Easy Ways to Help WriteGirl

Easy Steps to Signing Up with Ralph’s and Using iGive, Cars4Causes and GoodSearch to Benefit WriteGirl

Signing Up with Ralph’s Community Contribution Program:
Go to http://www.ralphs.com/myralphs/703/Pages/community_contribution.aspx.
Click “Enroll.” You’ll need to register with Ralph’s by providing your email address and a password. If you’ve registered in the past, simply sign in to your account. Next, you’ll need to enter your Ralph’s Rewards number (on the lower left corner of the back of your card). Click “Save Changes” and on the next page, enter your address and phone number. Click “Save Changes.” On the next page, you can search for your organization. Enter WriteGirl. WriteGirl will come up, complete with our address and organization number. It will also say that WriteGirl is a project of Community Partners. Select WriteGirl as your organization by clicking in the circle next to it so that the circle is now green. Save your selection by clicking “Save Changes.” WriteGirl will now receive a portion of your purchases at Ralph’s! You’ll even see some small print at the bottom of your receipt saying as much – it feels good!

Signing Up with iGive:
Go to http://www.igive.com/welcome/ On the left of the page will be two drop down menus asking for your state and cause. You can either choose California and Youth/Children and find WriteGirl (on page 51) or simply type WriteGirl into the keyword search. WriteGirl will come up on the right; click on its name. A description will pop up, and to its right, you can click on “Select this cause!” You’ll then need to fill in some required information (email, name, zip code, password, tax preference) and can fill in optional info if you wish. You can then install the iGive toolbar if you wish and your computer is compatible, since you’ll need to shop through iGive’s portal for donations to follow. Otherwise, simply start off at the iGive Mall and choose your store from there. If you make a purchase within 45 days, an extra $5 will go to WriteGirl. Over 700 stores participate with iGive, including Amazon.com, 1-800-PETMEDS, Barnes & Noble, the Gap, Apple, eLuxury, Drugstore.com, Enterprise Rental Car, FAO Schwartz, J. Jill, Kiehl’s, Kmart, L.L. Bean, Overstock.com, REI, Saks, Sur la Table, Victoria’s Secret, Williams Sonoma, … etc., etc. (donations vary per store, but some give as much as 6% of your purchase back to WriteGirl).

You can also start searching through iSearchiGive, a Yahoo!-powered search engine, which will donate a penny or more every time you search.

Using GoodSearch:
Go to http://www.goodsearch.com/ and where it asks you to “Choose your cause,” type in WriteGirl. WriteGirl, Los Angeles, CA will come up, and you’ll just complete your search, with a donation going to WriteGirl. Consider installing the GoodSearch toolbar or making it your homepage so you’ll search on it more often and thus raise more money for WriteGirl.

Donating to Cars 4 Causes:
Go to http://www.cars4causes.net, where you can donate your car, boat, RV or motorcycle, whether it still runs or not. You’ll need to complete a Vehicle Donation form or call 1-800-766-CARE (2273) and be sure to indicate WriteGirl as the charity you wish to receive support. You’ll then schedule a no-cost pick-up and Cars 4 Causes will sell your vehicle and donate to WriteGirl. Note we are not on the website’s Partial List of Charities Accepting Auto Donation Benefits – don’t worry, simply choose WriteGirl as your charity when you donate.

Thank you for donating to WriteGirl in all these ways and for passing along these instructions to your friends & family!

 

PlayWriteGirl – May 3rd – One Night Only

WriteGirl is partnering with the acclaimed Pasadena Playhouse for PlayWriteGirl, which will be held May 3 at the Pasadena Playhouse.
From 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m., more than 65 teen girls from Pasadena and beyond, along with their mentors, will participate in the workshop part of PlayWriteGirl. They will learn about monologue and scene-writing in sessions led by guest writers, including screenwriter Robin Swicord (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), screenwriter Gina Prince-Bythewood (Secret Life of Bees), producer Jennifer Crittenden (The New Adventures of Old Christine, Seinfeld), Martha Williamson and Jule Selbo (Touched by an Angel) and playwrights Laural Meade and Jennie Webb.
The pieces the girls write during the day will be performed on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse during a benefit event that evening at 6pm. The proceeds will go toward bringing the WriteGirl program to Pasadena for the 2009-2010 season.
Keren Taylor, WriteGirl’s executive director, said, “Seeing the actors perform the words that the girls wrote just that day is an amazing, can’t-miss experience. This year, we are incredibly grateful to have such talented writers and actors taking part in PlayWriteGirl.”
The evening event kicks off with a short reception and silent auction on the plaza at 4:30 p.m., followed by a performance of WriteGirl works presented by celebrated actors (6:00 p.m.–7:30 p.m.).
The actors include Melora Hardin and Kate Flannery (The Office), Erin O’Brien, Sprague Grayden (24), Ellyn Stern, Dana Delany and James Denton (Desperate Housewives), JoBeth Williams (Dexter), Annie Potts (Designing Women, Boston Legal), and many more.
There also will be a post-cocktail reception at which guests can mingle with the actors, with catering by Nancy Silverton, Border Grill and Ciudad Catering and Silverlake Wine, among many others.
Tickets are available online at www.pasadenaplayhouse.org or by calling (626) 737 – 2867. Ticket prices are $20 for the performance ($10 for students); $50 for the pre-reception, silent auction and performance; and $100 for the pre- and post-reception and the performance.
“I am tremendously happy that the Playhouse is hosting this collaboration with WriteGirl, especially as part of our year long celebration of WOMEN: The Heart and Soul of Theatre on our stage,” said Pasadena Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps. ”When I heard about their work, I was immediately attracted to the valuable creative opportunities that this organization offers and I wanted the Playhouse to find a connection with this program as part of this special season. I look forward to having the energy and creativity of these young women filling our theatre in early May.”

 

Mentee Welcome Day 2008

WriteGirls are inspired by a writing experiment at the Welcome Day.

October 28, 2008, Expo Center.  The mentee welcome day was a great chance for old friends to reconnect and for the new members to become integrated into the WriteGirl community. Everyone had a chance to pick out an awesome journal, a trusty side kick for all writing endeavors. Along with meeting and greeting, we participated in some great activities. We had the chance to discuss locations by putting our houses on a map which became the jumping off point for some creative writing. We were also inspired from old photographs and decorating journals with stamps, tissue paper, magazine cutouts and other materials. Everyone who came had a great time. What a wonderful way to kick off the new season.

– Janelle F., age 17

 

Women’s Conference 2008

October 21-22, 2008.  Long Beach California.

Living, laughing, loving, crying are the four words that describe the 2008 Women’s Conference.  Organized by California First Lady Maria Shriver, it’s the only place I can think of where you’ll find Condoleezza Rice, Bono, Gloria Steinem, Warren Buffet and Jennifer Lopez can all be seen in the same room. The conference covered topics starting from strength and courage to business and entrepreneurship. They succeeded in covering every topic in between. Whether it was advice or a personal story, I can guarantee that everyone in the audience learned something. The Women’s Conference was spiritual, environmental; it offered information about parenting, finance and activism. Although it was a little lengthy and there wasn’t any place to rest our legs (especially in the seats we were given), the important thing is that it was informational and enjoyable.

– Fahiya  R., 17

 

WriteGirls Celebrate the End of the Season

The lights dim as the show begins.

On June 29th, 2008, WriteGirls and their mentors, the WriteWomen, celebrated the end of the season at the Writers Guild of America Theater in Beverly Hills. WriteGirls read their pieces from the new anthology and gave writing tips to an audience of mentors, volunteers, parents, and even some actors from a screenwriting workshop, including Sprague Grayden from the TV show Jericho.

This was the first opportunity for the girls to see the anthology, Listen to Me: Shared Secrets from WriteGirl. Everyone flipped through their copies. They looked to see which of their submissions ended up being published and read pieces written by their friends and mentors.

The performance ran smoothly. The onstage choreography coordinated by Keren Taylor did not fail the girls, and pieces were read lucidly and passionately. Parents were blown away by the sophisticated writing that they might not have known their daughters wrote, while mentors enjoyed watching their mentees present the pieces that they helped them to write.

After the performance, the girls grabbed their goodie bags filled with books, notepads, and toiletries donated by WriteGirl sponsors and headed out to the lobby to mingle with the audience. Delicious snacks were served and parents bid on items in the silent auction.

As the gathering neared an end, people started taking pictures together and saying goodbye. This was the saddest part of the event, for the girls would not see each other until the next season, and many girls were off to college in other cities in the fall. This also meant that some mentor-mentee pairs would be split up.

Overall the performance was a great experience for WriteGirls to show off their writing skills to the world and an excellent end to the season. Listen to Me is a fabulous book filled with beautiful writing that covers all genres and appeals to all interests. It is an essential addition to any bookshelf, so I suggest you buy it! It is available on Writegirl.org and Amazon.com.

–Evelyn H., age 17

 

Screenwriting Workshop a Success!

March 29, 2008 – WriteGirl’s March 2008 workshop on Character Development and Monologue took place at the American Film Institute in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz. Working actors and screenwriters, including Academy-award winning screenwriter Diablo Cody attended.

The WriteGirl blog asked Tanja Laden (TL) and her mentee Karen T. (KT) to give their impressions of the day. Tanja is a freelance writer and full-time video editor, who graduated from Occidental College. Karen attends Eagle Rock High. Using what they learned, the duo crafted the following “dialogue” at one of their regular meetings.

Women from all fields of Writing

KT: The location gave the inspiration to write anything. That is what we as writers want. So kudos to WriteGirl for that. The exercise that used characters from Spoon River Anthology (by Edgar Lee Masters) at the beginning of the workshop was a clever method to inspire us to begin writing.

TL: I was inspired by that writing exercise as well. I managed to eek out a few creative screenplay ideas of my own, which was surprising considering my utter lack of interest in screenwriting in general! It was especially amazing to see the girls’ works acted out onstage. Karen, how did it feel to know that your work might be performed at the end of the day?

KT: We mentees were shuffling into the theater and murmuring in excitement, hoping our pieces would be performed. WriteGirl founder Keren Taylor and the workshop leaders sat in a row, waiting to give feedback. The actors came up and performed their hysterical, tragic, love-struck, or damn plain original scenes. Bringing actors we recognized to perform our scenarios was brilliant. It is a big difference to see your own creation acted out onstage.

TL: Your piece was the only tragedy that was performed. Were you impressed with the actors’ performance of it?

KT: It was very good. The actress who played my insane character acted great. I was trembling in my own seat the whole time! It was cool.

From the Daily News article on March 30, 2008 by Connie Llanos: “[Diablo Cody] said that Saturday’s experience was probably just as enriching for her as it was for the girls. ‘It would have been awesome to have something like this as a kid,’ Cody said.”

 

WriteGirls make news, and blog too.

April 19, 2008 – WriteGirl returned to the Expo Center for a Journalism workshop. Presenters included Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison, blogger Colleen Wainwright, KNBC-TV Executive Producer Rebecca Nieto, and Adrianna Dunn of HuffingtonPost.com.

Part of the day focused on writing blogs. Here are excerpts from blogs about a wide variety of subjects that girls starting writing at the workshop.

Janelle F., 11th grade, wrote:

“Artists like Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet often painted landscapes with vivid colors of fields and haystacks. I’m a writer and artist, and if I looked out my window, the scenery would be far from Van Gogh’s brightly colored corn fields. I would find a field of packed, paint peeled houses. Instead of green shady trees, I would run into industrial buildings and cars.

If I were to paint what I thought Los Angeles should be, instead of deep green hues, I would pour on globs of gray, black, and brown paint. The only color comes from the dotted roofs of cars. Endless streams of cars have now become the modern river.”

Toree B., 10th grade, wrote:

“Many children are abused by a relative or someone close to them. It can be physically, emotionally, or verbally. It hurts a child dramatically and usually affects them in a negative way.

I was a victim of verbal abuse and I can tell you, it hurts when someone is beating down on you for the simplest reasons. So, don’t let anyone abuse you and never abuse anyone else.”

Mariah D., 12th grade, wrote:

“At my high school, we have a unity club. The basis of the club is to accept and promote respect for all forms of sexual orientation. The club is one of the constantly popular booths at our annual Club Faire every year. How wonderful, right? Well it’s my senior year and our prom is only a month and a half away.

I am set on who I wish to share this experience with – my hilarious friend, Marcus. But a guy named Robert who wants to bring his partner Greg, or a girl named Jennifer wants to bring her partner Tasha, are stuck. They are stuck in an agonizing situation, for they cannot bring a same sex partner to the prom.

Our school has the nerve to celebrate its diversity, but not when prom night creeps around the corner. So much for the “Home of Scholars and Champions.”

– Anthea Raymond, WriteGirl Volunteer

 

Poetry Stand Gets The Word Out

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

 

Poetry Workshop Gets Real With WriteGirl Café

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

 

TECH TIME: WRITEGIRLS GO WIDE ON THE NET

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.