EN YU ZHANG
YEARS AS MENTEE: 3
GRADE: Senior
HIGH SCHOOL: Stuyvesant High School
BORN: Hong Kong, SAR
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: It feels like Elizabeth and I have progressed a lot from our first few meetings as a fledgling pair. Now in our third year, we often spend a lot more time talking about random topics, but I like to think that we are exchanging perspectives in a meaningful way. It’s interesting to hear about ideas from her point of view, and I learn a lot from that. Then when we do start writing, I can be inspired to write about something differently.
ELIZABETH KOSTER
YEARS AS MENTOR: 3
OCCUPATION: Creative Writing Teacher, West Brooklyn Community High School
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: New York, NY
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: I have been En Yu’s mentor at Girls Write Now for three years, and our meetings are so much fun. She’s whip-smart and insightful, and I enjoy sharing thoughts on everything from politics to people’s strange and curious ways. She’s quite talented, and her writing often makes me drop my jaw. This past year, we worked together on her college admission essay. After several rounds of revisions, she shared a version that was so strong that it hardly resembled her first draft. I was so proud of her when I learned that she’d gotten into her first-choice college.
I am fond of the stillness during the night, and I combined that atmosphere with the story of a man returning home from work.
“I’m home.”
To say that was simple habit; there was no one to respond. His expression unchanged, the man removed his shoes at the doorway and placed down his briefcase. He blinked as his gaze met the ground for a moment, noting the dust accumulating on the step.
It has been a while since he’s cleaned up, hasn’t it?
He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. The man then stepped into the room, briefcase in hand, eyes glazed and distant.
Men like this were quite common across the country. It was the position that most youth found their way into, no matter how ambitious their dreams and lofty their goals, a job valued as stable: the salaryman. They work long hours, hunched over papers and computers, blue light framing their faces; at night they are often obligated to drink with the rest of the office, as the boss sees fit. They come home late with drained eyes, throbbing wrists, and aching backs.
The man eased himself into a cross-legged position on the tatami mat, hands gripping his knees. The newspaper was from a week ago, when the overzealous neighbor came over, but would serve its purpose just fine. He flipped through the pages, noting with pleasure that the crossword puzzles were numerous in this edition. It only made sense for him to leave the room to retrieve a pair of scissors, which he then skillfully used to cut out the puzzles in neat, straight lines, creating orderly rectangles.
There was a stack of similar puzzles on the table in front of him. Those in his hand joined them. They were all unfilled, anyway. Well, at least they were always entertaining; the changing dates didn’t affect their quality.
Seeing that the newspaper didn’t offer anything else, the man folded it in half, then into quarters, and so on, till the paper was neatly collapsed into a rectangle the size of one’s palm. He slipped it into his back pocket, reminding himself to dispose of it later.
Satisfied with his findings, he unfolded his legs and stretched one out while leaving the other upright as support for a lazy arm. From the table he retrieved a lighter and a box of cigarettes, igniting one. He inhaled the smoke with a deep breath, as he could never get far enough away from his co-workers to attempt this during the day.
The man closed his eyes, though the flat yellow light of the room prevented sleep from reaching him. Sensing how fruitless an attempt it was, he opened his eyes once more, as if seeking some profit out of these remaining hours. He turned his head to the right, to a window. Anything beyond the glass was barely visible, as the reflection of the ceiling light engulfed it all, reducing the dark sky to the fringes.
Had he attempted to peer through the glass, to overcome the challenge that the artificial light had posed, the hazy sky would have welcomed him with warmth. The faint clouds provided some variation to the velvet quilt, which was rapidly darkening to give way to night. The evening was still, perpetuating itself with more silence still. But, as the man never tried to glimpse anything, he didn’t know any of this.