Speaking in First Draft

In this episode, you’ll hear a lovely conversation between mentee Allison Sengkhounmany, a high schooler from New York, and mentor Davia Schendel, a musician and performer. They open up with an excerpt from Davia’s poem “Bridgewalk” based on a dream she had where she was visited by her late grandmother. Listen in to hear Allison and Davia discuss the similarities of their relationships with their grandmothers, their experiences with mourning, and how they use music as a form of self-expression.

In this episode, you’ll hear Mentor Tracy Morin, a magazine writer and editor, talk with Mentee Ava Fung, a high schooler from New York City, about her humorous non-fiction piece, “Toothache.” Ava’s piece compares her feeling like an outcast in her family to their toothbrushes. All of them use shiny, electric toothbrushes, and she preferred her ratty, normal toothbrush until her parents forced her to get a sleek one. Tracy and Ava discuss the importance of writing in community and how Ava has blended her stand-up comedy into her other creative work. Listen in to this fun episode, and it might even make you feel sympathetic for a certain everyday object that most of us never give a second thought: the humble toothbrush.

In the very first episode of “Speaking In First Draft,” host Kathryn Destin interviews Girls Write Now Mentor Martina Clark about the first draft of her memoir and audiobook “My Unexpected Life: an international memoir of two pandemics, HIV and COVID-19.” With 4.6 stars on Amazon from over 3,000 reviews, this deeply personal yet, humorous piece details Martina’s international career and activism as an HIV+ woman and draws parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic. Listen in to hear Kathryn and Martina discuss the emotional labor of memoir writing and activism work, overcoming stigma in public health, and why spaces like Girls Write Now are crucial for representation in storytelling.

Are you feeling burnt out by the sheer amount of content we all get these days? We’re now in a world where more people than ever have access to resources and platforms to tell their stories. While that is mostly a good thing, it can be overwhelming to keep up with the surplus. In a culture oriented around production, hustle, and output, slowing down to appreciate the creative process is often tossed to the wayside in favor of end results. It seems like everywhere we look, there is a new streaming limited tv series, 3-hour indie movie, and NYT bestseller that you have to drop everything for. And there certainly isn’t a shortage of podcasts these days. So, we here at Girls Write Now have a solution for this oversaturation - another podcast. On this show, we feature today’s and tomorrow’s writers, artists, and creatives with an array of stories to tell. Most importantly, we’re focusing on the creative process and the individuals behind them. We’re speaking in the first draft, screwing things up, and getting candid all to platform the amazing voices who are finally getting the chance to pull up a chair to the table they’ve long been excluded from. Let’s not just honor stories but the experiences and people it takes to create them.

Welcome to Speaking In First Draft, a biweekly interview podcast series featuring the current and next generation of storytellers. In this podcast, our community members share a draft of one of their works in progress or completed pieces and discuss both the writing process and what creative expression looks like to them. Through this forum, you will have the opportunity to engage with the inner machinations and diverse perspectives of writers, producers, and artists all at different stages of their artistic journeys. This podcast is brought to you by Girls Write Now, a NYC-based nonprofit with over 25 years of history breaking down the barriers of gender, race, age, and poverty to mentor and train the next generation of writers and leaders for life. Together, our community channels the power of our voices and stories to shape culture, impact industries, and inspire change. Thank you for tuning into our podcast. To join in on these first draft conversations, we’d greatly appreciate you subscribing and sharing this podcast with your community. We hope you enjoy this collaborative effort brought to you by the brilliant minds of our mentees, mentors, alumni, teaching artists, staff, and other contributors we are exceedingly grateful to call our community.