From The Garlic Field is a group of teenage girls that are not only constantly reminiscing about their summer spent together, but constantly chasing after that creative community they starve for through…a WhatsApp groupchat.

Divided across California and beyond the national borders, this talented group of young writers are renowned California Arts Scholars and CSSSA 2026 Graduates, who have decided to continue their poetry and writing goals and dreams beyond a four-week program. Now they write anywhere, anytime, and they’re connected through weekly prompts that they’ve all interpreted so, so differently.

We’re writing because there’s some part of us that wants to, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to actually write about. Or how to start it.

These weekly prompts allow us to feel connected again like we used to in our big class together. Still receiving feedback from each other, and gaining that feeling of knowing that we’re being heard somehow, some way. We continue to wonder, we continue to pursue, and we continue to make art. To make people’s hearts move. To inspire one another from hundreds of miles, thousands apart from each other. But at one point, as we all remember, we were together.

We do our poems on weekly prompts provided by each other through a Google form. They’re not all that timely, but they certainly come. By reading our publication here, we encourage you all to embark on this journey we’ve taken on by letting ourselves be heard through our work. And while you’re reading, take a moment to feel yourself. Reminisce in a time you were with a group that really got you. And if you haven’t had that experience yet, don’t hold yourself short. Everybodys time will come, like ours did.

One poem at a time, get to know us. Get to know how we think. How we process. And most importantly, how we write, how we speak, and how we are heard.

This is our compilement of writing beyond CSSSA.

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(Featured image from Pexels)