YEARS AS MENTEE: 1
GRADE: Junior
HIGH SCHOOL: Hillside Arts & Letters Academy
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: Queens, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: HALA’s BeSpoke Literary and Arts Magazine.
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: My writing pair relationship with Megan is great. She helps me dig deep within my writing and has helped me truly learn about who I am through my writing even if I had writer’s block. My most memorable moment was when Megan and I went over my pieces for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards submissions. She was able to share similarities with me when it came to opening up about an uncomfortable topic and our favorite Audrey Hepburn movies—which I have an obsession for. I felt our connection grow stronger.
MEGAN ERICKSON
YEARS AS MENTOR: 1
OCCUPATION: Freelance writer, New York City public school teacher
BORN: Frederick, MD
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: The Guardian, Indiana Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Jacobin magazine.
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: We had fun at the travel writing workshop, but it was when we began writing personal memoirs that our work together got interesting and deep. Assata shared a personal story with me about the pressure she felt to have religious faith. I was incredibly impressed by her bravery, and told her about the time I got punished as a teenager for wearing a bathrobe to pick my sister up from church. Then, we wrote first drafts together based on our experiences. She sees herself as reserved. I see a reflective and mature observer—a powerful foundation for a literary life.
I wrote this piece at the beginning of my junior year when I felt as though I needed to get something off my chest. I have found that in order to speak truths powerful enough to change the world, you must first learn how to speak to yourself.
Dear Younger Assata,
You may be sad at the moment, but trust me: things will get better. Just realize now, before it’s too late, who your true friends are and who really cares. When you graduate middle school make sure that you keep in contact with Aloni, Justina, Kimberly, Hannah, Jennell, and Siyana—also, the silly group name that you made up together at that camping trip in eighth grade and the fun times at lunch. In March, someone who you’d never expect to get close to will contact you and, in a way, change your life. This person will help with a lot of issues that you go through and you learn that you two are more alike than you thought.
Once you start high school and ease into it, I guarantee that you won’t feel lonely anymore. Sometimes the people around you might irritate you, such as your “friends,” who try to guilt-trip you, or people who seem as if they think they’re above it all. However, you will meet some friends along the way who will learn to appreciate who you really are and who won’t criticize or bring you down every chance they get. Amara might get on your nerves a little bit, but she most definitely is a really great friend. You and Anjali will bond over the fact that you are Capricorns and born four days apart. Tisya is someone who helps you with your dream to write. There are a few more people who you will like and wish you could get closer to, so I recommend that you speak up more. The teachers in high school will truly care about you and your work ethic. I can assure you that you’ll grow fond of Mrs. Bhola, Mrs. Kurtzman, Ms. Stubbs, Ms. Murphy, and Mrs. E. They are all strict but yet so much fun. Some of the teachers you might grow a better relationship with than others, and you will enjoy them, despite the homework.
Now here are your seemingly bigger problems: your possible unrequited friendship with one of your best friends, and your depression. First of all, you and Katherine will grow apart because of an over-exaggerated rumor. I suggest that you talk things out with her. The things that you did to her and said about her were taken out-of-context, but you will still feel guilty and carry a heavy weight on your shoulders after the friendship is over. Stay by her side and don’t believe what other people say and you might still be friends by the time you’re my age—which will make eight years of friendship. Rajshri, your current best friend, will honestly make you doubt that she’s your best friend. She is a great person but the complete opposite of you, which makes you wonder why you two are close. Even though you two will go to separate high schools—that are across the street from each other—you will start to drift away from one another, which gives you an uneasy feeling because of your desperate need for a close friendship. Only a few of your friends will know about your depression and you will get two different reactions: sympathy or annoyance. Though some people assure you that you’ll be fine, it won’t help and you’ll start to feel worse. But once you get to actually know yourself, accept who you are, and have long, relatable conversations with Krystal, the depression will start to simmer away. It will be a great feeling and the guilt that you felt about Katherine will disappear.
So, don’t worry about anything. Just be who you truly are and you will learn to love yourself.
Love,
Assata
Watching
MEGAN ERICKSON
This is a true story. And also, not. The inspiration was the feeling of shame I had (in retrospect) for having been embarrassed about sharing the same name as a girl in my class as a kid. That became a poem about class. Some lines are fact, some fiction.
When I was a child I made a girl cry, relentlessly
as a deer tongue running over a salt lick. What happened to her?
I could have been her friend. I was embarrassed, then,
that we shared the same name.
We knew she shit in an outhouse, wore a marine’s coat,
and ate meat she’d helped to skin, spreading the raw
illicit smell like it was perfume. I heard once
she brought a hammer to school.
She used it to open a battery. Smashed.
She could do it to your face if she was in a rage,
like that. Like you were a science project.
Why do they call it grace when most days, most of us are saved
by things like, our parents coming home in shoes?
When those boys dropped a quarter on the floor just to see
would she run after it, and everyone—and I—waited, watching
we knew that she’d need it.
AYANNA BAILEY
YEARS AS MENTEE: 3
GRADE: Senior
HIGH SCHOOL: The Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women
BORN: Brooklyn, NY
LIVES: Brooklyn,