This winter I’m mentoring a young student who is one of only 15 students selected for The Telling Room’s Young Writers and Leaders Program. These are international high school students from Somalia, Rwanda, Jordan, Iraq, Congo, Burundi, and Afghanistan and are now attending one of Portland, Maine’s high schools. They’ve all come to write a story based on their own lives. Each student is working one-on-one with a professional writer. Mentor and Mentee. This is an experience I am savoring, as I do free writes with my talented mentee and begin to see the story she wants to tell. And this work will result in an anthology of students’ stories as was a book I often bring to teachers when I visit schools. The book is I Remember Warm Rain: 15 Teenagers 15 Coming to America Stories. This is an exquisite story collection. And these students are in the process of making a book of their own.