Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson was the featured Agent of Change honoree in the last installment of our 2019 Spring Series—the June CHAPTERS Reading at the N-Y Historical Society. Amy Berkower, President of Writers’ House, Laurie’s friend and agent, and an Agent of Change award recipient herself, presented Laurie with her Agent of Change award. In Laurie’s keynote address, she spoke about her journey to becoming a writer, the value that writing has in her life, and how she overcame the trauma of being a survivor of sexual assault. Laurie also signed the readers’ copies of her latest book, SHOUT.
Emcees Daleelah Saleh (L) and Maeve Slon (R) with honoree Laurie Halse Anderson (center)
Honoree Laurie Halse Anderson signing mentee Nylah Harris’ copy of SHOUT
Amy Berkower introducing Laurie Halse Anderson
GIRLS WRITE NOW READERS
Today’s mentees bravely and confidently showcased their best work, reading about female empowerment, family, health, and learning to love oneself:
Kimberly Dominguez, My Fifth Season(s); Luna Serena Azcurrain, The Ring; Lorena Maca Garcia, Our Summer’s End; Emily Rinaldi, Fashion; Sarane James, This Invisible Disease; Amina Mukhtar, AHM-NAH; Agustina Harris, Acceptance; Analise Guerrero, About Time; Lauren Spencer, Carry On; Amina Morgan, Helping Me See; Shanai Williams, For a Mother who has passed…; Hasina Foye, Ears; Senjuti Gayen, Hair Like Durga; Dania Rodriguez, The City that Never Sleeps; Isabelle Sanderson, Modern Fairy Tale; Janiah Taylor, Ode to Being Au Natural; Ski’La Richardson, Sally’s Epiphany; Yadyvic Estrella, Mane of a Lion: A Cultural Exploration into a Teenager’s Hair; Soledad Aguilar Colón, Dear Big, Round, Plumpy Butt; Nylah Harris, Hear My Voice; Roshnie Rupnarain, Sing; Annemarie Alms, purging; Jayla Greenberg, Chameleon Girl; Brianna Clarke-Arias, Returning; Yamilet Ortega, Dasani; Waeza Jagirdar, Untitled; Mariah Galindo, Minority, Proper Noun
Mentee Agustina Harris reading “Acceptance”
Mentee Luna Serena Azcurrain reading “The Ring”
Mentee Mariah Galindo closing off the evening with her piece, “Minority, Proper Noun”
Our readers of the night posing with our emcees, Amy Lu, Daleelah Saleh, and Maeve Slon.
EMCEES
- Amy Lu is a second-year Girls Write Now mentee and a graduating senior living in Washington Heights. Her hobbies include baking, doodling, embroidering, and petting cats at cat shelters. She dislikes getting lost, but is very good at it, even though she has lived in the city since she was five.
- Daleelah Saleh is a third-year Girls Write Now mentee and a graduating senior living in Astoria. While she can sometimes be found working on short stories or memoirs, it is poetry that has captured her heart (and pen), in all its rawness and intensity. Her work has received multiple Silver Keys and Honorable Mentions from the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards. Over the course of her high school career, she has been involved with the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, the HERLead Fellowship, PROOF: Media for Social Justice, and the Teen Activist Project at NYCLU. When not writing or working to smash the patriarchy and make the world a better place, Daleelah can be found indulging in other creative forms, such as taking photographs and playing guitar. She will be attending Middlebury College in the fall as a Posse Scholar.
- Maeve Slon is a fourth-year Girls Write Now mentee and graduating senior living in Harlem. Maeve often uses the word “artsy” to describe herself and creates multimedia art making her poems into short videos. Writing gives Maeve a voice, a camera gives her eyes. A dream of hers is to write and direct a short indie film. She tries to live every day to the fullest, and if that means skipping statistics to sit in the park and write, even if her grade will suffer, she’ll do it anyway.
From left to right: Amy Lu, Daleelah Saleh, Maeve Slon
PERFORMANCES
Watch the speakers of the night, from our honorees to our mentees, in the playlist below!
HONOREE INTERVIEW
Watch our exclusive interview with Laurie Halse Anderson below! You can also watch Laurie’s keynote address here!
Thank you to all who attended our Spring Series events!