The sun shines hot through the windshield
And she thinks that she will yield
To her appetite for a sandwich
Before she gets up to boogie bandwidth.
She drives to Kettle Cove
Where often she’s known to roam
Whoopie pie in her hand
She thinks of one demand:
We love our Amato’s
So full of tomatoes.
NATHALIE CABRERA
YEARS AS MENTEE: 1
GRADE: Junior
HIGH SCHOOL: A. Philip Randolph Campus High School
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: New York, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: Being with Deb means having meaningful, much-needed conversations. We talk about everything about life in our weekly meetings. Every time I meet her we just feed off each other’s knowledge and we transform this into ideas that become part of our writing as well. Our space has turned into one that is safe and has no filters because no one else gets to judge. It is just us. I love having the opportunity to talk and write and create and have the chance to do things that we love the most.
DEBORAH HEILIGMAN
YEARS AS MENTOR: 3
OCCUPATION: Author of Books for Children and Teens
BORN: Allentown, PA
LIVES: New York, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers (Henry Holt); YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction winner, Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book, Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winner for nonfiction, SCBWI Golden Kite Award winner for nonfiction
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: The first time I met Nathalie, she hugged me, and I knew we were going to be a great pair. And we are. From our very first weekly session, we have been able to talk deeply and truthfully about a range of subjects, from the personal to the political. We talk so much sometimes we realize we haven’t written—yet. And so we write, and when we do, it is magic, the words flowing out of us, into the space of safety and comfort we have created together. I am so grateful to have this opportunity to work with Nathalie.
Mirror
NATHALIE CABRERA
I wanted to write about self-love, about a woman realizing her full potential.
The sky had rose-pink and gold hues woven through it as the wee hours of the morning began to fade away. I walked home, my hands bunched up in my pockets, the cold air numbing my face as I breathed it in. I headed toward a worn-down, tan-colored building, its paint chipping off like LEGO pieces, and an entrance door that often failed to close.
I climbed the stairs to the third floor, and as I unlocked apartment 3C I smelled stale coffee and lavender disinfectant. I sighed wearily at my apartment’s living room: two chocolate-brown couches, a coffee table, and a television. This home lacked any life, it seemed as if no one cared to live in the boring four-white-walled room. I strode to my bedroom, which had sunlight streaming through a crack in the window, illuminating the room with warm kisses.
Peeling the clothes off my body, I reached for my towel. In the bathroom, I stepped into the shower and turned on the faucet. I let the warm water run over my chest, my breasts, and my navel. I turned my back to let the water pound against it.
As the water streamed along the hills and mountains of my body, I sighed deeply in a state of sheer peace. This peace is not something I have grown accustomed to. I have been tormented for many years with my own belittling thoughts. I thought I didn’t deserve to be strong and happy. I told myself I was weak, incapable of being loved or accepted.
This vicious scrutiny terrified me. As the water ran over my body, I realized I was tired—too tired of the violent destruction within me. A destruction that I knew would lead me to lose myself and all I could be.
But this time I allowed myself to be free of those thoughts. I let my mind, for once, be empty.
I reached for a honey bar soap and lathered it on my skin and I rinsed.
When I was finished, and felt clean and ready, I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in the warm, soft towel.
And—
There was a girl staring at herself in a long, narrow rectangular mirror, reflecting her entire body.
I didn’t know who she was or why she was in my room, but I suddenly didn’t have the ability to speak or move. I stood there motionless, in a dreamlike state, almost as if I were part of an audience waiting for a show to unravel. I closed my eyes and then pried them open again, but she was still there. This is real, I told myself, there is a girl, a stranger in my room.
She was completely naked. She stood there admiring her caramel skin, the stretch marks along her wide hips and arms. She admired her small breasts, her lips, and her broad tipped nose.
She was admiring it all. All of herself.
She began to play music on her phone and I recognized the song but couldn’t quite remember the lyrics, just how it made me feel.
She wasn’t a good dancer, but that didn’t matter to her, as she moved and sang along with the song’s fast tempo and rhythm.
As the song began to fade away, she came to a stop and returned to the mirror. She looked at herself, but this time she spoke to her reflection.
“I will learn to accept myself.”
“To forgive myself.”
“To learn how to be my own muse.”
“To learn that my beauty comes from within despite what anybody else may think.”
“To learn that everything will be okay when I reach rock bottom because I will rebuild as much as I have to.”
“I will learn how to finally love myself and become superior to the girl I was yesterday.”
The girl looked in my direction with a softness in her eyes as she slowly walked toward me. She extended her arm and interlaced her hands with mine. We stood there for a good few minutes looking at each other when she said:
“Don’t you recognize me?” A smile spread across her face as she saw my empty eyes.
She then gently cupped my face in her hands and planted a kiss on my forehead. I remained motionless, unable to move or to speak.
My eyes traveled to her face once more and only then it dawned on me that something seemed familiar in the way she carried herself, the energy she exuded.
And only then did it hit me that this girl was me. A better version of me.
Then she was gone. I was alone. And I could move again. I let the towel drop to the floor.
I turned on my music and I told myself:
I am worthy.
I am strong.
I am beautiful.
This is the mantra that I will carry through the rest of my life. It is a reminder that all I need is within myself.
I am worthy.
I am strong.
I am beautiful.
Ashes of Hope: A Prayer
DEBORAH HEILIGMAN
When I sat down to write something for this anthology, all I could think about was apologizing to these girls for the world we’re giving them. My apology turned into a prayer.
Dear Nathalie,
(and Kiana and Cleo and all the young women I know and don’t know in Generation F),
I wanted to write you a poem.
This is not a poem.
This is an apology.
I wanted to write you a poem of hope and praise and encouragement.
Not this.
This is not what I meant to write.
This is not what I meant to say.
But it is what I have to say, right now, in 2018.
I am sorry.
“Sorry” was not the word I had planned to use
when I wrote to you.
When I wrote to you I was going to use the word
PROMISE.
I was going to say:
The future holds promise.
Go for it.
Go for it with all of your might and heart and goodness of purpose.
But might and heart and goodness of purpose—these are only a fraction of the qualities you need now.
What you need now is tenacity and anger and fury and rage.
Rage for the good, rage against the bad.
Those of us who came before you, with hope and idealism, we are angry and sad and mostly we are tired.
We have lost the
fierce spirit we used to have.
Or maybe, I hope, just misplaced it.
I have, I know I have.
I don’t have the right to speak for my whole generation.
I will speak for myself:
My heart is filled with grief.
I am exhausted most of the time.
When I am not exhausted, I am frustrated, my impotence exploding into volcanic flames of fury,
bursting from me, too-hot-to-touch
erupting continuously . . .
I know, I hope, that the eruptions of fury will cool,
turning to ashes and
please, Generation F, let us hope that
from the ashes the phoenix will rise.
May there be a rebirth of hope for me, for all of us.
So this, after all, is not a poem, or an apology, but a prayer:
May there be a rebirth of hope.
Hope for a better world.
Hope for the world you will make.
May there be a rebirth of promise.
A promise that the world can be better, can be yours to
shape.
Make the world yours.
Shape it for good.
This is a prayer.
A plea.
To you.
SAONY CASTILLO
YEARS AS MENTEE: 1
GRADE: Sophomore
HIGH SCHOOL: High School of Art and Design
LIVES: New York, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: Sarah introduced me to new genres such as playwriting and screenwriting. She made me outlines of screenwriting stage directions on Starbucks napkins, which were both helpful and confusing. She always made me laugh. We are pretty weird and talked about the plot of the horror movie The Human Centipede for like forty-five minutes today.
SARAH CONGRESS
YEARS AS MENTOR: 1
OCCUPATION: Executive Assistant to the Deans and Faculty Services Coordinator, Columbia University School of the Arts
BORN: Alexandria, Virginia
LIVES: New York, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: No Knowing Where We’re Rowing, produced by the UP Theatre
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Saony and I quickly learned that we both have a deep love for Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family, and one day we did a TV writing prompt for an episode of our favorite show! Which was very funny and our scripts should totally be produced ASAP.
Because He Liked It
SAONY CASTILLO
My mentor and I share a love of dark humor. We also have been trying to explore power and gender roles . . . while still having fun. I think this piece does both and I definitely had a lot of fun writing it.
A wife’s serial killer was happy as can be, now that he was free.
He did not have to hear any whining or have any fighting. He could go to a bar and look at another woman’s boobs and not get slapped across his beautiful face. ’Cause, boy, was he handsome. At least, he’d like to think so. He could also watch baseball without having the channel changed because it was “too boring.”
Over time, this happy state started to fade. He missed the whining and the fighting. Because, apparently, it is really hard to talk to people buried in your backyard! Turns out, they’re no fun. He wanted someone to change the channel because baseball is, actually, really boring. He no longer wanted to stare at another woman’s boobs because none were as good as his late wife’s . . . so this sad and depressed “widow” husband decided to go out and get himself a new wife.
And he did. She was a maid who he once paid to clean his house. She had beautiful brown hair, green eyes, and the reddest lips he’d ever seen. Her beauty was incomparable to anything or to anyone. He made sure that she wasn’t close to anyone so they wouldn’t interfere. He hated when people “interfered.” He was so in love he thought, You know what? I might keep this one. This gorgeous woman.
But he soon realized that it wasn’t because of beauty or bad habits or personality. It had nothing to do with her at all. It was simply because he liked it.
Love Bite
SARAH CONGRESS
Saony and I love horror movies. So one day, during a weekly meet-up, we decided to write a Generation F–inspired horror fiction prompt—a piece of writing that would explore feminine power and sexuality. These were our results.
Tanya awakes with a start. Her blond hair cascades over her sore and sweaty body as she looks at her phone, which reads 3:03 a.m. A strange man’s arm hugs her waist close to his chest. “Who the hell is that?” She gazes at his pale, white skin, perplexed.
This wasn’t like her. Tanya did not have one-night stands. Tanya did not get drunk. She was pragmatic. She was disciplined. She was a law student, after all.
She gets up and stumbles to the bathroom, “Oh Christ,” she quietly roars, she’d stubbed her right toe on a heavy textbook. “I must still be drunk,” she whispers.
In the bathroom her red eyes looked back at her. Hauntingly. Odd, she thinks. Is that a bite mark on my neck? She peers back into her bedroom, where the strange man rolls over to one side and drags a cigarette from a pack of Marlboro Reds on the nightstand.
With a switch to the left, the shower faucet turns on and out comes steamy, hot water. She jumps in and puts her face under the faucet, letting the water wash off her mascara and her eyeliner and “What on earth?” She looks to her ankle and sees a fresh tattoo of a vampire bat staring back at her. “Impossible . . . it can’t be . . .”
Suddenly the shower door slides open and the strange man stares back at her, cigarette dangling from his fangs . . . his fangs . . .
“It can’t be,” she says.
“Move over, babe, let me get a chance with the hot water.” She catches sight of her reflection in the shower door—a pair of matching fangs stare back at her.
“It just can’t be.”
He winks at her.
“You look pretty without makeup, Tanya. I like you this way.”
“It can’t be.”
“Let’s go hunt after this, what do you say?” He kisses her on the cheek.
She looks at him, at his fangs, at the tattoo on her ankle. “I am never drinking margaritas again,” she declares, decisively, and turns off the shower.
REBECCA CEDENO
YEARS AS MENTEE: 1
GRADE: Junior
HIGH SCHOOL: H.E.R.O. High School
BORN: Bronx, NY
LIVES: Bronx, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: I didn’t know what to expect from a program like this. It is a little more than what I have expected. When I first met Lucy, it was during this icebreaker game, but I did not know that she was my mentor yet, and I was so surprised because it was a cool coincidence. I have bonded a lot with her and she helped me grow more in my writing. I really appreciate her as a friend and a mentor and I am going to miss her and being in Girls Write Now.
LUCY FRANK
YEARS AS MENTOR: 2
OCCUPATION: Writer
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: New York, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling (Schwartz & Wade, 2014), 2011 PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship recipient
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: The very first time we met, Rebecca showed me her notebook, filled with stories. Even so, I came to our first session with a bunch of writing prompts. It was instantly clear Rebecca does not need writing prompts. She is always writing, always has another idea. I have pushed her to take each piece further, deeper, and each week her voice gets stronger, more confident, more daring. And more funny, which makes working with her even more fun. She is inspiring me to be more daring in my writing, too. Thank you, Rebecca. I cannot
wait to see what you come up with next!
I Wanted to Be Cool
REBECCA CEDENO
I always thought that writing was about writing something that makes you feel vulnerable. So I wrote about how I was tormented in middle school about my appearance. I think that anyone can relate to this, female or male. I hope this helps. Be yourself, fuck everyone else.
Okay, so here is the thing. In middle school, I bought Jordans. The shoes, those retro 13s, or whatever number they were, but I don’t really care because I honestly hate Jordans. They are just really ugly to me. (For all the sneakerheads reading this, please don’t slit my throat. I just think it is a really overrated kind of shoe.) Every time I think about how I actually went and got those shoes, it just makes me cringe so hard. They are literally the same style with different colors and the cycle goes on. They are not really new shoes, just a new color. They were pretty pricey. I think for my size they cost $120. Worst of all, I bought them only to be accepted by people I don’t even like.
I got these Jordans because I wanted to be cool. I wanted the bullying to stop, too. A lot of kids in my class would always spit insults at what I wore, especially my shoes. Like, fuck you, I can wear whatever I want. (Of course, I only said that in my head because why cause even more conflict, ya know?) I wanted to be unbothered. Also, I wanted friends, but that did not turn out well for me because they still made fun of me. A waste of money, right?
I was made fun of for having hair on my arms. It was very noticeable, so a lot of kids in my class called me “wolverine” or “werewolf.” So I shaved my arms because I wanted to be cool. I shaved them anytime I saw the hairs growing back at a certain length. I could not risk being made fun of. But all in all, it did not work. But clean arms, right?
Everyone’s favorite thing to make fun of about me was my forehead. So everyone and their mom decided to call me “Megamind.” They basically compared me to the blue guy with the really huge forehead. I cannot lie: It is pretty big. I swear it reached the sky. I could not do much about it, but I did wear my hair down more instead of putting it in a ponytail or anything else that shows my forehead even more. And . . . you guessed it! That didn’t work, either.
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