{"id":8796,"date":"2018-10-10T09:19:11","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T14:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=8796"},"modified":"2018-10-11T08:20:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T13:20:47","slug":"teenage-girls-tell-their-most-urgent-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2018\/10\/10\/teenage-girls-tell-their-most-urgent-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage girls tell their most urgent stories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Molly MacDermot is the Director of Special\u00a0Initiatives\u00a0at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.girlswritenow.org\">Girls Write Now<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/files\/2018\/10\/Girls-Write-Now_cover-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-8797 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/files\/2018\/10\/Girls-Write-Now_cover-1-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/files\/2018\/10\/Girls-Write-Now_cover-1-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/files\/2018\/10\/Girls-Write-Now_cover-1-768x1187.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/files\/2018\/10\/Girls-Write-Now_cover-1-663x1024.jpg 663w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/files\/2018\/10\/Girls-Write-Now_cover-1.jpg 1941w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/><\/a>I\u2019ve had the honor of editing five annual-anthologies for Girls Write Now. Today\u2019s next generation of women writers are alright, and their stories are making the world better. They\u2019re also making me feel better \u2014filling me with hope. When Tin House editor Masie Cochran proposed publishing an anthology that showcases two decades of true stories from our young female writers, I was ecstatic. Finally, readers can enjoy the evolution of female thought in one book. <\/span><b>Pre-order your copy from Books Are Magic, <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksaremagic.net\/?searchtype=keyword&amp;qs=girls+write+now&amp;qs_file=&amp;q=h.tviewer&amp;using_sb=status&amp;qsb=keyword\"><b>here<\/b><\/a><b>.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Girls Write Now: Two Decades of True Stories from Young Female Voices<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Tin House\/October 17, 2018), you\u2019ll meet Danni Green (her knockout essay \u201cDear Kanye\u201d opens the collection), who can\u2019t get her dad to sign her financial aid paperwork for college. She desperately wants to believe she\u2019s meant for a different life than what<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">she sees around her, but she&#8217;s not sure if believing is enough. You\u2019ll witness Romaissaa Benzizoune wrestle with wearing a hijab to school, and Maggie Wang&#8217;s struggle to be what she calls &#8220;a model minority girl.&#8221; You\u2019ll also delight in the lighter moments, like Tashi Sangmo remembering the morning bird chatter in her birthplace of Tibet, or Michaela Burns peeling red apples with her grandmother.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Together, these stories offer an overdue portrait of what it is to be a girl in New York City, and in America as a whole. They\u2019re stories we desperately need to hear. 100% of these writers are high-need. 94% are girls of color. Many are first- and second-generation immigrants. Astonishingly, 100% of them have gone on to college and the majority have graduated, flying in the face of national averages (nationwide, only 8% of low-income students will matriculate). And trust me, we\u2019ll be seeing many of these names on book covers for years to come.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;Dear Kanye Jan 14&quot;\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QIC2vicAQko?start=139&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An excerpt from Danni Green\u2019s \u201cDear Kanye\u201d. Danni was born in New York and graduated from Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dear Kanye, <\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">January 14, 2012 7:45 pm<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nine days ago I called financial offices of the colleges I applied to. Told them I had to submit my FAFSA without parental information. Told them Shawn won\u2019t give me his information and my mother and I have tried. Told them how Shawn raises his voice, shows his ignorance, and shouts like he\u2019s Otis Day. How he calls me stupid. Says I shouldn\u2019t be trying to get money from the government. Every time my mom and I try. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each college said my parents are married and Shawn lives in the house so they couldn\u2019t help me. They told me I was in a tough situation. They told me I was in a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">tough situation<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> like I didn\u2019t know that. Like I don\u2019t see the lives of the people I live with and how content like a snake has opened its mouth and swallowed their lives whole. My brother Robert is jobless. Almost thirty. Has an Associate\u2019s degree and no idea what to do with his life. My sister Jessica is sleeping with the man she loves and isn\u2019t her husband. She just got laid off. Has four children and no more Food Stamps. And her rent has to be paid. My brother Darius made a house out of my Grandfather&#8217;s room to avoid everything that\u2019s on the outside of his door. My younger brother Philip has taken the Geometry Regents three times. Cuts classes. Smokes weed and wonders what he\u2019ll do with his life. My mother. Had she gone to UCLA would be a doctor right now. The closest Aunt Carla has gotten to being an actress is watching the Academy Awards every year. She flips the pages of her celebrity tabloids looking for herself. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Who am I supposed to look up to? Who is supposed to show me how I can make my dreams real? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m watching Jon Sands and Adam Falkner live at The Bowery Poetry Club. But I\u2019m sitting in my computer chair looking at them on a screen. Seeing them makes me want to pull the pretty stars out the sky. Rip open my chest and stuff them in. Because I want to be pretty. On the inside. And I\u2019m hoping stolen stars can shine away whatever\u2019s in me trying to kill the person I can be if I were only not Here. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adam was my English teacher. Last summer I bought Jon Sands\u2019 book. I know this guy. Like had conversations with this guy. Like went to this guy\u2019s workshops. If they are not made of better stuff than me like stars then why are they where I want to be and I am not? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;m not in a tough situation, Kanye. But if I don\u2019t get out of the house on Wyckoff Street I will be, but it\u2019ll be My Life. It\u2019ll be a husband I don\u2019t love, an affair to make me feel alive, a checking account with a zero balance, a job that\u2019ll brand me Good Enough and children whose faces ask, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What\u2019s for dinner? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Currently it\u2019s 7:54. The 14th day of 2012. A Saturday. But it feels like 2011 and 2010 and \u201909 and \u201908 and \u201907 and \u201906 and every year when I felt I was absolved of any good thing in me the second I walked through the front door of my house. Barriers between the days are crumbling and morphing 24 hours into one long minute. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is too much contempt in my soul to have a life like the ones I see daily. My family has redefined happiness to make their life mean something. Since the second semester of tenth grade I worked my ass off to get A\u2019s. I lost sleep to write essays, didn\u2019t hang out with friends to do homework. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But it\u2019s slowly sinking in. There isn\u2019t an escape from what dirties the dishes and puts the dust between the floorboards of my house. Not living your dreams is a sickness. My parents are carriers. It is in my plasma waiting to infect my cells. And sometimes I cry like I\u2019m terminally ill. The tears tumbling down to my shirt is evidence that I\u2019m dying. Because everything has just gotten so hard. Like breathing. Like having faith in myself. Like believing I won\u2019t stay Here. College was supposed to get me out of Here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Now I\u2019m too full of fear that I\u2019m going to be My Family. I\u2019ve seen the way their muscles fold, how their joints crack. I feel that what\u2019s in Them is seeping into me. At times I ask myself <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Who am I kidding thinking that I\u2019ll be different? That I\u2019ll do something with my life? <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adam is playing the piano. Jon Sands just read a poem. I like it. The crowd clapped. I want someone to clap for me. To be proud of me. Tell me Good Job. So I could stop thinking I\u2019m such a failure. Because I strived for college but can\u2019t pay and will likely defer a year and I\u2019ll see my friends leave and I will stay. Jon Sands is up in front of people. A mic before him. Performing poems. All I want to do is write poems. Touch someone with my poems. I want someone to like them. What am I doing with my life that I\u2019m not on stage. That I\u2019m not There? If I were There I wouldn\u2019t know another hungry night, I wouldn\u2019t be scared to pray. I wouldn\u2019t wake up feeling so weak. I\u2019d be doing something with my life. I\u2019d&#8230;I\u2019d&#8230; Did you ever ask yourself, Kanye, what am I doing with my life that I\u2019m not There? If you did. What was your answer?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Roxane Gay\u2019s advice to young women writers:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cEveryone has a voice. It\u2019s just a question of just finding the courage to use it, and the first step in finding the courage is knowing that no matter who you are or how quiet you think your voice is, your voice matters. You\u2019re never going to please everyone with what you say, but you don\u2019t have to worry about that. You have to only satisfy yourself to start with, and I think, with that kind of acceptance, you can begin to use your voice. Regardless of any insecurities you feel have to have an innate confidence in yourself and your voice because if you don\u2019t believe in your voice, then no one else is going to listen.\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Roxane Gay<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Molly MacDermot is the Director of Special\u00a0Initiatives\u00a0at Girls Write Now I\u2019ve had the honor of editing five annual-anthologies for Girls Write Now. Today\u2019s next generation of women writers are alright, and their stories are making the world better. They\u2019re also making me feel better \u2014filling me with hope. When Tin House editor Masie Cochran proposed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1923,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21121],"tags":[21395,25799,39367,39368,100],"class_list":["post-8796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-ink","tag-girls","tag-girls-write-now","tag-next-generation","tag-women-writers","tag-youth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8798,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8796\/revisions\/8798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}