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One of my favorite bloggers is trying to raise $50,000 in 50 days for her 50th birthday for WriteGirl.

WriteGirl is a nonprofit organization for high school girls centered on the craft of creative writing and empowerment through self-expression. Through one-on-one mentoring and monthly workshops, girls are given techniques, insights and hot tips for great writing in all genres from professional women writers.

Since I'm not rolling in the money just quite yet, I thought I'd help a girl out and help promote her worthy effort. So, if you're feeling generous, click on the pic in the sidebar and give as little as $5! And you get prizes! And if she raises the money, she's gonna shave her head. Love her chutzpah! (Oh, by the way, that's pronounced "hoot-spa," not "choot-spa" the way some people [can you say Michelle Bachmann?] think it's pronounced!) So if you like girls, writing, prizes and feeling good, give some moolah to this cause!

After 9/11, Keren Taylor decided she wanted to do something meaningful with her work. She had been a songwriter and poet, and wanted to use her skills in service to others. She started WriteGirl to help at-risk students to build confidence as... Read the rest of this post

by Estella Gonzalez, guest bloguera

Estella Gonzalez was born and raised in East Los Angeles, which inspires most of her writing. Her work has been anthologized in Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature published by Bilingual Press and Kaleidoscope published by Pima Press. Her writing has also appeared in Puerto del Sol, Sandscript and Eleven Eleven.

Back in the 80s I knew I wanted to become a writer when my high school’s literary magazine published one of my stories. It was called “The Brotherhood” and it was about a girl who wanted to infiltrate her crush’s group of male friends so badly, she actually became a boy. Very corny but seeing the story in print and appreciated by my teachers boosted my confidence. Still, I wouldn’t seriously consider pursuing fiction writing until about 15 years later when I finally built up the courage and confidence. For many writers the decision to commit to writing can be harrowing, especially if you’re a writer of color from a working class background. For me it was particularly scary since I didn’t personally know any active Chicano writers and wouldn’t read any Latino literature until well after college. Becoming a writer, a real published writer, seemed like a pipe dream but despite the self-doubt I began writing in earnest and eventually publishing.

Flash forward to 2010 and WriteGirl, a Los Angeles-based volunteer mentoring organization I wish had existed back when I was in high school. WriteGirl provides high school girls a safe, supportive community to express themselves through the exploration of writing including poetry, journalism, songwriting, screen writing, etc. I found this wonderful organization on the Internet when I was looking for a Latina writing group close to East Los Angeles.

Little did I know that WriteGirl would offer a writing group and then some. About once a month I not only get to participate in writing workshops with a group of professional writing women, I also get to mentor enthusiastic high school girls, many of whom are Latina and African-American. And WriteGirl doesn’t mess around. At the organization’s first poetry workshop held at the Miguel Contreras Learning Center, writing began as soon as the girls walked in to the writing space. In this case the cafeteria. After signing in, the girls quickly partnered up with their mentors to write haikus on various topics including love, family, and hunger before they went on to join larger groups of writers to create living tableaus of their poetry. After the group performance, local Angeleno poets Xotchil-Julisa Bermejo and Eloise Klein Healy led us on some invigorating poetry exercises. It was the first time in years that I had written some meaningful poems.

Founded by songwriter, poet and freelance writer Keren Taylor, WriteGirl is an activist feminist writer’s dream. In addition to participa