A Writer’s Worthshop
HOPE Magazine (March/April 2003)
(Pg. 8)

Written by Stephanie Bowen

Two weeks after Keren Taylor got a pink slip at her Internet job, a group of thirteen women gathered in her living room to brainstorm how to combine her love of writing and her passion to help young girls. Soon after, Taylor launched WriteGirl, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit in which women writers mentor girls one-on-one through creative self-expression.

“WriteGirl is about self-empowerment, creativity, identify, culture and community,” says Taylor. “Those are the themes underlying all of our workshops.” Girls are recruited from fourteen public middle and high schools in a predominantly Asian and Latino neighborhood of Los Angeles. For many, English is their second language, making WriteGirl as much about literacy as creative writing.

With more than fifty matches and its second season well underway, WriteGirl has a long list of accomplishments: publication of a 100-page literary anthology, Threads; a public reading at a prominent Hollywood performance venue; and a variety of writing workshops on journaling, screenwriting, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Financial support comes from nonprofits, the Open Meadows Foundation and the Beyond the Bell Program of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Taylor works full-time as executive director of WriteGirl but has yet to see a paycheck. Her commitment, combined with the core volunteer staff, and mentors who collectively contribute about 1,700 hours a month, keeps the organization running. Many of the accomplished writer volunteers — Maria Elena Fernandez, of the LA Times; Shawn Schepps, author of screenplays for Encino Man, Son-in-Law, and Drumline — point to someone in their childhood who encouraged them as writers, and how different their lives would have been had WriteGirl existed when they were teens.

“I used to hate to write,” says Pamela Becerra, age sixteen. That's hard to believe when reading her “Mud Under My Feet” in Threads. “ I'm in the countryside. It's pouring rain and getting dark,” read the first two lines. “My clothing, which Momma made out of blankets, is getting dirty.” Now Becerra says writing is easy.

But WriteGirl struggles. “We are in start-up mode. We are nearly invisible to the public and the community and are operating on something thinner than a shoestring,” says Taylor. The realities of running a dynamic organization often take their toll. “Somehow my life of things to do, people to call, proposals to research and write, is continually growing,” says Taylor. “Some nights, my husband will knock on the wall at 2 a.m. and I just have to shut down even though I'm not done.”

A songwriter and poet, Taylor says it's the power of the written word that lights the spark, and sharing that passion is where the magic begins. “When you add the dimension of having this dynamic group of women commit their energy toward helping girls,” says Taylor, “you have a very powerful community at work.”


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