MARISSA SILVERMAN
YEARS AS MENTOR: 1
OCCUPATION: Associate Professor of Music, John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair State University
BORN: Brooklyn, NY
LIVES: New York, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Gregory Haimovsky: A Pianist’s Odyssey to Freedom; Music Matters: A Philosophy of Music Education
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Meeting and getting to know Roshnie has been an incredible blessing. I have learned so much from her. She has taught me to live authentically and, important, to be true to even the hidden layers of myself. Roshnie has a strength, courage, and “go get ’em” attitude that is as admirable as it is inspiring. Yet she is also notably sensitive and soulful. All of these dispositions come out in everything she does, including her writing. When I grow up, I hope to be just like her.
Warrior of the Ring
ROSHNIE RUPNARAIN
This piece is inspired by my own experiences as a female martial artist. It’s related to the theme Ctrl + B, because it’s bold to do what you love no matter what others say.
I-I can’t breathe. In and out through her nose, she tries; her lips spread, her mouth unavailable, full with a mouthguard. In: one, two, three, four. Out: one, two, three, four. In: one—oh, forget it! This isn’t working.
Today isn’t Riley’s first fight. It’s not the first time she’s standing in this very position, eyes narrowing, nose flaring at her opponent whose own features morph into that of a prey who has just noticed her proximity to a hungry predator. She appears intimidating and it works; it helps give her a head start before her challenger gains a bit more confidence. Riley’s strategy is to attack then lay low, act like she’s already worn out, like she isn’t who she seems to be. But she’ll give off death glares before the fight begins. She uses these moments of defense to find her opponent’s mistakes. When a fighter gives her all, Riley learns where the weaknesses rest, then charges those vulnerabilities until the fight ends and she wins.
Even with years of experience, Riley can’t control her body this time around. Her heart pounds in quick succession: da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. Her nose is bone dry from huge intakes of chilled oxygen. Dew forms at her temples, and the frigid, Hawaiian air-freshener-scented arena of the ring cools the sweat, sends shivers throughout her entire body. Despite what’s about to happen, she can’t stop thinking about that stupid teenager. This boy, a few years younger than her, thinks he knows everything! He came here with his parents to see the women’s kickboxing championship; he had the nerve to tell her that she can’t fight because she’s a girl.
Standing in the center of the ring like a cat ready to pounce, Riley remembers facing one-sided comments from many men and even some women, those saying she should do Pilates or yoga, recommending that she should stay far away from sports meant for men. How irritating and pathetic, she thinks; yet, how disheartening, too. The more fights she wins, the more famous she becomes, the more backlash she receives from the public.
Riley recalls when her resolve broke and she stopped kickboxing altogether. Her coach furiously berated Riley, but she was even more vexed with herself. Months passed. She constantly questioned quitting. She remembers wondering: Why quit after so much progress? Fighting made her a warrior in her own life, each and every day. Plenty of women fight; gender doesn’t determine the worth of a champion. What matters is to be motivated by love, and Riley loves kickboxing. After three months of being away, she contacted her old coach and starts training again.
Now she is in this ring, twenty seconds before the referee calls her fight to begin. Her first match after a year of absence.
Riley tries her breathing exercises again, counting to herself. Yet, her mind interrupts: What if I lose? She wonders whether she’ll face even more hate. But something is different about this fight: it’s a competition for women. Only. Oh, my goodness, Riley realizes, they must experience the same sorts of doubts I do. In that moment she ferociously concludes: She will invalidate the haters. She is meant for this. She’s earned the right to be here. There is no way she will back down now, not after experiencing people trying to tell her how to live. No matter if she wins or loses this match, she prevails because she’s not backing down. Riley vows to herself that she will prove to everyone that it’s okay to do what she loves. A woman can kickbox, and she’s about to do just that.
Riley’s eyes graze over her opponent’s body. Where is she open? Where can I attack? She thoroughly examines her opponent’s fighting stance, the placement of her hands, elbows, and legs; how her torso twists and how her chin tilts. All important in surmising her rival’s sparring style. As she falls into her old routine, the one she completes ten seconds before a match starts, her breathing evens out, the familiarity of the situation encompassing and protecting her; her own personal shield.
“Tap gloves!” The referee calls. Riley raises her black, twelve-ounce gloves to quickly brush the ruby red ones of her challenger. She stares deep into her adversary’s eyes, noticing a mischievous glint. Riley chuckles to herself. Her opponent thinks she can beat Riley. She doesn’t know Riley’s tricks, nor does she have her experience. She may be rusty after a year but she will fall right back into it, no doubt. She glances around at the thick red ropes, the shiny black mats, and the blinding lights overhead that filter her view of the spectators. She fills with an intense readiness to fight. This is what she’s been missing for the past year; this adrenaline rush is what she needs, no matter what anyone else says. She’s got this.
“And … begin!”
The Warrior
MARISSA SILVERMAN
There are many ways to think through Ctrl + B. Sometimes being bold—being a warrior—means being brave enough to face oneself. After all, isn’t it through knowing oneself that all wars, no matter how large or small, are won?
Afraid of closeness, she swallows
the words attempting to claim her.
Like a knife in her throat she surgically
excises feelings, cuts through
her spirit, hides inside her mind.
Numb to all except touch she reaches
out unknowingly expecting
to find herself through the tangled thorns and twine;
this is why she sought out another;
this is why she attempted connection.
Sometimes the greatest fight is
looking in the mirror.
Like a fierce opponent,
the gaze of oneself seeks deeply
hidden festering scars from battles long gone.
Opening the wounds, she bleeds,
burns, bruises, and bursts through
loud darkness with strength and courage
she didn’t know she possessed.
Opening her tightly closed spirit. Towards another.
Her core is filled with a quest
for beauty, hope, tenderness.
She rises above the pain
of past lives and ultimately realizes
she is not weak.
She is love.
DALEELAH SALEH
YEARS AS MENTEE: 3
GRADE: Senior
HIGH SCHOOL: The Baccalaureate School for Global Education
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: Queens, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Posse Scholar; Scholastic Art & Writing Awards: three Silver Keys, Honorable Mention; 2018 HERLead Fellow
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: Girls Write Now has played such a pivotal role in my life over the past few years. I’ve benefited so much from our amazing community, the monthly workshops, and various performing opportunities. But the best gift Girls Write Now has given me is Liv. Since day one, our pair sessions and hangouts have consistently been one of the highlights of my week. Thanks to Liv’s constant love and support, I’ve grown so much, not only as a writer but as a person. I am eternally grateful for our relationship and look forward to continuing to grow together (even when I’m five hours away).
LIVIA NELSON
YEARS AS MENTOR: 3
OCCUPATION: Director of Product Design, Ravelry
BORN: Ridgefield, CT
LIVES: Queens, NY
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Daleelah is graduating from high school this spring, so this is our last year together as a Girls Write Now pair. It’s strange to think that, soon, we’ll stop huddling up in our local coffee shop every week to work on her memoirs and poems. As sad as I feel, it goes without saying that Daleelah and I will be lifelong friends, so I’m excited to go from being her writing mentor to just being her friend back home.
In Flux
DALEELAH SALEH
Senior year has been full of moments when it’s hit me that I’m growing up, which is both exciting and terrifying. I wanted to capture how it feels to be in this transitional period.
You pop a Cry Baby in your mouth and immediately your tongue is tingling. It tastes like the dusty corner store with the red awning that the big yellow bus would drop you off next to in middle school. As the sour lemon dissolves into sweet, you smile softly to yourself. Back then, the one and a half blocks to your house felt miles long. You would walk as slowly as possible, savoring every minute of independence. Eleven-year-old you would’ve marveled at the fact that you can now walk around Astoria and even Manhattan pretty much whenever you want. You’ve even boarded a plane to California all by yourself.
You stand as still as possible, afraid that if you move around too much the heavy blue cap on your head will fall off. A white flash goes off in the corner of your eye as your friend gets her senior portrait taken. She is poised and her smile is bright. In a few months you’ll be walking across a stage in the Queens Theatre, the same awkward cap on your head and silky gown draped around your shoulders, as you accept your high school diploma. And a few months after that, you’ll have your first day of school. But instead of seeing the same classmates you’ve known since seventh grade, you’ll be greeted by a professor in a lecture hall full of unfamiliar people. Your heart aches with preemptive nostalgia. You’re somewhere between ready to move on and scared of losing touch with the people that you’ve grown up with.
You’re drawn to the kitchen by the strong aroma of coffee wafting through the house. “You’re just in time for breakfast,” your mom says. “Do you want coffee?” You’re taken aback. Ever since you were twelve, you’ve campaigned for your mom to let you drink coffee, but until recently, it remained forbidden. “You’re too young for caffeine,” she’d say, which, of course, made you want it more. To the casual observer this would be a typical morning breakfast scene, but to you this is a rite of passage.
Your body sways back and forth, and the guitarist is so loud that you can feel the music in your bones. The lights reflecting off the disco ball make it look like there are stars on the ceiling. Your best friend slips her hand into yours, and you look over at her. This is our song, she mouths. You squeeze her hand and close your eyes, trying to etch this moment into your memory. You used to dream about what it would be like to go to concerts, and now you can’t imagine your life without them.
Your legs are shaky as you walk up to the stage. This isn’t your first time reading in front of an audience, but it still feels exciting and nerve-racking. After introducing yourself, you take a deep breath and read your poem. When you finish you’re met with resounding applause. Your face breaks into a grin as pride courses through you. You’ve wanted to be a writer ever since you discovered the Harry Potter series in first grade. Now, at just seventeen, you can say that you’ve had your work published, won awards for your writing, and been chosen as a New York City Youth Poet Laureate finalist. You are slowly becoming the person you always wanted to be.
You repeat the name of your future college to yourself like a mantra, like if your tongue becomes familiarized with it your brain will too. Maybe then the thought of leaving behind the city and the people you love in exchange for ski slopes and late-night study sessions in the library won’t feel so terrifying.
Falling is the last thing on your mind as you leave the house this morning. You’re too busy worrying about your unfinished homework and upcoming assessments and how will you get to the concert on time later? So when your thick two-inch heel gets stuck and you tumble down your front steps, you’re taken completely by surprise. You know you should be getting up because you’ve already been late twice this week but all you can manage to do is sit there and cry. Your mom soon comes to your rescue, flying down the stairs and kneeling by your side. Her voice is soothing while she asks, “Are you okay? What happened?” As you explain to her, she reaches her arm out and pulls you up, then leads you up the stairs despite your protests. She washes the cuts on your hand at the sink, then sits with you on the couch, assuring you that you’ll be okay, it’s just a few scrapes, it’ll stop hurting soon. Suddenly it’s like you’re eight years old again and you fell off your bike and your mom is taking care of you. It occurs to you that this time next year you’ll have to take care of yourself when you get hurt, because you’ll be in college, five hours away from home. This makes you cry harder, and your mom just hugs you tighter.
The Exley
LIVIA NELSON
Daleelah’s anthology piece is about recent moments in her life when she realized that she’s growing up. I wrote about how one of her major milestones made me realize that I’m really growing up, too!
You’re sitting knock-kneed at the bar with your friend who’s new to the city and a little bit younger. The lights are low and warm and her eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks. Everything inside—the stools and the walls and the pendant lampshades—are painted black, except the bright wood tabletops and the books stacked on shelves along the ceiling. Dotted lines of condensation drip down the tall window that divides you and the other cozy patrons from the cold outside, and the sidewalk, and the grassy square where a statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel stands watch in the dark as the cars on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway rush by over her head.
Your phone vibrates and you’re surprised to see it’s Daleelah; it’s after ten p.m. Is she calling by accident? Is she in trouble? But then you remember—it’s the thirteenth. You untangle your legs from your friend’s without a word and run outside into the cold with your phone.
“Hello!?”
“I got Posse! I’m going to Middlebury!”
There are people walking down the sidewalk, ghostlike with their thick coats and their covered faces, but you whoop and holler anyway. Your voice echoes through the square, off the pylons holding up the highway, and your heart tenses with pride so strong and unselfish that it feels like it’s for yourself. You wonder if this is what motherhood will feel like.
Daleelah recounts the events of the day and the phone call with the news, and you can hear her mother in the background, her voice shaky but musical; the individual words aren’t all intelligible through the phone but it doesn’t really matter, you know what she’s saying. You stay outside as long as you can but eventually it’s time for Daleelah to go and for you to get out of the cold so you say goodbye-I-love-you-congrats about one hundred times, then hang up.
In a few months you’ll turn thirty, and maybe these week-nights wandering the city and ducking into bars with friends will become fewer and farther between. But you feel like you’ve just gotten a glimpse of something to come, something that will replace that carefree aimlessness in a way that won’t make you sad. You take a last look at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, then go back into the glow of the bar to tell your friend and the bald man the good news.
ISABELLE SANDERSON
YEARS AS MENTEE: 1
GRADE: Sophomore
HIGH SCHOOL: Stuyvesant High School
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: New York, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: I remember the very first time I met Kara. We sat down, a bubble of energy, and all of a sudden she had to stand up again! She was presenting, and all I could think is that I must have gotten such a talented mentor. I only wondered how I could hav
e been so lucky. Every moment spent together since I have been reminded of my initial awe. Again and again, her vibrant personality and pure talent are expressed. She has inspired me to write more intensely and abundantly, and I cannot wait for everything we will create together.
KARA FREEWIND
YEARS AS MENTOR: 3
OCCUPATION: Copywriter and Content Strategist, Hungryroot
BORN: Grand Rapids, MI
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Whenever we meet, Isabelle surely has one thing: her massive backpack, stuffed to capacity with books (including, recently, Anna Karenina—her “light” pleasure reading for a beach vacation). One of my favorite pieces Isabelle wrote this year—a dark Victorian-era short story—perfectly captured what makes me admire her writing so much: She uses language like clay to create beautiful, detailed scenes. She’s so genuinely curious about history, fashion, literature, and the world in general, and that curiosity expresses itself in all of her gorgeously visual (and fearless) writing.
Bleached
ISABELLE SANDERSON
I have always been inspired by the idea of a 1950s-era housewife who seizes power. However grotesque, stories like this make a bold attempt to change the narrative, creating a powerful female villain.
Once Nancy wore curly pigtails
with orange bows.
She used to imagine
1. Marrying a Prince.
2. Living in his perfect castle.
She was never as disappointed
as her wedding day.
Years later she lived
(lamenting)
in a yellow house
with broken shingles
a dusty blue car
and a mouseish man in her bed.
Her face melted like wax
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