I get along with white people really well. Growing up, they brought peppermint bark down the cul-de-sac to my parents’ house every Christmas. They smiled...
Author archive for: JessicaR
Report from the Field: Youth Poetry Slam
Every year, a poetry slam is held at Poets House in Manhattan. Boys and girls from high schools and middle schools all over NYC come...
Spotlight On! Poem-a-Day
Imagine a world slightly revised. All major consequences of the day remain the same– sleeping, waking, working, eating– but the effects of our daily interactions...
Required Reading
This year, Girls Write Now is counting. A mentorship program that pairs established writers with teenage girls from underprivileged areas and underserved schools in New...
Some Questions About Empathy and Reading
First Questions: The Limits of Empathy I taught two creative writing courses as a graduate student. My undergraduates wanted answers and rules, and instead I...
Her Name Literally Meant Hero
Mavis Gallant died in February of this year, at the age of 92. She is one of my favorite writers. I discovered her in graduate...
SUBMITATHON! as Applied Feminist Epistemology: Rejecting Models of Scarcity, Believing in Plenty
I. When I was a Stanford sophomore I took a class called Feminist Epistemology—I know, right?—that looked at ways of learning and doing and knowing...
Report from the Field: Quid Pro Quo
What I remember is red wine sloshing in hotel coffee mugs. What I remember is trying to scoot out of reach of his hand, the...