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Rebecca Warchut, author of Catastrophe Theory

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Rebecca Warchut, author of Catastrophe Theory

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“Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.” —Jonas Salk

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Hope is everything continuing when that feels like an impossibility.

It’s a sunrise that stops you on the sidewalk, even as the world feels so heavy you wonder how it can hold itself up. It’s your sister excitedly researching environmental science programs as the Climate Clock hits zero in Union Square.

It’s a courageous contradiction. A challenge to enjoy the wonderful, easy to miss moments as everything screams in protest.

It’s your shout back “There’s more to be lived!” and the choice to keep going.

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Hope is the quiet courage to believe in something better, even when the path ahead is unclear. Hope reminds us that the heaviest night gives way to morning, that wounds can become wisdom, and that every ending is the soil of a beginning. To hold onto hope in hard times is not naive—it is revolutionary. It is choosing, again and again, to believe in healing, in justice, in joy, in yourself. It’s trusting that even if today is heavy, tomorrow holds the possibility of light.

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Ana Yglesias, music and culture journalist and GWN mentor

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Ana Yglesias, music and culture journalist and GWN mentor

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Among the many things in my Notes app, one is of great quotes I encounter. Unsurprisingly as a writer and reader, I've always found inspiration and hope in words. I'll share two from my favorite astrologer Chani Nicholas, whose weekly readings always make me feel less alone: “Imagination is key to our liberation, personal and collective…What would a liberated world look like? What would it look like if I didn’t feel guilty about A, B, C or D (which I shouldn’t feel guilty about)?”

"Placing yourself in the path of your joy attracts more experiences to celebrate.”

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Liza Wyles, writer and Girls Write Now mentor

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Liza Wyles, writer and Girls Write Now mentor

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Hope, to me, is a clean slate. A fresh canvas. Tilled soil and vast sky. It's the blank page ready to be filled with all the dreams, wishes, jokes, and doodles that fill in the lines of life. Keep sketching and scribbling... that's the art of hope.

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Donna Hill--author of I Am Ayah and Confessions in B-Flat

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Donna Hill--author of I Am Ayah and Confessions in B-Flat

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In these troubled times, when so much seems lost, out of reach, and dark this is when we must reach for the light to guide our path and our hearts. Reach for that loved one, your favorite cozy spot, a book that makes you smile, a song, the dawning of a new day. Find your joy and tucked inside will be that kernel of hope to take you through.

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“make peace with all the women you once were.

lay flowers at their feet.

offer them incense and honey and forgiveness.

honor them and give them your silence.

listen.

bless them and let them be.

for they are the bones of the temple you sit in now.

for they are the rivers of wisdom leading you toward the sea.

i have been a thousand different women.”

Emory Hall.

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Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, author of BLUE: A HISTORY OF THE COLOR AS DEEP AS THE SEA AND AS WIDE AS THE SKY and MY PARENTS' MARRIAGE: A NOVEL

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Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, author of BLUE: A HISTORY OF THE COLOR AS DEEP AS THE SEA AND AS WIDE AS THE SKY and MY PARENTS' MARRIAGE: A NOVEL

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When someone asks me to pray for them or shares a situation that is bigger than they can handle, I add them to a running prayer list and check in on them periodically to find out how the situation has progressed. I have been doing this for about seven years now, and I have been blown away by how things change in real time. The change is not always what we are hoping for. In some cases, the sick friend dies, or the job search stretches into another month, or the chaos spreads, but there is always a definitive shift of some sort—a change in outlook, a move from panic to peace... It encourages me for situations in my own life that feel intractable.

Lately, I have gotten into gardening which has also been feeding my hope. I plant a few seeds in old pots, try to be consistent about following the care instructions, and watch to see what happens. For weeks, it seems like nothing is going on--the same black soil just stares back at me in silence. And then: that first green shoot screams "I'm alive!"

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One of the most dangerous threats to hope is poverty. Beyond fracturing communities, it can easily inundate us with a pervasive sense of inadequacy, distress, and fear. So when we imagine liberated futures—where justice prevails—we are engaging a tradition of resistance.

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"To hope is to give yourself to the future—and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable" - Rebecca Solnit

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Melania Luisa Marte, author of Plantains And Our Becoming

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Melania Luisa Marte, author of Plantains And Our Becoming

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The poetics of soul-searching are both a rupture and a release as we enter the portals of higher divinity. Our job is simple: to find language that both clarifies and magnifies what matters most to us. As we go about everyday life, we must refuse to break our soul and honor what the ancestors and the universe are calling on us to do. To tell our truth.

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Palmares Bustamante, founder of the Liminal Photography Project

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Palmares Bustamante, founder of the Liminal Photography Project

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"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination" —From Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

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Christiane Calixte, Freelance Writing Published in the Washington Post and YR Media

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Christiane Calixte, Freelance Writing Published in the Washington Post and YR Media

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Practice these things:

Prayer. Mindfulness. Sleep. Drinking water. Enjoying nature.

Do everything that the worries of this world we live in pulls you away from.

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Hannah Eko, author of Honey Is the Knife

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Hannah Eko, author of Honey Is the Knife

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You were born to make manifest the beauty inside of you, and you don’t do this by chasing perfection or arguing against reality. Clearly, this world is not a perfect place that forever makes sense. You co-create with what is—the mess and the beauty, the honey and the knife, for all that you are will always lead to love.

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Alexandra V. Méndez, author of What the Jaguar Told Her

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Alexandra V. Méndez, author of What the Jaguar Told Her

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Young storytellers are the ones who will write our way into a better future. I am inspired by the brave writers at Girls Write Now and the many young people I've spoken with who are eager to share their voices with the world. By sharing stories that haven't been told before, we can better understand and care for ourselves and one other.

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Seeing young girls find their voices and confidence was a very profound and affirming experience for me.

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Hope is what happens when young writers are given the space to imagine beyond survival. At Girls Write Now, I’ve witnessed the power of stories to shape worlds, build bridges, and remind us that our voices—especially when nurtured in community—are the blueprint for a future we deserve.

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Girls Write Now feels like a hit of hope straight to my veins. It’s the first thing in a long time that has allowed me to grab hold of that slippery sense of calm and trust in the world. It’s a delight to watch this next generation brim with passion, fight for change, and speak their truths. When the path ahead seems darker than usual, I force my mind conjure the raging flames of these powerful young writers.

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To lead the world to justice and hope, we must empower a generation of young women to speak with authority and write their truth. Girls Write Now is making that happen—one girl at a time.

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There is always possibility, mystery, and hope in young women. Finding voice to that, especially with the written word, can be really, really hard. Girls Write Now supports, nourishes, and provides a bridge to telling the stories we so desperately need to hear.

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To lead the world to justice and hope, we must empower a generation of young women to speak with authority and write their truth. Girls Write Now is making that happen—one girl at a time.

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I’m incredibly honored to be recognized by Girls Write Now, an organization that goes above and beyond to elevate underrepresented voices with stories that need to be told. Nothing is more special than the love for reading and writing, and I hope that through my work with Sweet July and Eat. Learn. Play., as well as organizations like Girls Write Now, we can see positive and meaningful representation of women across publishing.

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My whole life has been supported by the gift of being given the space to tell stories. Seeing these brilliant and driven young women take on the world through words gives me so much hope for the future, both of television and the world.

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I hope you will experience every remarkable piece, each one written from a particular point of view no one else has. By writing from a myriad of backgrounds and perspectives, whether through lines of poetry that deserve to be memorized or recited, or in prose that is stunning in its beauty, I hope you will hear these unmuted and unafraid voices, and that they would inspire and move you.

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"A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself" - Oprah Winfrey.

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It is my greatest hope that no matter what you are feeling or how much support you have right now or not that you will just keep writing. The stories you gather now matter. You matter. And you are not alone.

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Hope, to me, is about possibility. It’s about giving people the tools and the confidence to see a future where they belong and where their voices are valued. Hope lives in our words because words have the power to inspire, to educate, and to challenge the status quo.

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As Emily Dickinson wrote, "'Hope' is the thing with feathers." We need it to feel levity when there is a constant onslaught of oppressive news. We need feathers to allow our wings to catch air, and we need our wings to soar. With hope, we can fly above any despair. We can fly ahead and dream of new futures where hope is the easiest thing to have.

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Chris Andrews, Kyndryl Corporate Affairs

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Chris Andrews, Kyndryl Corporate Affairs

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Human nature is based on inquisitiveness, exploration, fascination, and pursuit of progress. It’s because of those qualities that I know the future holds many new exciting and interesting things that will make your life and the lives of those you love more fun, more productive, and more rewarding than either of us could possibly imagine.

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Be kind to yourself. Enjoy the moments. Laugh whenever you can. Don’t stress too much, this too shall pass. Be a team player and be inclusive, find your people…your village. Be open to try new things and open to new and different/unique perspectives. And you don’t have to know all the answers…it’s about the journey. Ask questions - be curious, make mistakes - it’s okay to fail. Lift up the people around you - lead from your heart. Be present and tell people in your life you love them.

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Neil Welheimer, Kyndryl Corporate Affairs

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Neil Welheimer, Kyndryl Corporate Affairs

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I hope you’ve found the goodness in people. If you haven’t stop reading this now. Go find them. Surround yourself with good people – that’s always been the secret to NOT seeing things up.

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If you're ever feeling hopeless, try sharing something you like with someone else. You might be amazed by how much optimism can come from positive human interaction.

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In my eyes, hope is the only choice we have. It can feel really easy to want to give up and just give into feeling the doom and gloom of it all. Choosing to believe that a better reality is actually possible and something we can create is an extremely brave, and necessary, choice. Otherwise, we let those holding us back win and undermine all the sacrifices those before us made. Being hopeful is part of human tradition and the day we stop imagining and dreaming would be the day we lose everything from our history to our future to ourselves.

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I like to remind myself that hope is not a feeling, but a practice, and like so many practices, it's easy to lose the habit. We forget to actively cultivate hope, and suddenly, we forget how to see it at all. But it's always there: the hope of change, the hope for better, the hope that we will dismantle the structures and systems designed to harm and repress us. By writing about hope and taking time to identify the people, things, movements, and moments that make me hopeful, I am reminding myself that hope exists whether I choose to see it or not. So why not go looking?

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the etmology of German's hoffen (to hope) is in fact a neighbor of hüpfen (to hop) which mirrors phrases (in English) like "leaps of faith" - I like thinking of hope this way, something almost childlike and carefree, but also as a reminder that hope is active, requires risk (the fall) and promises new heights

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Molly MacDermot, GWN Director of Special Initiatives 

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Molly MacDermot, GWN Director of Special Initiatives 

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Hope has "hop" in the word and when you have hope, you truly do have a hop in your step. What if you switched it and put a hop in your step...would it ignite the hope inside you? This is what I'm trying today.