Your life is your own unique work of art, an ongoing project.
— Charlotte [Milholland] Friedman, The Girl Pages
Charlotte Friedman is a poet and personal essayist, translator and teacher. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest, lived in New York City for many years and now lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Her poetry has been published, most recently, in the Journal of New Jersey Poets, Stoneboat and Cagibi, among other journals. She translates, with Carol Rose Little, the Mayan Ch’ol poetry of Juana Peñate Montejo, which has been published in World Literature Today, The Arkansas International and many other journals. Charlotte taught Introduction to Narrative Medicine at Barnard College for over a decade and is the author of The Girl Pages: A Handbook of Resources for Strong, Confident, Creative Girls (Hyperion). She graduated from Columbia University and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a Master of Science in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She is on the Board of Trustees of People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos and Lilith magazine.
IMAGINATION is fueled by curiosity. Our imaginations dream up what might or could be. Through the imagination, we try to see the world through the eyes of others, to build connections between a private world and the larger public one, to see beauty where it is not expected.
CLARITY. The more precise a word or line, gesture, character or scene, the better able to communicate, and illuminate, the story. This precision requires the skill of profound attention—to the self, the senses and the world.
DIALOGUE. Whether we are speaking to another part of ourselves or an imagined reader, I believe that writing is meant to be shared. In order to do this, we need safe spaces, where intense listening is cultivated, creative risks can be taken and vulnerabilities exposed without judgment.
TIME. Uninterrupted time. We need time to write, to think, to experiment, to play.
The Girl Pages is an invitation to you to explore, to learn, to create and to dream.
— from the Introduction to The Girl Pages
The Girl Pages: A Handbook of the Best Resources for Strong, Confident, Creative Girls (Hyperion) was a response to the awareness of the need for girls to develop confidence, and experience success, in the face of a culture that can, at times, be less than supportive and encouraging. My mission was to empower young women and their parents with stories and knowledge of the amazing variety and quantity of books, films, websites, summer programs and role models for your women—all the ways they might explore and develop their interests and passions.
“I want to say I wish I’d had The Girl Pages on my bedside table when I was young. I considered myself to be one of those strong, confident, creative girls this book is aimed at, but I still felt like an outsider.…any parent picking up The Girl Pages is going to find the inspiration and the information to help their daughters achieve their goals. They’ll also find themselves wishing they’d had books like this when they were young….Consider yourself a work in progress because, with the right attitude, you’re on a learning curve for the rest of your life. And that’s the attitude that lights up The Girl Pages.”
-- Anita Roddick, Founder of The Body Shop, from the Foreword to The Girl Pages