BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: New York, NY
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Maeve has taught me how to look—really look. At artwork in the garden of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. At the way the darkness changes after the winter solstice until one day the sky seems lighter. She has taught me that the link between just talking and writing is not always direct. What seem like random digressions percolate inside her and can lead to a piece a month or two later. I have also learned that you can order online from Starbucks so your drink is waiting for you when you arrive.
Snow That Grows
MAEVE SLON
This story was inspired by an application question asking what my magical object was. Not sure what to write, I searched my room for an object, when I remembered the Christmas I spent in Indiana.
My two brothers and I grew up in the city. Despite our slightly large apartment, from the time we were babies to when we were in our teens, we all shared a room and everything else. When we were little, we also shared the same imagination and believed in everything, from magical beings that came overnight—like Santa or the Tooth Fairy—to silly fairy tales. Each holiday added another being to our list.
My favorite was Christmas. Weeks before, the cold air would taste like mint and everything would feel lighter when my family and I walked around a city wrapped in lights and red bows. It was impossible to forget the magical day was near.
The winter I was seven, my family decided to drive from our New York City home to spend Christmas in Indiana. My mom had grown up there, but we rarely went back.
The house had belonged to my mom’s grandparents, but once they died, it remained empty until my uncle moved in. On the drive there, I did not remember what the house looked like since I had not been there in a long time. While the car passed flat roads, malls, and cornfields, I drew pictures of what I imagined the house might look like. When we finally arrived, it was even bigger and more beautiful. My brothers and I, happy to stand again after the long car ride, could not believe our eyes. Inside was even better. The smell of food filled the house, and Christmas music played softly as we all greeted one another. Everything about it was magical, like every movie and children’s book was about this house. Snow grew feet from the ground, and there were enough bedrooms for the three of us to have our own rooms.
My brothers and I lived out a fairy tale for the days before and after Christmas, pretending the giant house belonged to us, pretending that we were royalty. On Christmas Eve, we were all ready for bed just as the sun dipped down into darkness. We put out cookies and milk for Santa, and we watched cartoons until we were forced upstairs to sleep. I lay wide awake in the giant bed alone in the room, looking out at the sky. I fell asleep watching the stars twinkle, shutting my eyes to hold all the excitement.
When I awoke, snow had fallen on the long tree branches and the ground was covered in a white blanket. The sun had barely risen and peeked through the skeleton trees that sparkled from the ice. Without another second, I threw the heavy itchy blankets off me, jumped out of bed, and tiptoed to my brother Nigel’s room across the hall. I opened the door slowly and walked over to the bed and whispered in his ear, “It’s Christmas.” His eyes seemed to shoot open, and soon we were both wide awake, tiptoeing to see what had been left under the tree.
When we got to the stairs, we both stood there for a moment, afraid to see what might be. And then we ran. Down the stairs as our tiny feet made pattering noises against the carpet. And there was the tree, glowing in the center of the room, and underneath, packs of presents. I don’t remember what we got—I don’t think it matters. I remember only the magic that was in that house.
A few years after that Christmas, my family sold the house. I can no longer return, but it will forever be the most magical place in my memories.
American Dreamers
VIVIAN CONAN
This piece is dedicated to Nona, my grandmother, who was Generation F without knowing what feminism was.
Nona and Papoo, my Greek-Jewish grandparents, sailed to America in 1903 knowing no English. When their ship docked at Ellis Island, doctors determined that Nona’s eyes were infected. Without explanation, an official put a chalk mark on the back of her coat and sent her to one line. Papoo was directed to another line. Finding an immigration worker who spoke Albanian, one of the languages he knew, Papoo learned that Nona was going to be deported. The man advised Papoo to rub the chalk off Nona’s coat and bring her to his line. Papoo put his arm around his wife, and as they walked, he moved it up and down her back, removing the chalk. In that way, they entered America together.
Papoo sewed in factories and later built small multifamily homes in Brooklyn that are still in use today. Nona sewed in the basement at home. When an inspector fined her $25 for having factory machines in a residential building, Nona went to court to ask the judge how else she could work and still take care of her children. The fine was not waived, and Nona paid it. A few days later, she received a personal check for $25 in the mail. It was from the judge.
Nona and Papoo had eight children in America. One was my mother, who became an elementary school principal. At her retirement party, the PTA president gave a speech. “When Mrs. Conan came to this school, our children did not read. Now our children read!” Another was my uncle. During WWII, he was an Air Force navigator who made quick in-flight calculations under enormous pressure, a job that today is done by computers. After the war, he became a math teacher.
My grandparents had fifteen grandchildren, all second-generation Americans. One is a family court judge. One is an economist who worked for the Federal Reserve. I am a librarian and mentor at Girls Write Now.
Though Nona and Papoo lived to their mid-nineties, it was not long enough to know all of their twenty-three great-grandchildren. These include a veterinarian, a humanitarian aid worker, the manager of a university radio station, and an engineer who did a college internship at NASA.
When Nona was in her nineties, she said to me, “Huh! They were going to send me back because of my eyes, and still I don’t wear glasses!”
TASNIM TARANNUM
YEARS AS MENTEE: 2
GRADE: Senior
HIGH SCHOOL: Baccalaureate School for Global Education
BORN: Bogra, Bangladesh
LIVES: Queens, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: “Opportunity,” Girlboss (October 2017); Scholarship for New York Road Runners Run for the Future Program (2018)
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: I am pretty proud of all the hard work I put into my essays and short stories. Having a mentor with whom I can share my love of chocolate concoctions while we discuss literature, politics, and silly stories has been a great experience. Being part of a community of supportive writers has also been a dream come true for me. Since I will be entering college in the fall, I hope to carry on the lessons learned from the Girls Write Now community, ranging from editing skills to collaborative working style.
NAN BAUER-MAGLIN
YEARS AS MENTOR: 4
OCCUPATION: Professor (retired), Writer
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: New York, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Coeditor of six books; Author of “Mentoring at Girls Write Now,” Radical Teacher, vol. 109, 2017
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Usually we work at the 42nd Street library, but one cold January day, Tasnim suggested we meet at a French-Korean café. The shiny café was piled high with glazed and stuffed sweet pastries. While revising a college essay, we both happily munched on chocolate concoctions. Tasnim ambitiously wrote many college supplemental essays this year; with each completed piece, she became a better editor. After her first year with Girls Write Now, she expanded her horizons by training with the New York Road Runners Run for the Future program. I cannot wait to see all that she takes on in college.
The Tale of the Wind Chimes and the Disgruntled Demoness
TASNIM TARANNUM
This piece was inspired by a painting of The Demoness of
Tibet at the Rubin Museum of Art, upon which I based the three female characters in my flash fantasy fiction story. The protagonist, Rose, is an Asian American girl who helps her grandmother run an Asian antiques shop.
You can tell when someone enters by the sound of the wind chimes on the door. If it is a light, slightly airy sound, this person takes caution and does not want to disturb anyone whilst entering. If it is a more abrupt, robust chime, it’s either a person in a rush to catch the train or a person who has stumbled here by accident to our antiques shop full of Asian merchandise. However, if it is a long, continuous string of chimes, it is probably the wind. The wind howls especially when the temperature drops in the middle of November.
They say the people of Hollow Township are warm-blooded folk; if only that extended to me. Armed with my fluffy red hat, layers of brightly woven and intricately tied scarves, and two pairs of wooly brown socks, I was ready to fend off any storm.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the onslaught of chimes that came from a disgruntled human. I tried to muster up the courage after being shaken by her appearance. I smiled and politely asked her if she would like any help. When she blinked, instead of regular eyelids it looked like she had snakelike slits and green tints in her skin.
“Well, do you have any trinkets?”
When she smiled, she reminded me of a reptile. Yet she had more grace and stature than any human I had ever met.
“We have some in this chest, if you’re interested.” I pointed at an ebony black chest painted elegantly with gold symbols by my grandmother, who was a master of calligraphy. My grandmother told me she wrote the word “entrances” on the chest in Bengali, a language connected to my family.
“Yes, I am definitely interested.” She suddenly appeared closer to the chest. It was jarring to see her move so abruptly. She threw the lid open, flicking trinkets over her shoulder. Soon there were no trinkets left, as she threw the chest away carelessly. With a cold smile, she materialized out of the shop, leaving me in a daze. Except for the trinkets on the floor that looked like a gold mine exploded and the slight ring of the chimes, there was no indication that anyone had been there.
When I kneeled down to pick up a coin, it disappeared. Whilst occupied, my grandmother appeared in a spring-green dress behind me. Considering how close our apartment was and the ruckus that occurred, I wasn’t surprised that she came down. She assessed the situation with a smile on her face as the floor looked less like King Midas dropped by. In moving her hand, I glimpsed a part of her skin that looked discolored; the cause might be the burden of running the store. That’s why I agreed to help out part-time after school and on weekends.
“You look like you had a lively morning. Don’t worry too much or else you will get wrinkles just like your old man,” she said, referring to my grandfather, who worried over the smallest things.
I peered at my grandmother’s face. She had a few wrinkles around her eyes, but what was striking were the faint swirls on the side of her face. I took in her posture and her face that closely resembled my aunt’s. Her long fingers were covered in the same type of swirls that adorned my aunt’s fingers. They both had fingernails that could cut your face into ribbons. When my aunt dressed as a demoness from Southeast Asia during cultural festivals, she painted her skin light green with flecks of gold. I later learned that my grandmother dressed up in a similar manner in her youth.
I recalled the stories about the Southeast Asian demoness that my grandmother often told me in between takes of her charcoal black pipe. Stretching out her legs toward the crackling fire, I would lay my head on the blue pillow as she told me tales of a culture that was still an integral part of our family. Remembering the warmth of those stories, my mind filled with pity for the demoness that was betrayed by her own people. They were scared of her strength rather than empowered by it.
When the last coin evaporated, I turned my attention back to where my grandmother had been standing. She disappeared into thin air. I assumed she went to the kitchen that connected the store to the rest of her apartment. Rather than finding her there, steaming beef ramen and a note was laid out. The note read, in my grandmother’s perfect handwriting, “You did well on your first task, Rose. Congratulations.”
I looked down at my hands to see glimmers of small green scales that felt rough to the touch. Puzzled, I took the ramen to the old-fashioned dining table and sat down for a hearty meal. The demoness my grandmother told me about was more familiar to me than I’d previously thought. I couldn’t tell if I should be worried about the encounter with the green customer or brush it off as my grandmother would.
Baby Walking
NAN BAUER-MAGLIN
At the Poetic Forms workshop, I attempted to write a sonnet. Inspired by a recent video of my grandson taking his first steps at the beach, I wanted the poem to sound nursery rhyme–like.
D. C. Ace Marino,
such a cute bambino.
Crawling, crawling, eyes bright bebe
mouthing “Mama, Dada,” maybe.
Afternoons she wheels him to the beach,
the Atlantic Ocean soon in reach.
Sand in his mouth, sand in his nose,
One day at fourteen months, he rose.
Giddy, wobbly, he rushes headlong;
unsteady, falling, laughing, sing-song.
“Careful, careful,” she warns.
Waving sea shells, he yawns.
Domenick Christian Ace Marino,
More drunken sailor than bambino.
JANIAH TAYLOR
YEARS AS MENTEE: 2
GRADE: Junior
HIGH SCHOOL: Academy for Young Writers
BORN: Brooklyn, NY
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: I always thought that getting a new mentor would be hard for me. Yet this year, my mentor really went beyond my expectations. She is extremely motivational and supportive with my work, and always inspires me to be better. I owe a lot to her, because I wouldn’t be doing a lot of things such as entering contests without her, and I am extremely grateful to her.
LYNDSEY REESE
YEARS AS MENTOR: 1
OCCUPATION: Product Support Lead, Squarespace
BORN: Cincinnati, OH
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Since we’ve met, I’ve been so impressed by Janiah’s creativity, enthusiasm, and determination. We’ve experimented with so many forms this year, and it’s all because of her willingness to try new things and go outside of her comfort zone. She’s inspired me to take risks in my own writing and reminded me of how much joy exists in the writing process.
Anxiety’s Wildest Dreams
JANIAH TAYLOR
This is an excerpt from an essay. I’ve never written anything like this before. It’s about anxiety and its effects on how people see their future. In this part, I go back to the point in my life where my anxiety started and go into how it defined my future.
Junior year is supposed to be one of the most stressful years in your high school life. Making it halfway through, still surviving this hellhole of a year, is a miracle. The expectation is truly high because this is the year you are “supposed” to decide what you are going to do for the rest of your life.
You ask yourself, “What do I really want to do with my life?” You never truly know, like you are picking a flavor of ice cream out of the array you are presented with. I’ve never had a doubt in my mind that one day I’ll be a musician. Yet what society puts on mute is the fear behind pursuing your dream—the anxiety behind becoming something you’re not even sure you can be. Although I know what I want, I am always doubtful of whether I can achieve it or not. The American ideal is to work hard in order to get to the top. It makes it difficult for people with anxiety to compete with people with more vigor and skill than you can handle. Yet some say just to brush it off and not let fear hold you back. But with anxiety holding the leash, it makes it easier to limit our own freedom.
Ever since I was lit
tle, my family and friends told me that I would do great things. The whole dream big idea was put in front of me like a plate of food because people saw that I had the skills and talents to be something great. I listened, but I don’t think I ever believed in myself. From the perspective of a little nine-year-old girl, I wasn’t quite grasping what people saw in me yet. Besides, what could a black girl from Staten Island do? I saw myself in the same place for a long time and I thought things would never change, because why would they change? But the next thing I knew, my family and I moved out to Brooklyn and my life was flipped upside down.
I still did everything I was supposed to, and that’s what people saw. But on the inside, I was collapsing piece by piece. I stayed behind in a world I didn’t know or understand. That year was when I first started feeling that I was truly alone in my problems and that everyone was too busy to hear about how I was feeling. From what I remember, I was deemed overdramatic. And though I had my moments, that’s how people defined me forever. I didn’t feel as though my feelings were accounted for, so I thought no one would ever understand me. Being that way made me take situations into my own hands, which changed my whole personality. Between fourth and eighth grade, I was aggressive and oftentimes got into physical and verbal fights. I kept things to myself, and every so often I would blow up because I could never hold in my anger. I thought that being violent was the only way to get people to not walk over me. It took me a while to realize that my anxiety took form in all of those fights. I thought the worst of it was over. But it only reshaped itself again.
Anxiety
LYNDSEY REESE
Janiah and I often talk about what it’s like to deal with anxiety. Her wonderful essay inspired me to write about my experiences, too.
We go everywhere together, its fingers in mine. We walk into meetings, bars, cramped living rooms. We step out of the house, underdressed, without an umbrella, our keys on the kitchen table. I open my mouth and it speaks. We write and rewrite and erase. I look at a blank page. It says, “You’re back where you started.” I walk a long path toward forgetting, but it remembers. We stay up nights. We sleep in late. We repeat. I take a deep breath. Then another. I tell myself a kinder story. It listens. We find relief.
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