school, Najaya was cyber-bullied. Writing, a comfort to her since elementary school, gave her an outlet for expressing herself during this time. Now, she’s making waves with her poetry, already earning a Silver Key in Poetry from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and serving as a Brooklyn Community Foundation Peter Jay Sharp Youth Arts Fellow during 2013-2014.

Nishat Anjum was a second year mentee with Girls Write Now and is headed to Macaulay Honors at Brooklyn College this fall. A native of Bangladesh, Nishat is a recipient of the Silver Key in Short Story for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She reflects on her experience with her mentor, “Being a teenager is about developing your own identity and finding your place in the world. While I haven’t discovered what the universe wants me to do, I wouldn’t have realized my potential as a writer if I weren’t paired with Julie. Meeting Julie was like opening my eyes to the world beyond my island. I learned that sometimes the best story you can tell is your own, and that fewer words can have more significance. By encouraging me to reach past my comfort zones, Julie has given me a better perspective on who I am.”

Mennen Gordon will continue with Girls Write Now this fall, as she heads into her senior year at the Institute for Collaborative Education. She has already received a Silver Key Honorable Mention from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

Rumer LeGendre, born and raised in New York City, is headed into her third year at Girls Write Now. In 2014, Rumer was chosen to perform at a reading of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf” ​at an event hosted by the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, Inc.

Ariana Nicoletta is a member of our Youth Board, and describes Girls Write Now as the first creative outlet that accepted her freely and without judgment. Arianna attends New York University – Steinhardt, and majors in Communicative Sciences & Disorders.

Jade Rodriguez joined the GWN community as a sophomore, and will begin her junior year this fall. She attends the Urban Assembly Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists and writes for her school newspaper the BSSWA Bulletin. Because of Girls Write Now, she’s “taking risks and breaking through.” We are looking forward to watching her and her writing grow as she continues with Girls Write Now.

Natalia Vargas-Caba is a proud 2007 mentee-alum who works to further solidify the sense of sisterhood in the community by exploring new outlets and new inspirations. In 2014, she returned to Girls Write Now as a spring semester intern to give back for all the inspiring experiences the community had delivered to her as a young writer. She completed her English Associates Degree at Bronx Community College and will continue her studies at Sarah Lawrence in fall 2014 with a major in Creative Writing and Women’s Studies. When not interning or studying, Natalia can be found enclosed within the quiet, protective walls of an undiscovered cafe sipping hot green tea with Rimbaud’s words on hand.

This post was written by Mentee Shannon Daniels

Shannon Daniels reads her piece at CHAPTERS on June 20th 2014.

        It didn’t hit me when I’d spun before the vanity mirrors of the green room, munched on granola bars and pretzels, and rehearsed with Amanda in the stairwell. It didn’t hit me when we practiced the first lines of our pieces one at a time, recited tongue twisters, and shook out our bodies before the show. It didn’t even hit me once I was on stage. Not when I walked down, not when I high-fived the row of mentees who’d cheered for me in the crowd. The thought that this would be my last CHAPTERS performance and as a Girls Write Now mentee is still hard for me to believe.

    After the show, my mentor, Whitney, flung her arms around me.

    “I hope they’re not taking pictures of me crying.”

    I laughed. “I think you’re good.”

    “I’m just so happy and proud of you,” she said. “I mean, this is your last CHAPTERS, our last year together, and you’ve grown up so much.”

        It was the best compliment anyone could’ve given me: not that my writing was “nice” or “interesting” or that I was special for winning awards, but that I had changed. I was different from the Shannon who never thought she could write plays or make a video game or create characters with complex, real relationships – none of which I could’ve done without Whitney’s guidance and encouragement.

        I made my way through the crowd. As I hugged and chatted with the mentees and mentors I’d befriended over the past three years, I realized that this really would be a good-bye, at least for a while. I’ll attend college on the opposite coast, miles from the community that has made New York a beautiful, bustling, electric part of me. I’ll miss the water towers and slosh of cars going over puddles outside my window. I’ll miss my parents, my friends, and the mentees who have become as engrained in my story as a stars in a constellation. But, more than anything, I feel ready for all the “breakthroughs” that lie ahead. I know that when I make my way back to New York, I’ll have a community of women waiting for my stories and eager to share their own

This blog post was written by Program Intern, Emily Becker.

A group picture of College Bound participants with Morgan Stanley volunteers!

Upon first glance, the rigid mediums of the resume and cover letter may not seem conducive to best representing what makes you you. Yet these tools of the trade appear again and again at nearly every juncture—college applications, scholarships, and jobs all require the essential boiling down of your character to a couple 8 x 10s.

Mentee Misbah and a Morgan Stanley Volunteer working
one-on-one to perfect her resume and cover letter.

That’s why Girls Write Now partnered with Morgan Stanley as a part of GWN’s College Bound Program and Morgan Stanley’s Women’s Business Alliance for an in-depth Resume and Cover Letter Writing workshop. College Bound participants learned all the ins and outs of concisely and unabashedly highlighting their skills and experiences. The girls had the amazing opportunity to sit down one-on-one with Morgan Stanley volunteers, a diverse group of incredible women who are all leaders and role models in their own right. During the session, the girls and volunteers worked tirelessly to hone the girls’ resumes and cover letters, identifying the their strengths and goals along the way. Between the determination of the girls and the wisdom of the volunteers, some truly wonderful resumes emerged!

Mentee alum Tatyana sharing
her thoughts during Closing Lines.

Best yet, these resumes were all about the bragging and not the bluffing. One of the most important lessons of the workshop was to not create a false persona to please college admissions or employers, but rather to pinpoint why the real you is most deserving of whatever position you’re after. One participant explained, “It was very interesting for me to realize the balance of putting my best foot forward and staying true to who I am in my resume and cover letter…at the end of the day when you walk into that room for an interview, they want to see you, for who you really are.” Certainly the College Bound girls have nothing to be afraid of when it comes to presenting their true selves. They are leaders and team players, writers and innovators, athletes and artists, and we can’t wait to see where their resumes will take them!

Listen to College Bound participants reflect on their experience
at the workshop during their Closing Lines.

Tuhfa Begum performs her piece “The Feminist In Me” at CHAPTERS May 2014

School’s out and summer’s here. We can’t believe another CHAPTERS season has passed, but what a year it’s been. On Friday June 20th, in an overflowing auditorium in SoHo, more than 250 audience members cheered as our girls took to the stage in the culminating reading of the 2014-15 program year. Keynote speaker Christina Baker Kline (#1 NYT bestselling author of Orphan Train) brought us home.

Earlier this spring, Amy Fusselman, Farai Chideya, and Ana Castillo—all rock star women writers—introduced our fearless and inspirational girls. Take a look back at Amy’s electrifying speech and hear about CHAPTERS straight from a mentee.

We couldn’t possibly show you all the magic of CHAPTERS in one short blog post, so instead, check out our snapshots of each reading. With videos of our guest authors, samples of pieces, and photo galleries, you won’t feel like you’ve missed a thing from March, April, May, or June. Plus, browse the blog and find out what it’s like to go from page to stage!

Samori Covington, “Earth, Wind & Fried Meatballs” at April CHAPTERS 2014

Ana Castillo talks to our mentees about the power of storytelling at May CHAPTERS 2014

WITH THANKS TO:
The National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. CHAPTERS 2014 would not have been possible without our Readings Committee and Youth Board, Lauren Harms, Tom Hunt, and Dave Shuff. Thanks also to our deeply committed Board of Directors and Program Advisory Committee; our tireless staff, volunteer committees, and interns; and our countless individual donors.

This post was written by communications intern, Emely Paulino.

On Thursday, June 5th, the Ghanaian Women’s Social Leadership Program (GWSLP) visited our office to learn more about Girls Write Now and what we do. Affiliated with NYU-Wagner’s Research Center for Leadership in Action, GWSLP is comprised of fifteen Ghanaian women who are leaders in several social change programs in Ghana. Their mission is to develop the skills and knowledge to create effective social change in their communities. Many of the women are involved in human rights advocacy, gender rights and social change.

The site visit was structured Girls Write Now workshop style, with a Opening Lines exercise that asked them to think about a moment where they felt inspired. We also began the workshop by discussing what mentoring means to them and sharing their own experiences as either a mentee or a mentor. Led by Emily Coppel, our Digital Program Manager, the workshop focused on our unique mentoring program and how we have expanded over the years into three different programs: Writing and Mentoring, Digital Media Mentoring, and College Bound. Emely Paulino and Natalia Vargas-Caba answered questions about college prep, their experience as mentees and as participants in the Youth Board and GWN’s internship program. After the workshop, the women from GWSLP were eager to create a similar program in Ghana. We loved speaking to them and meeting other amazing women!