Laura Doggett

By Sabrina Guo, 12 Writing My Own Path As a child, I loved the smell of libraries. I would flip through the pages of any book, and take a good, long sniff. My favorite scent was sweet–a bit of lemon and coffee, mixed with paper, of course. However, other books had a bitter smell and were covered with all kinds of food stains, which I hated because it reminded me of how books were sometimes treated just as paper and nothing more. I thought of each book as a life–a key to a specific person’s brain. At the same time, I hated books. I respected them and liked their smells, yes, but I absolutely loathed words. Every time I tried to read something as minor as a news headline, words would swarm around me like taunting wasps. While other kids talked about their new favorite books, I was the wallflower, standing away from the crowd and nibbling slowly on my sandwich. A memory: when I was five, I learned that To Kill a Mockingbird was a book loved all around the world. I decided to read it–after all, if there were so many positive reviews, how could I not love it? In addition, I was determined to open myself up and conquer my fear of words. I asked my father to check it out at the library. When he walked through our door with it, I was giddy with excitement. I flipped through it, smelling it like a perfume tester. It was unique and unlike any other book I’d smelled before–like moss drenched in rain, bittersweet and mature. Greedily, I started reading the first page. But almost immediately, dark words started to choke the air around me. The enlarged first letter pounced on top of me, and the rest of the words quickly followed, swimming around me. I tried to push my fears away, telling myself I wasn’t going to be engulfed this time. My fear of reading was going to end right there, right then, that second, with that very book. But because of its advanced language, I had no idea what was happening in the story. It was boring and tiring… and I was only halfway down the first page. I exhaled, telling myself there would be a next time. Then I slammed the book shut in frustration. Although I had a complicated relationship with books, I did love writing song lyrics. After school, I would transform my tangled thoughts into strings of words, which I wrote down in a tiny notebook about the size of my hand. Little did I know that these song lyrics were actually poems; later I would take a risk and reshape my lyrics into a more literary form. And that was how I took my first step into writing. From there, I decided to experiment with reading again. I borrowed many types of library books, but it was fantasy that finally hooked me. Fantasy made me feel like I was soaring above moonlit clouds, plucking shimmering stars from the sky and collecting them inside of my heart. These stories gave me an amazing sense of freedom, adventure, and suspense. And after a while, my interests expanded to other genres; I even started to read some news articles, which had intimidated me so much before. My father and I like to watch the news together, and last year, as coverage of the refugee crisis increased, he encouraged me to dig deeper into the topic. It can sometimes sound like it’s a simple, fast process to immigrate to the United States; but as I read up on the issue, I discovered that it’s far from easy or quick. It can actually take up to several years to go through all the necessary steps! Even after reaching the U.S., refugees can still face economic and emotional difficulties, along with discrimination. After learning all of this, I decided to write a blog about it, as I am a blogger and contributing writer to the children’s magazine, Stone Soup.  I was also inspired to write a poem addressed to refugee children, welcoming them to their new home in the United States. I tried to explain some of things that they might encounter in their new country, from academic pressures to peer pressure. Writing the poem enabled me to think more deeply about what a refugee child might experience after leaving their home country. It challenged me to think outside of my own life and circumstances, and this poem was one of the first works I’d written truly from my heart. Around that time, William Rubel, the founder of Stone Soup, mentioned in his weekly newsletter that he hoped to create a platform to showcase refugee children’s art and writing. Due to my interest in the refugee crisis, I immediately volunteered to help. He suggested that I begin researching organizations, photographers, and artists who were working with refugee children. Through doing this, I found many amazing organizations. One in particular, Another Kind of Girl Collective (AKGC), really struck me. This organization, founded by Laura Doggett, holds photography and film workshops for Syrian refugee girls living in Jordan. AKGC aims to give refugee girls the deeply necessary space, training, and equipment to develop their preferred art forms, along with providing them a platform to share their own stories and experiences. The girls prove themselves not to be passive and tragic beings, which is sometimes how the media portrays them, but rather hardworking, creative, smart, and motivated visionaries. Because of how much I admired Laura’s work, I reached out to her through email, asking if I could interview her. I had doubts about whether she would respond. After all, I was just a twelve-year-old girl, and she was surely busy with her extremely important work. So you can imagine my elation when I did hear back from her! She told me she would be happy to give me an interview. She was heading to Jordan and even invited me