Groups emphasize importance of writing

For high school senior Kylie Anderson, her future is set. By this time next year, she will be attending UCLA as a student in the School of Theater, Film and Television, starting the path to ward becoming a professional screenwriter for film and television. Though these achievements were obviously much in thanks to hard work, Anderson can’t help but think WriteGirl had a big part in it.

WriteGirl, which Anderson has been a part of since before the beginning of her senior year, is an organization that focuses on bringing L.A. high school girls together with professional women writers to help them with their creative writing. WriteGirl will have a booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (No. 653) as well as stage time on Saturday at 3 p.m.

WriteGirl is run by two full-time staffers and four part-time employees as well as 150 volunteers. Executive director Keren Taylor started the program in 2001 by gathering together 21 women writers and 20 high school girls. Now, WriteGirl boasts a total of 300 girls and professional writers as mentees and mentors.

“I saw that there weren’t a lot of after-school programs for girls in high schools,” Taylor said. “I realized I wanted to create a program that was just for girls.”

WriteGirl meets once every month as a whole organization at the Expo Center near downtown Los Angeles. There the girls as well as their mentors break up into groups and attend various workshops that emphasize different writings, such as songwriting and fiction writing.

“WriteGirl is getting girls that are interested in writing and bringing them all together,” Anderson said. “It’s about inspiring girls to write more. It had helped me to take more time to write and to enjoy writing.”

Like WriteGirl, there are also other writing organizations that will be present at the Festival of Books in hopes of recruiting new members.

Two of the organizations that will appear this weekend are the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society and the California Writers Club.

“We’re an organization that is about writers mentoring other writers of all disciplines,” Tony Todaro, president of GLAWS, said. “We encourage writers of all interests and levels so we have a lot of diversity.”

GLAWS consists of more than 800 members who attend monthly meetings as well as the organization’s many workshops and seminars that are run by professional writers. Authors are able to gain information on how to make it in the publishing world as well as how to develop their craft.

“At the festival we will be talking about our society and helping to promote our authors,” Todaro said.

To join GLAWS, there is a $40 membership fee and a $10 application fee. However, students are eligible to join for $20 per year for up to four years. More information will be available at the GLAWS booth, No. 631.

As for the California Writers Club, it too includes members of all ages. The organization is celebrating its centennial anniversary this year, after having been started by famed author Jack London and his other writer friends 100 years ago.

This will be the sixth year at the Festival of Books for the California Writers Club.

“We’re all writers, half of whom are published and the other half are not,” said Allene Symons, a California Writers Club member. “We have workshops and speakers for writers and we have contests for student writers as well.”

As part of the many attractions that will be at the Festival of Books, these organizations hope to spread the word about the value of writing while also allowing everyone to see the many resources available for writers.

“We (would) like to be able to recruit some new volunteers at the Festival of Books,” Taylor said. “We also want to sell our books as well as hope to spread the word and maybe get some new girls to join the program.”

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