A conversation with high school junior Mekhala Mantravadi
“You have this outward spotlight on everything, and because you’re confined to your home for the most part, you’re hyper aware – not only of what’s happening in the news, but also of what’s happening around you.”
Mekhala Mantravadi, a junior in high school, is talking to us about what it’s like to take a writing workshop in the pandemic, from your home, via Zoom.
“I really love to write,” she says. “I’m an introvert, and the only way that I feel people can get to know me and the characters inside of my head is through writing. That’s the primary way I express myself.”
Last summer, she enrolled in the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center’s Young Writers Workshop, a three-week intensive program where high school students explore poetry, fiction and narrative nonfiction with expert teachers and visiting writers. In normal times, the workshop meets daily at 92Y’s building on 92nd and Lex. This year, it took place entirely online. Why did she decide to enroll?
“I got an email from my school saying it’s a great program. I was actually working on a short story called “Shoba,” and I decided to send in the first draft of it with my application, even though it wasn’t complete.
“I got an email from Sophie Herron, one of the coordinators of the program. They gave me such wonderful feedback. They talked about specific parts of my writing, and gave me book recommendations based on my writing style. The letter was so personalized to me — I could see that they really took the time to read my work and understand it, and understand me. I was very touched by that. I think that was the main factor in why I decided to go to the program in the first place — because they put so much care into reading my work.”
What was it like, to take the privacy of writing into a workshop setting?
“We were all in these small little boxes on Zoom. Every day we would read our work together. I guess the work we submitted was very intimate, and very dear to us. We were literally giving our hearts and souls to each other to judge and critique during the workshop. Reading it out loud is so different from seeing your words in two dimensions on a page. Hearing your work and judging the reaction of your work on people's faces ... getting validation and also sometimes passing your ideas along with other people … as young writers, you can underestimate your ability a lot, because you're often comparing yourself to authors and writers and creators who are much older than you, and seem to have more impact than you. The people who took the workshop with me were my first audience, and what I realized this summer is that the audience is kind of always on your side. They’re not against you; they’re actually rooting for you.
“Now I think writing is more than just a solo thing. I’m a relatively new writer, but I think the process of writing, drafting and editing can make you get in your head sometimes. The workshop helps you to gauge the reaction of other people, what works and what doesn’t work, which is what I really enjoy.”
These past eight months have been a time of enormous change and adjustment for all of us, perhaps teens more than anyone. When we emerge from the pandemic, what will be different for Mekhala and her friends?
“Hope is a very important thing to this generation,” she says. “I think we take a lot of things for granted. I wish I could go to school and sit in the cafeteria and eat lunch with my friends. But I think being confined to my home has made me realize the need to be around people — even though some days I feel like I don't need to be around people, I do. And I think we're now coming to consciousness that we need these things and these people, and hopefully that we don't take those things for granted anymore.
“The students in the workshop — we all got close to each other by workshopping together, and it didn’t just end when the workshop was over. We still talk about and share our work. It’s really wonderful to have a group of writers you can fall back on, a group that was formed through the workshop.”
Watch Mekhala read an excerpt from “Shoba” below.
The Young Writers Workshop returns next summer. Learn more about the program.