About Kaelah

Kaelah Blades is 14 years old and lives in a very friendly neighborhood where people are very cheerful and happy. Though she is from New York City, her family is from Trinidad and Tobago so she expresses representation from each of those countries. Kaelah started both high school as a freshman and a GWN first-year mentee, and is very excited to be in a new learning environment to expand her skills with her mentor. She thinks of writing as not just a bunch of words thrown onto paper just to read, but as her best friend. The peanut butter to her jelly. Writing is a part of her, and she has a really strong commitment to work harder and be better at what she love to do. Kaelah writes a lot of short stories and poems that friends and family really enjoy reading. Her preferred genres are mysteries and science fiction. Her favorite book is The Fearless because it makes you want to keep reading it and never stop. Kaelah has won 2nd Place in an after-school program poetry contest. Though exciting, this only pushes her to be better in the future. Kaelah looks forward to being part of Girls Write Now because it is only the beginning.

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About kara

Kara Rota is an Editor at Macmillan Publishers, focusing on cookbooks and other non-fiction, and the director of the Webby Award-winning Cookstr.com. She hosts the weekly Clever Cookstr podcast on Macmillan's Quick and Dirty Tips network. Her writing has appeared in Noble/Gas Quarterly, Irish America Magazine, LS Catalogue, Food+Tech Connect, and others. Kara has spoken on food and tech at conferences including Food Book Fair, the Roger Smith Cookbook Conference, Techmunch NYC, and Brooklyn Food Festival, and has been profiled by Skillcrush and Good Food Jobs. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, and is a former junior board member of The Lower Eastside Girls Club and a former board member of Girls in Tech NYC. Kara lives in Brooklyn.