Girls Write Now Live: May 1, 2020

The third episode of Girls Write Now Live was History in the Making—an evening of performances featuring the diverse voices of today’s young writers! The episode showcased electrifying original storytelling from 22 teens who are taking their place in history through prose, poetry, video, illustration, and more forms of multimedia work.

We were also thrilled to honor the evening’s keynote speaker Lauren Wilkinson, author of American Spy (Random House) with the Agent of Change Award for her work in paving the way for the next generation of women storytellers. Joining us as emcee was 2019 Girls Write Agent of Change honoree, Joanne Ramos, author of the novel, The Farm (Random House), which just came out in paperback.

The evening’s featured mentees are listed below in the order of performance. They took over the screen from their homes to share multi-genre, multimedia work—from erasure poetry of the national anthem to an enthralling stream-of-consciousness piece that honors friendship to claymation that comments on society’s shortcomings.

• Lizbeth Fuentes Ascencio; short film, “How Is A Diamond Made?”
• Isabel Golightly; poem, “Freedom”
• Kathy Wang; fiction, “Springfield Cemetery”
• Alexis Morgan; memoir, “Wanted Food But I Had Homework”
• Blake Coniglio; fiction, “sororicide”
• Mikayla Augustin; poem, “Colorless”
• Lilly Perez; animation, “Sculpt-apocalypse”
• Fikirte Hunt; memoir, “You’re too young, you wouldn’t understand”
• Sierra Blanco; poem & animation, “Code for Blueberry Toaster Waffles”
• Maribel Jimenez; poem, “LET’S PLAY AROUND: A game of sleep paralysis”
• Jo Rosado; podcast, “Storytime”
• Caitlin Levy; fiction, “Gertrude”
• Luna Azcurrain; memoir, “Abuelo, Apples, & Me”
• Princesa Santos; poem, “Wrapped in red”
• Ashley Soto; short film, “Dreams”
• Eli Kowar; poem, “Icarus Ascending”
• Mary Massaquoi; erasure poem, “Erasures of Star Spangled Banner & Lift Every Voice” 
• Cheyenne Cuthbertson; poem, “The Inside Whirl”
• Jaida Dent; animation, “The Reality of Death”
• Victoria Gao; fiction, “Epiphany” 
• Jenny Zheng; fiction, “New Strange Woman”
• Afiwa Afandalo; podcast, “The secret of cooking”

You can watch the full live stream below. And don’t forget you can join us every Friday night this spring for a virtual event, whether it’s a Girls Write Now Live performance or a Salon with a featured guest artist!