Gorman joined WriteGirl when she was 14. She attended the group’s monthly creative writing workshops throughout her high school years and was paired with volunteers for one-on-one mentorship.
“WriteGirl has been pivotal in my life. Their support has allowed me to pursue my dreams as a writer,” Gorman said in a statement announcing her appearance at Biden’s inauguration.
Taylor describes Gorman as someone who made a big impression during her four years at WriteGirl.
“She has always been a very positive young person. Always with a flower in her hair, a sense of style, the feeling that she wanted her creative energy and uniqueness in her physical self,” Taylor told CNN.
In her early days of the program, Gorman did not seek the spotlight. It took some encouragement from her mentors to convince her to step on the mic and share her work, Taylor said. And then she started to bloom.
“I think she really started to enjoy the idea of seeing the reaction people had to her words,” Taylor recalled.
Finding her voice
WriteGirl is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Each year the program serves approximately 500 teenagers. They work with mentors including journalists, songwriters, poets and fiction writers. WriteGirl has a 100% pass rate in helping its seniors graduate from high school and enroll in college. The organization publishes books of its students’ writing annually and the publications have won more than 90 national and international book awards.
Hours after reciting her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration, Gorman spoke to Anderson Cooper on CNN. She named her family, friends, supporters and mentors for their role in helping her achieve so much from an early age. She also cited her WriteGirl experience, “where I got a lot of free creative writing tools when I was that skinny girl with a speech impediment in need of a mentor.”
“We don’t want you to feel like you have something that needs to be fixed because none of us are doing that,” Taylor said of their philosophy, adding that their focus is on encouraging young writers. “Every time she stood at the microphone, you saw her confidence bloom.”
When Gorman went to college at Harvard, Taylor said Gorman went after her speech impediment “ with a vengeance … [She] practiced and practiced until she changed the way speech impediment was heard by others. “
Entering the world stage
Taylor was beaming, crying and going through half a box of tissues, she said, as Gorman took the stage at the inauguration.
She was certainly nervous; you know she was. But she didn’t show it … One thing we always talk about at WriteGirl is to turn that nervous energy into positive energy and let it propel you forward. ‘
For Taylor, Gorman represented not only WriteGirl, but also young people, women of color and young poets.
“They can see that young people’s voices need to be listened to, that they have a lot to say about where we are and where we need to go. And I was especially proud of that.”