Girls Write Now's Spring Reading to Feature Today's Amy Robach and Author Jean Thompson

Girls Write Now (GWN), New York's premier creative writing and mentoring organization for high school girls, today announced its annual spring reading, the culmination of another year of developing New York's best young writers. On Sunday, June 14, please join us for an afternoon with participants in the program and the women who inspire them -- featuring Amy Robach, National Correspondent for NBC's Today and National Book Award Nominee Jean Thompson, whose new book is "Do Not Deny Me" (ISBN: 978-1416595632, Simon & Schuster, June 9) -- at the New School University's Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues).

The event will take place from 4-6 p.m., and admission is free and open to the public. This program is co-sponsored by The New School's Department of Media Studies and Film.

Girls Write Now mentees, who range in age from 14 to 21, will read from their new anthology, tackling themes of family, personal identity, independence, sexuality and hundreds of high school days. This year's anthology features an introduction by Judy Blundell, winner of the 2008 National Book Award for Young People's Literature for her novel, "What I Saw and How I Lied."

"This is a wonderful opportunity to see the Girls Write Now community in action," said Maya Nussbaum, Executive Director of Girls Write Now.

Amy Robach serves as the Saturday TODAY anchor and as a national correspondent for Nightly News and TODAY. Robach joined MSNBC in September of 2003 as a daytime anchor. Since then, she has anchored coverage of major news events including the War in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2004 Presidential Election. Robach traveled to Washington, D.C. to cover both President Bush's second Inauguration and the Funeral of President Ronald Reagan. Robach began her career in broadcast journalism in Athens, Georgia, starting as an anchor at WUOG-FM, and later interning at WNGM-TV. Robach graduated from the University of Georgia with honors, and received a bachelor of arts in journalism. She lives in New York with her husband Tim and their two daughters.

Hailed as "one of our most astute diagnosticians of contemporary experience," (Boston Globe) who "rivals [Alice] Munro at her greatest" (Kirkus, starred review), Jean Thompson has emerged as "one of our most lucid and insightful writers" (San Francisco Chronicle). The unanimous critical acclaim for each of Thompson's works of fiction has been accompanied by a profusion of honors and awards: Who Do You Love was a National Book Award finalist, Throw Like a Girl made the New York Times' "100 Notable Books" list and topped the "Best of 2007 lists" in the San Francisco Chronicle and Chicago Tribune. With each succeeding collection, this gifted writer has garnered increasing attention from an ever-widening circle of admirers.

In "DO NOT DENY ME: Stories," her latest collection of short fiction (Simon & Schuster; June 9, 2009; paperback original; $14.00), Thompson excels at defining the unexamined lives that most of her characters have fashioned for themselves and the connections and compromises they make in attempting to assuage their dissatisfactions. Of her work, David Sedaris has said, "If there are 'Jean Thompson characters,' they're us, and never have we been so articulate and worthy of compassion." She lives in Illinois. More: http://www.jeanthompsononline.com/.

Girls Write Now Inc. (GWN) is New York's premier creative writing and mentoring non-profit organization, matching bright, creative teenage girls from the city's public high schools with professional women writers in the community since 1998. Through weekly one-to-one mentoring, monthly group genre-based workshops, and quarterly public readings, their mission is to provide a safe and supportive environment where low-income, at-risk girls can expand their natural writing talents, develop independent voices, and build confidence in making healthy choices in school, career and life. 100 percent of all seniors completing the program go on to college and GWN students have earned a total of 33 Scholastic Gold and Silver Writing Awards over the last three years. The organization was recently featured in both The New York Times and as part of the NBC Nightly News "Making a Difference Series."

In 2009, GWN was honored by The Union Square Awards for creating educational opportunities, building community, and promoting progressive social change; GWN was also chosen as a Coming Up Taller Semifinalist by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, distinguishing it as one of the top arts- and humanities-based programs in the country serving youth beyond the school hours. More: www.girlswritenow.org.