Things I Have to Tell You Poems and Writing by Teenage Girls

Teenage girls tell their own storiesin compelling poetry and prose paired with 42 striking black-and-white photographs. The voices in this collection have so much to question, so much to grieve. They have so much to celebrate, so much to rage against. They're ready to speak up and begin the conversation with you and with the world. More than thirty uncensored poems are accompanied by Nina Nickles's masterful photographs, which sensitively capture the moods and essence of adolescence. Here, painted in the words of teenage girls, is a portrait of their dreams and desires - a record of hope, disillusionment, anger, joy, sadness, and most of all, strength.

Nina Nickles has attended the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine, and the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico. In 1999, she won an American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) Big Picture Award, and her work has been shown in numerous galleries in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. While photographing for THINGS I HAVE TO TELL YOU, she says she responded to "the language, flow, and nuance of gesture - gestures that were at once particular and individual but at the same time expressed so much."


Betsy Franco has published more than forty books for children and adults."My purpose and approach with THINGS I HAVE TO TELL YOU," she says, "was to let young women speak for themselves. These young women have something to say - and can they write!"