It was with inspiring words that Brooklyn Poet Laureate,  Tina Chang, introduced Brooklyn Reading Works’ Young Writers Night Thursday at the Old Stone House (a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event).

The poet urged the young writers who participated in this evening of poetry and songs, to listen to their hearts and keep writing. “You never know where it will take you,” she said.

Chang, the author the Half-Lit Houses and Of Gods & Strangers and co-editor of an anthology of contemporary poetry from the Middle East and Asia, told the crowd that she started writing at a very young age. “I knew it was what I wanted to do,” she said. She now teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Park Slope.

Yesterday she sent me a lovely email:

Thank you so much for last night. Those performers! Wow, I was so
impressed by the maturity, the talent, and the charisma of all those
musicians and readers.

I also remembered the first singer’s line, “I was becoming something
unfamiliar” in referencing a bird and I was astounded when she said,
“Um, I wrote this when I was 14.” If this is our youth, then I was
overjoyed to think that this is the direction they are headed.