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“How would the story of girlhood be told if girls were the ones to write it?”. This simple premise drives an intimate collection of diary entries and photos from a surfer living in the South Pacific to a chess champion in Haiti to a fan girl in Ireland. 30 young women from 27 countries share their dreams, fears and realities that go beyond what many of us only read in headlines of disparity and doom. These girls care about similar things—family, education, secret crushes and so much more. And while girls cannot be defined by one thing, what is evident from reading their narratives is that what they have in common is much stronger than what separates them. Join Masuma Ahuja and Neema Roshania Patel from The Washington Post’s The Lily along with contributor Shanai Williams for an evening of engagement and empowerment.
Masuma Ahuja is a journalist reporting on gender, migration, and human rights around the world. She was previously a producer at CNN and national digital editor at The Washington Post. She uses words, photos, and emerging media to report and tell stories about gender, migration, and the impact of politics on people. Her projects have ranged from longform stories to sending disposable cameras to women around the world to document their days to crowdsourcing voicemails from Americans about the impact of the 2016 election on their lives. She was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014.
Neema Roshania Patel is the editor of The Lily, a publication of The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2016 as a digital editor and went on to help launch The Lily in 2017. Before that, she worked at NPR member station WHYY as a community editor. Neema graduated from Rutgers University with a dual degree in journalism and economics.
Shanai Williams is a student at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Creative writing is her passion, even though she hasn’t chosen a major yet. She loves eating, bread and other carbs specifically, as well as doing photoshoots with her fellow photography friends on campus. She’s also planning on starting a non-profit organization called “Be Heard” soon, so watch out for that.
Ages 12 and up
