Girls Write Now Spring Reading w. AMANDA DIVA June 8, 2008

GIRLS WRITE NOW CELEBRATES TENTH SEASON OF UNIQUELY INNOVATIVE PROGRAMMING WITH SPRING READING & COMMUNITY BOOKFAIR
New Tribeca Barnes & Noble to Become Teen Literary Hotspot on June 8

NEW YORK (April 15) – Girls Write Now (GWN), New York City’s premier mentoring and creative writing organization for teen girls – featured prominently in today’s edition of The New York Times -- today announced its Girls Write Now Annual Spring Reading at Barnes & Noble in Tribeca. On Sunday, June 8, from 4-6PM, New York City's most talented teen writers, along with celebrity host Amanda Diva (Def Poetry Jam, HipHopNation, MTV2, Floetry), will turn a downtown bookstore into a showcase for a collection of powerful new poems, stories and essays that reflect an electrifying community of girl writers spanning often hard-and-fast lines of race, age, economics and geography in New York City. Barnes and Noble is located at 97 Warren Street in Tribeca, New York, NY 10007; tel. 212-587-5389.

An accomplished poet, journalist, radio & television personality, scholar (she has a Master's degree in African-American Studies), singer, and rapper, Amanda Diva (myspace.com/amandadiva) is definitely the best kept secret in female emcees. She hit the scene as a spoken word poet on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam in 2002 and 2005 and went on to host the Sirius Satellite Radio show "Breakfast at Diva's" on HipHopNation/40 from 2003-2008. Around the same time, she became the "face of hip-hop" as host of MTV2's "Sucker Free" programming from 2004-2005 and has interviewed the likes of Jay-Z, Nas, Outkast, 50 Cent, T.I., The Roots, Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Mariah Carey, Kanye West, and more. Channeling her magnetic media personality and sage lyricism into one vessel, Amanda released the poetry mixtape, It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop, The Mixtape: Vol. 1 in 2004. Two years later she followed up with the critically acclaimed Still Sucka Free Vol.1. Now, after a brief stint replacing "Rhymstress" Natalie Stewart of the Grammy-nominated R&B duo Floetry (Amanda toured on the 21-city Floetry Remix last year), Miss Diva has released the seminal EP Life Experience, the first installment in her "Experience Trilogy" series dedicated to the themes of "Life," "Love," and "Live!" For more, visit: DivaSpeakTV.blogspot.com and Youtube.com/ImAmandaDiva.

Girls Write Now mentees, who range in age from 14 to 21, will read from their new anthology, tackling themes of family, personal identity, independence, sexuality and hundreds of high school days. This year's anthology features an introduction by Janice Erlbaum, noted author of Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir and Have You Found Her (Villard/Random House).

"This is the moment for our girls to shine after a year of hard work, polishing their writing with their mentors," said Maya Nussbaum, co-founder and Executive Director of Girls Write Now.

The anthology will be available at Barnes & Noble Tribeca during the store's bookfair weekend from Friday, June 6 to Sunday, June 8, and at anytime from Girls Write Now. The store will donate up to 25% of sales made using bookfair vouchers to GWN during the bookfair weekend.

Mentoring is a proven strategy to combat youth crime and violence, and increase achievement in schools, an especially important fact in light of recent Department of Education statistics that indicate that nearly 50 percent of high school girls in New York City will not graduate.

Founded in 1998, Girls Write Now Inc. provides a safe and supportive environment where high school girls can expand their natural writing talents, develop independent creative voices, and build confidence in making healthy choices in school, career and life. GWN provides at-risk girls with emerging writing talent the unique opportunity to be custom matched with a professional woman writer who serves as her personal mentor and writing coach, meeting with her weekly for one entire school year, and for up to four years. GWN also enrolls each student in a vibrant writing community and professional network -- all mentees and mentors gather monthly for genre-based workshops conducted at Teachers & Writers Collaborative, home to the oldest writers-in-the-schools program in the country -- in midtown Manhattan. The year is punctuated by public readings, college prep and career seminars, a social action series, and cultural/literary field trips. The magic of the program is reflected in the outstanding writing produced by mentor-mentee pairs, a 65-percent member retention rate, a 100-percent college acceptance rate, an annual anthology by program participants, and the seven-genre portfolios each student emerges equipped with each season. More: www.girlswritenow.org.

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Official Website: http://www.girlswritenow.org