Its official! I Am Night Sky and other reflections by muslim american youth, Shout Mouse Press’ newest antholgy featuring the stories of Muslim youth from the DMV area has launched. After a year of writing, editing, and rewriting Next Wave Muslim Innitiative’s youth authors presented their book I Am The Night Sky to an audience full of friends, family, readers, and supporters. 

We celebrated the beginning of Ramadan by announcing our newest book: I AM THE NIGHT SKY
and Other Reflections by Muslim American Youth

We are so excited that award-winning young adult, middle grade, and picture book author Meg Medina has written a new foreword for Voces Sin Fronteras: Our Stories, Our Truth! Voces is a graphic memoir collection by LAYC’s Latino Youth Leadership Council, a passionate group of young people dedicated to social justice in their community. We’ll be releasing the new edition soon, so stay tuned!

Dartavius, who goes by Doc, is a three-time author with Reach, having written Drip, Drip: The Story of the Angry Sherbet, Madison, Sit Down, and this summer his third picture book, Tiffany and the Two Missing Teeth. Doc talked through the process of writing children’s books and gave a sneak peak into what he’s writing this year.

This summer, I served as a story coach for a workshop with 10 Muslim-American teen writers and artists. The two-week long workshop was the first phase of a collaboration between between Shout Mouse Press (SMP) and Next Wave Muslim Initiative (NWMI) to provide young Muslim American writers and artists a place to produce a collection of art, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction that gives different perspectives on being a Muslim American in the current political climate.

Recently, Ballou High School graduates and co-authors of How to Grow Up Like Me, Our Lives Matter, and Humans of Ballou, Carl Brown and Darne’sha Walker visited a class of 6th-8th graders at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES). KDES is a day school serving deaf and hard of hearing students from birth through grade 8 located within Gallaudet University’s campus.

It’s here! Voces Sin Fronteras: Our Stories, Our Truth, Shout Mouse’s first graphic memoir collection has officially launched. Voces Sin Fronteras, a collection of 16 bilingual side-by-side graphic memoir collections, is a product of a month-long workshop with the Latin American Youth Center’s Latino Youth Leadership council, a passionate group of young people dedicated to social justice in their community.

Join us for the launch of our first ever graphic memoir collection. 

Recently, 1st grade students from H.D. Cooke Elementary School in D.C. wrote letters to the teen authors of Drip, Drip: The Story of the Angry Sherbet, a product of our collaboration with  Reach Incorporated.

Great news! Shout Mouse Press is partnering with Next Wave Muslim Initiative (NWMI) to produce a book project by Muslim youth. The workshops will result in an original novel, inspired by youth observations and experiences, that confronts anti-Muslim discrimination and explores multiple perspectives of American Muslims. The project, which begins this summer, will be co-led by award-winning novelist Hena Khan.

On Thursday, February 8 at 6 p.m., Beacon House authors will discuss The Day Tajon Got Shot at the Mount Pleasant Public Library.
 

Help us celebrate the new year by donating to our cause and helping meet our year-end fundraising goal. 

This summer we also held writing workshops with 16 ambitious teens from the Latin American Youth Center’s Latino Youth Leadership Council. They wrote and illustrated true life stories of immigration, education, family, and community. For the past few months, a team of comic book professionals have been working hard to bring these powerful stories together into a bilingual graphic memoir collection not to be missed.

It was our busiest summer yet here at Shout Mouse Press! Help us celebrate these summer highlights and look forward to all to come this fall.

The 2017 Reach Incorporated and Shout Mouse Press children’s book writing workshops have drawn to a close. Now that the authors have finished writing, our illustrators are working on bringing their stories to life! Books launch in November and we can't wait. We couldn’t keep these exciting new stories to ourselves, so here’s a sneak peek at this exciting new batch of books. 

Because the mission of Shout Mouse is to amplify marginalized voices, seeing Madison drawn on screen is more than just seeing a character come to life, it was a realization of this mission.  Our picture books with Reach intend to expand diverse voices within children’s literature, both in their characters and their authors.

Noam Paris is a returning to the Shout Mouse team to illustrate their second Reach Incorporated children’s book. Noam graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in May and is now working as an illustrator in Baltimore. Noam previously illustrated The Blue Spark in 2015, Shout Mouse’s first comic book. We asked them to talk a little about illustration, the process of working on Reach books, and the importance of picture books.

The first week working on the LAYC graphic memoir project was a whirlwind of emotion. Coming in the first day, I was surrounded by nervous teenagers speaking Spanish. I realized that the language obstacles we were tackling were more pronounced than I had expected.

Here at Shout Mouse, we are knee deep in our summer writing workshops. Teen writers at Reach Incorporated and the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) Latino Youth Leadership Council are engaged in unique and equally exciting projects, both designed to further our mission of amplifying marginalized voices.

Recently, authors China, Amira, and Tyandra visited Excel Academy Public Charter School as part of the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program. The writers shared from their co-authored book, “Our Lives Matter” with a class of thoughtful and insightful 8th graders. The students were so inspired by the story they decided to write their own stories in a similar style. 

We are incredibly honored to feature the work of Critical Exposure Fellow Amir Price in upcoming novel-in-stories, "The Day Tajon Got Shot." Here, Amir explains why he traveled to Baltimore in 2015 to document the aftermath of the tragic murder of Freddie Gray. 

We’re turning three this summer! We’ve published 25 books and worked with over 200 young writers from 5 different non-profit partners. To celebrate, we are participating in 2017 United Way Do More 24 Campaign, the area's biggest 24-hour online fundraiser, on June 8 from 12:00 AM – 11:59 PM. You can make an advance donation starting May 25. All you have to do is log on at www.domore24.org/npos/shout-mouse-press and donate!

Ballou Story Project (BSP) took the stage for the first time a few weeks ago and we could not be more proud of the work of these young writers.The performance, directed and produced by our partners at Young Playwrights’ Theatre and featuring five talented professional actors, tenderly handled sensitive topics of abuse, cancer, and loss.

Did you hear the news? This year, 100 percent of Ballou High School’s senior class applied to college! We could not be more proud of the graduating class of 2017. Wow!

This winter has been a busy one! This is what we’ve been up to.