The Rebirth of Shanai Williams
On Thermodynamics: A Reflection
PROMPTS AND WRITING EXERCISES FOR INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS
PHOTO CREDIT: BEOWULF SHEEHAN
Throughout the 2016 election cycle in the United States, young women in America were told stories about women. There was endless talk about how and why women vote, about a woman’s right to choose, about how women are treated, and about whether or not a woman could serve as commander in chief of the United States. Throughout all this talk, though, what stood out the most to me were the storytellers—the women who shaped the narrative.
I’m grateful for all of the women writers who reminded us, again and again, how important, how bold, how resilient, how dazzling, and how very many we are, and how brightly we shine when we stand together united. But how did these women come to do this work, to report the world as they see it, to tell their own stories as a way of instruction and a way to unite us? Who encouraged them to bring forth new stories, spun from nothing but their own imaginations and experience? Someone had to tell these women they could tell stories and that their stories were worthwhile.
That is why the stories you will read in this collection matter. Because the existence of this collection comes from that spark of encouragement, from young writers witnessing the storytellers before them. Each author within was mentored by a woman who tells her own stories, and who has taken the time to share her wisdom. Each story here is a reminder that we build writers by not only believing that they have the talent and spirit it takes to write, but also by showing them how our very voices can influence the world.
While the election in the United States has passed, the narrative for young women is still being spun, making it more important than ever for women to have a voice. In January 2017, I was able to join with more than one million women around the world, marching for what we believe in, creating a story that demands to be told. It was a powerful action, one that depended on activists mentoring activists, mothers marching with daughters, women speaking up together. In that same spirit, the stories in this anthology harness the power of women who want to raise up new voices, tell bold stories, and create a vibrant future, together.
Read them. Share them. And do whatever you can to make sure that the young women around you know how valuable to the future they are.
We need our girls right now, we need our girls to write right now, and we need Girls Write Now to help them do this profoundly important work.
LISA LUCAS is the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, she served as Publisher of Guernica and as Director of Education at the Tribeca Film Institute. Lucas also serves on the literary council of the Brooklyn Book Festival.
THE GIRLS WRITE NOW 2017 ANTHOLOGY
This year’s Anthology theme perfectly captures why communities like Girls Write Now must exist: to rise, to speak, to change. Such seemingly small words but, without them, where would we be?
In my first job out of college, teaching English at an underprivileged school, I was handed a decades-old curriculum filled with stories from suburban life. I didn’t blame my students for being disengaged. And when girls in my seventh-grade class needed enrichment reading, I would lamely offer recommendations of books I had loved growing up in rural Wisconsin.
I moved to New York to pursue work in book publishing. I was driven by what had, by then, turned into a burning question I needed to address: Where were the voices of girls today? I met with many agents and editors who listened politely but firmly told me “those books” would not sell. So when I finally found Girls Write Now a few years into my time here, it felt like coming home to a place I had been searching for all those years. This community, this Anthology, is what I knew was missing. And I’m so thankful that it is in the world today.
Rise Speak Change exemplifies the mentor-mentee relationship: