In this season of no award shows in Hollywood while the writers’ strike drags on, the nonprofit WriteGirl, of which I happen to be a member, presented Bold Ink Awards to half-a-dozen inspiring and successful writers at the Grammy Foundation 1/24. WriteGirl is a mentoring organization that works one-on-one with teen “at risk” girls who dream of becoming published. I can’t say they dream of becoming writers; as Callie Khourie, one of the Bold Ink honorees and author of successful screenplays like Thelma and Louise and The Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, pointed out, they already are writers. It’s the published part that’s tricky. WriteGirl gives them a head start on that too. Once yearly, for the past six years, we’ve publish an anthology of writings by the mentees. Our current release, Lines of Velocity, is available at writegirl.org. Hey, get yourself some good reading and help us compensate for the dwindling funds for education. Unlike the reality of our national education policy, the girls we mentor really don’t get left behind. Every single one has completed high school (in a district where the overall dropout rate is 50 percent), and nearly all have gone on to college.