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WriteGirl mentor Alexandra Gazzaniga studied poetry at USC. She still writes it today. She and her mentee Janelle F. meet weekly at The Coffee Bean. Lately, they’ve been testing a new way to make poetry fun and inclusive so they decided to set up a poetry stand.

“Both Janelle and I are a little shy,” says Alexandra. “It’s a little intimidating to go up to people. So we just made a sign with a catchy little poem that starts ” ‘Want a poem with your latte?’ and put it near us.”

Turns out the pair’s first customer liked her poems so much that she gave them five dollars each. Alexandra and Janelle donated the money to WriteGirl. Alexandra and Janelle don’t set up their stand every week – it can be distracting to recruit customers. But they like the way it gets them thinking in new ways.

The goal is to write poetry on the fly and from another point of view. Teens see that poetry has a real place in the world and can be useful. Customers can memorialize events, like birthdays and weddings or they can get lyrics for a specific purpose, like a love poem or a travel poem.

Here are a few of the people who’ve approached Alexandra and Janelle at their stand:

-A college student going away for study abroad wanting to bring a poem with her.

-A woman who asked for a poem on sunshine.

-A woman who asked for a poem for a troubled relationship with her partner.

So try it. And, of course, please write us and let us know how it goes.

–Anthea Raymond

The second semester of my senior year has shot my memory. So that’smy excuse for barely remembering the WriteGirl “Poetry Workshop” held Saturday, February 23 at the Expo Center. I do remember snippets: the daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson on the Writer’s Altar poster,presented by a mentor and her mentee; eating several delicious noodle-related casseroles at lunch; and, listening to three out of seven “poetry muses” recite their work before admiring crowds. Cassandra Love was my favorite of those three. She writes raw, realistic poetry about her teenage years. She demonstrated that it’s admirable and brave to share even your painful moments through writing.

Cecilia Woloch was a special guest lecturer toward the end of the workshop—interesting and articulate. I wished she could have spoken longer. Poet RoniGirl was another muse I heard recite; I liked her pop culture references to singers of past eras. Sholeh Wolpe, Gail Wronsky, Ashaki Jackson, and WriteGirl Executive Director Keren Taylor were also acting as muses. I was sad that I didn’t have time to hear all of them.

Every WriteGirl event workshop ends with a reading. This month someone had the brilliant idea of setting up the reading as an Open Mike Afternoon at WriteGirl Café. It seemed like a real poetry reading, with live drumming, an MC, and a cushioned seating area.

I’ve read only once or twice in my year plus at WriteGirl. I onlysigned up to read this time because I didn’t realize I was supposed to read poetry that very day. Unprepared, I read an excerpt from a nonfiction piece I’d written during the workshop. The mentors – warm, encouraging, smart women who really know how to make girls feel good about themselves and their accomplishments – are a big reason WriteGirl is special to me, and they combined with the supportive mentees to be a great audience, so I felt pretty good about reading.

I realized after I’d read that reading isn’t all that scary. I might even be willing to try again – this time with a little more confidence. Reading also made me want to polish my first drafts up directly after writing them so I have something really good ready to go.

-– Nell G., age 18

Pens tapping, fingers typing, and women speaking 100 miles a minute. A little laugh here or there. But these women with pens were all burning brain cells for one purpose — how to use the Internet to globalize Writegirl.

Chocolate covered pretzels, imac computers, and the chocolate lab Wasabi all prepared us to answer the substantial questions that laid ahead of us. What type of Youtube account shall we create? What about our MySpace page? What kind of account should we have on Facebook? What should go on our blog that would be different than our website content? Which format gives the most features and limits confusion? What should be the voice and tone of our Internet pages? What content is appropriate?

We decided that we wanted the blog to have three columns. Why? To better display our various content areas, such as our books, our authors and our comment, as well as minimize confusion for our soon to be sponsors, volunteers, and future Writegirls! Then, as the clock ticked away so did our mental power, and we began to think about getting home. For some it’s a relaxing ritual never to be broken. For others the relaxing takes place in the car, since getting home just means more work that needs doing. (This blog entry, for example.) But whatever our takes on that one, the women with pens all committed to meet once more before the March workshop to further our plans to reach the world, one step at a time.

–Fahiya R.

WriteGirl Executive Director Keren Taylor attended the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference in NYC this week, and here are some of her fave soundbites from a variety of panels on writing, publishing and teaching:

“Learn every art form you can in this lifetime.”

“The difference between poets and other people? Poets think about death ALL the time.”

“Writers write best when they are free of self-censorship. But sometimes, specific constraints can free up the creativity. For example, write a story using only one-syllable words.”

“Write into grayness, into not-knowing.”

Last Thursday, January 24th, WriteGirl volunteers, supporters, and honorees gathered at the Grammy Foundation in Santa Monica to celebrate the 2008 Bold Ink Awards. Despite some rare heavy Los Angeles rain, the festivities went on fabulously!

This year, WriteGirl honored eight female writers for their accomplishments.

Diablo Cody: Screenwriter, Juno. Author of “Candy Girl”.<P.Liz Craft and Sarah Fain: Executive Producers and Writers, The Shield and Women’s Murder Club. Authors of “Bass Ackwards and Belly Up” and “Footfree and Fancyloose”.

Callie Khouri: Directed Mad Money. Adapted and directed The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and written the Golden Globe nominated Something to Talk About. In 1992, she won an Oscar for her screenplay Thelma and Louise.

Carol Muske-Dukes: Author of “Channeling Mark Twain”. She is the recipient of several awards including The Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mona Simpson: Author of “Anywhere But Here”, “The Lost Father”, “A Regular Guy”, and “Off Keck Road”.

Robin Swicord: Playwright, “Last Days at the Dixie Girl Cafe”. Screen adaptations of Little Women, The Perez Family, Matilda, Practical Magic and the Oscar-winning Memoirs of a Geisha.

Patt Morrison: Reporter, columnist, commentator and media personality. Ms. Morrison has won five Emmys, four Golden Mike Awards, and a Pulitzer.

Our 2008 honorees from left to right: (middle row) Diablo Cody, Robin Swicord, Keren Taylor, Carol Muskie Dukes, Mona Simpson (back row) Sarah Fain, Liz Craft. (bottom row) Melissa Castillo, Nadine Levyfield, Corie Coleman and Allie List

With all the wisdom these Bold Ink honorees have gathered through their experiences, we asked them to tell us what advice they have for aspiring young writers. Here is what they had to impart:

“It doesn’t matter what you write, just keep writing.” - Diablo Cody

“Be fearless. You know your own mind.” - Carol Muske-Dukes”

We feel riddled with self-decrimation. But that’s where the ‘bold’ comes from. It’s okay to be scared. It’s necessary.” - Liz Craft and Sarah Fain

“When I was young, people asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. I said, ‘I am a writer’. They asked again, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ I said, ‘I am a writer’.” - Robin Swicord

“Stop making noise and say something!” - Callie Khouri

We are proud to announce that during the ceremony, Norma Vega, on behalf of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, presented an award to WriteGirl commending the accomplishments made in work with Los Angeles youth. Including the astouding accomplishment of sending 100% of WriteGirl mentees to college.

Thank you to everyone who made the 2008 Bold Ink Awards possible!

At the January 12th, 2008 Fiction Workshop in the EPICC at USC, WriteGirl mentees, mentors, and volunteers were lucky enough to be graced by the wisdom and experience of fiction writers Gina Nahai and Janet Fitch.

The WriteGirl Workshop Team separated everyone into two groups. Each located in a separate room, Ms. Nahai took one room’s group and Ms. Fitch, the other.

Ms. Fitch began her lesson with an exercise: take ten minutes to write one sentence without stopping.For this exercise there are two rules:

1. Your pen must not stop for ten whole minutes

2. You must not use periods

Reactions to this exercise at first appeared to be utter frustration! Alas, isn’t that the idea? Once we passed the 5 minute mark, all pens in the room seemed to be moving fluidly, without faltering.

Next, Ms. Fitch moved on to her top five lessons for fiction writers:

1. Write for the 5 smartest people you know. Assume that the writer will understand you.

2.Write in scenes. A scene is when someone or something enters and changes the course of the story.

3. Vary the construction of your sentences. Make some long with dependent clauses to deepen the meaning. Make some short for punctuation.

4. Do not use cliches.

5.Don’t buy things on credit cards. Live within your means so that you don’t have to take a job that will distract from writing.

Gina Nahai’s number one tip:”Have faith! Writing takes a lot of faith!”

Gina Nahai is the author of Moonlight on the Avenues of Faith, Cry of the Peacock, and Sunday’s Silence.

Janet Fitch is the author of the acclaimed book White Oleander which was adapted for the screen in 2002. She has also written Paint it Black and Kicks.

What a fantastic workshop that was on Saturday. We counted a total of 130 women and girls in that sun-drenched room! Janet Fitch and Gina Nahai were truly very special guests, offering great writing tips and inspiring experiments. And we have a new tradition at the workshops - the WriteGirl Book Exchange. Mentors and mentees brought fiction books that they wanted to give away, and then our mentees had a chance to pick out a book or two to take home! It was a huge hit with the girls, so we are going to continue this at our monthly workshops.We got to hear from 3 different WriteGirl alumnis about their college experiences, since they were still on break here in LA. It is very exciting to see WriteGirl grow and blossom.

And now, for your listening pleasure, you MUST hear some of these threads from the end of the day:

“I loved the whole Zen writing experiment. I finally found the atmosphere I need to write freely.”

“Although this was moments ago, I really liked hearing about life after WriteGirl from the inspirational alumni girls.”

“It is important to have your own voice – there is no one else like you!”

“Don’t buy things on credit cards!”

“I love the dependent clause fun we had.”

“Today I felt like it was okay to write about things that would’ve been ‘forbidden’ anywhere else. That was nice.”

“I LOVED writing the ten minute sentence because it was a real aerobic exercise for my brain.”

“I enjoyed the tranquil relaxing atmosphere of the last writing exercise…it gave me ideas on how to make time for writing!”

“I am excited to let the characters I met today roam around with me for a while.”

“I learned that although I have been writing only poetry for a while because I thought I was not good at anything else, that is not true. I am good at fiction.”

Check it out - WriteGirl has a blog. 200 writers here and can you believe we are just getting started on a blog! Oh well, we’re here now. Stay tuned for more.