Something New

Hey homegirls!

Today is a good day to start something new. For most of you, it’s the first day of a new school year; for me, it’s the first day of my new blog. So Yay! for everyone.

Now, here’s the thing about me—I love magazines. And by love I mean, buy, read, save; repeat. At one point it was so bad I was buying at least ten magazines a month. I couldn’t control myself. I needed help. I was something like a junkie—a magazine junkie. Now, not so much. Don’t get me wrong, I still love magazines like crazy I’m just not as inspired by what I read like I once was. Hence, the blog.

When I was 16, I helped create a magazine for other high school girls and I loved it. The idea was to encourage girls to just feel good about being themselves, whatever they looked like. Here’s the cover:

With Image, we wanted to represent ourselves and the girls we knew—different races, ethnicities, hair textures, and body shapes— all equally worthy of being on the cover of a magazine.

A few years ago I was in a program where I had to design a brochure for a dream magazine. Here’s what I came up with:

This time, it was a teen magazine called Clutch, for black and Latinas who were underrepresented in a lot of the teen magazines I read (this was back when CosmoGIRL!, Elle Girl, and Teen People were still around).

And later, during that same program, I was the editor-in-chief of a mock teen magazine for Christian girls, called Gracie.

Again, focusing on an underrepresented group of girls and creating a magazine for them. Pattern much?

So, here I am again. Only this time, I have another idea. One that I’ve been told can’t and won’t work by some people. And one that I’ve been encouraged to try by others. Has that ever happened to you? You have an idea, but you aren’t sure if it will work? You’re excited about the possibility, but scared at the same time? Well here’s some advice I was given by a not-so-favorite professor last year. He said: 1) figure out if this is something you really want to do. If not, just do something else. If so, 2) be prepared to stick it out through the hard times—and there will definitely be hard times. And 3) start it now! Find something you love and blog about it. Everyday. Now, he was giving us advice about journalism, but I think it can apply to almost anything.

So that’s my plan. I’m going to blog about the lives of teen girls in the NYC metro area (yes, that means Jersey and Connecticut, too) everyday, because writing about teens is my passion and let’s face it, there’s just something special about NY girls.

But here’s the thing- I need your help. See, I’m coming at this from a certain perspective. I’m a black, 20-something writer chick who lives in Brooklyn. It’s not ALL that I am, but it’s part of me, so naturally it informs my perspective. I’m going to do my best to be representative (of all the boroughs and the girls who live in them) but if you don’t see yourself or girls like you represented, email me and let me know. If there’s something going on in your life (religious holiday or cultural event) and you want to share its significance with other teen girls, please do. If you’re just going through something (body image issues, dating problems, violence at school) and want to talk about it or if you are doing great work in your community and want to pat yourself on the back, get at me. And we can do this thing together- like homegirls should.

Until tomorrow