Читать книгу Rise Speak Change - Girls Write Now - Страница 49

BERNA DA’COSTA

YEARS AS MENTEE: 1

GRADE: Sophomore

HIGH SCHOOL: Stuyvesant High School

BORN: Goa, India

LIVES: Bronx, NY

MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: It wasn’t instant. It was awkward pauses in the middle of conversations and not knowing what to say next. But somehow, my mentor still heard the words that were left behind through the writing I shared with her. It has become easy to write around Jamie, to sit in comfortable silence behind our laptop screens and try to capture our thoughts onto the blank page. There are people who have been in my life, who have encouraged me to write, and write, and write. I will always remember those people. My mentor is now one of them.

JAMIE SERLIN

YEARS AS MENTOR: 1

OCCUPATION: Director, West Wing Writers, LLC

BORN: Philadelphia, PA

LIVES: Brooklyn, NY

MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Though we may seem different on the surface—I am pretty chatty, Berna is more soft-spoken—I’ve found that Berna and I actually share a lot in common. We are both incredibly sassy—Berna in her writing, me in all realms of life. We are both night owls and procrastinators who suffer from occasional writer’s block before getting seized by a last-minute idea. Berna’s confidence, creativity, and openness in sharing her writing have been a huge inspiration to me in getting over my own fear of sharing my work.