girls speak!
Believe in Your Dreams
By GirlZDream
I'm a dreamer. I have a great imagination, and big beautiful dreams. So it was no surprise when I told my friends that I wanted to start my own magazine. I was 12 then. I came up with a bunch of features for my little magazine, and decided it would be called Daydreams. I don't exactly remember how it happened, but I ended up wanting a website instead. The geocities username, daydreams was already taken, and somehow I ended up with the name GirlZDream. The site was fun, girly, popular, and had a variety of different things.
The dream of wanting a real magazine came up again when I was 13, and realized it really was possible for me to do. As a girl, I read practically every teen magazine on newsstands. But I began to notice something... They weren't really diverse. I mean, look at my neighborhood in the Bronx. There's Latinos, Asians, African Americas, and I have friends from Bangladesh and Guyana. How many times have you seen a girl from Bangladesh, or Korea, or Belize, or a Dominican/Puerto Rican on the cover of your favorite teen magazine? Not often huh?
I knew that if GirlZDream was going to come alive, it would be diverse. It had to be. I love learning about different cultures, different places. So I got to work. With my Best Buy gift card, I bought Art Explosion Publisher Pro, a program where you can make publications like newsletters, ads, banners, or other things. And thanks to my best friend, I also got Photoshop, so I could make other graphics that I would need.
GirlZDream would be for teen girls from everywhere. It would be a place, where no matter who you were, we were all sisters, sharing different tastes in style, music, or anything else. Diversity, and sisterhood. Good or bad, we'd share our stories, and help each other out. I made a table of contents. There would be the usual: Embarrassing stories, drama, crafts... But also came up with some features that I thought would be good.
- Global Girl, where the featured girl would teach us about her culture, and teach us yummy recipes.
- Debate, where girls could argue their views the right way.
- Let's Talk About... Where girls could share discussions on pretty much anything
- Sisterhood, where girls use their creativity to come up with sort of, public service announcements, to stand for what they believe in (Say something against teen pregnancy, talk about staying above the influence of drugs and peer pressure...)
And of course way more (But I don't want to waist your time--you can check it out when you buy the first issue ;] ) Of course there would be real girls (like you!) on the cover. There's something for everyone in GirlZDream. And you get to be involved with it, because we publish work submitted by our readers. So YOU help make GirlZDream your dream magazine.
I'm 14 now, and still working hard. I'm really hoping GirlZDream
will bring together girls from all shapes and sizes, and realize the
importance of sisterhood, and the beauty of being unique.
*We're
working on a story about stereo types, so if you feel like you're a
victim of that (whether because of your style, background, or where you
live) visit GirlZDream online, and tell us your story.
Check it out!
www.GirlZDream.radpages.com