Speaking up

About 13 years ago, I was living in New York City and had a few years in the publishing industry under my belt. Looking for some way to give back, I decided to volunteer for an organization called Girls Write Now. Founded in 1998, GWN is New York’s first and only mentoring organization that pairs professional writers, editors and other publishing professionals with girls hoping to hone their writing skills. The girls attend workshops, have one-on-one mentoring sessions and learn how to pitch stories to magazines and send submissions to writing contests.

According to the organization’s website, these teens are 90 percent high-need and 95 percent girls of color. One hundred percent of GWN’s seniors attend college.

It goes without saying that the experience was a valuable one. While I’m not sure the girls I was paired with learned anything from me, each one of them taught me more in those years than I ever bargained for.

The same can be said for “Girls Write Now: Two Decades of True Stories From Young Female Voices.” With more than 100 independent essays and inspirational quotes from Roxane Gay, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Gloria Steinem and other female authors sprinkled in, the book is a time capsule of longing, rage, hope, fear, lust and ambition — a cacophony of emotions laid bare by some of the most talented and honest minds of this new generation.

Not all of the works are polished. Some are less than a page long, while others seem overtly raw and unedited. But it’s the wide-ranging subject matter, from immigrating to a new country, to finding religion, to rape, to coming out to one’s parents that makes the collection such a necessary read.

Now more than ever, girls’ voices need to be heard. Forgive the soapbox, but an anthology such as this one, one that openly discusses what it’s actually like to be female in America, should be required reading in libraries and schools across America. You never know; it might just make a difference.