WriteGirl

06/29/2026

06/12/2026

The power of a mentor is truly life-changing. For 25 years, WriteGirl has matched high school teens with their very own mentor to inspire and guide them in their creative, personal, academic and professional development. Your financial contribution will help more teens have access to a life-changing mentor. A generous WriteGirl donor is providing a 1:1 match on the first $10,000 in donations we receive in June! This means your impact on our mentoring program will be doubled! Donate today at https://www.writegirl.org/donate.

06/03/2026

During these challenging and unprecedented times, we are raising vital funds to support our lifeline of programs for teens.

A generous WriteGirl volunteer is providing a 1:1 match on the first $10,000 in donations! Your impact will be doubled!

Our teens are really in need of the specialized support that WriteGirl offers. Donate at https://www.writegirl.org/donate.

06/03/2026

We’re excited to share that WriteGirl has 6 teens who are finalists for LA Youth Poet Laureate! We’ll be cheering them on as they compete for the top spot this Saturday, June 6th at 2pm at the !

The WriteGirl LA Youth Poet Laureate finalists are: Aashka Bhuptani, Charlotte Richardson, Hannah Yang, Lili Lang, Mairead Lucke and Rebecca Yang.

We’re also proud of WriteGirl members who are Honorable Mentions: Andrea Yu, Dahlia Evans, Eugenia Kang, Kelly Han, Kiera O’Connell, Kimberly Palacios, Mara Hovannisian, Olivia Lee, Soanne Lee, Soliel Mandel and Yumie Lee.

Best of luck to all the youth competing!

05/03/2026

A BIG thank you to all our incredible singer-songwriters 🎶🎤🎸

Some parting wisdom from our Executive Director Keren: “Every day, your life is full of songwriting material. Whatever your emotion, write some short statements about it, as you are feeling it. Then later, when you are wondering what to write a song about, you can dive back into those moments, those stories, and use them to fuel your songs.”

Huge thank you to our sponsors SKECHERS, ASCAP Foundation, Inspired Nation and Dr. Hauschka!

05/03/2026

Watch Nina Woodford and Laurie Geltman bring to life original songs written by our Writegirl teens 🎵

These performances are just a glimpse of the incredible talent we witnessed today!

05/02/2026

Our teens working hard with our special guest songwriters

Some songwriting advice from Laurie Geltman: “Don’t be tempted to use AI; you have your whole life to find your own voice and AI will keep you from discovering who that is, and personally, figuring out the “puzzle” that a song is is the most satisfying and thrilling part of making it.”

Stay tuned for more 🎹

05/02/2026

Acclaimed songwriters Michelle Lewis and Lauren Christy discuss 3 tips for writing lyrics:
🔹use your notes app
🔹take voice memos
🔹use tools like RhymeZone

Fun fact: Lauren wrote Avril Lavigne’s hit song “Complicated” 🎸

Follow along for more from our Songwriting Workshop

04/15/2026

Join us for a WriteGirl poetry reading at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend! WriteGirl alums will be performing this Sunday, April 19, 2026 at 12:30pm on the Poetry Stage. We hope you can join us to support them at this FREE community event! This special WriteGirl reading will celebrate our 25th anniversary year!

Actor Sandy Green will be emcee, and Suzanne Lummis will be joining us as a special guest poet!

Learn more at latimes.com/fob

04/11/2026

WriteGirl alum & California Youth Poet Laureate Summer Hamzeh expands on why metaphor and image is so important to poetry and its effect on an audience:

“Hope is unstoppable, hope is persistent. But that doesn’t really strike your audience as much as when you put it into these images… when I write, I like to think I’m writing a picture. I’m writing a painting. Those visuals really stick with people.”