The lived experience of first-generation women is layered with pressure, stress, and often unspoken trauma, but also rich with resilience, courage, and triumph. We carry the weight of learning, navigating, and teaching all at once. We strive to fulfill the dreams of our loved ones while honoring cultural traditions and navigating expectations. We experience it all, and yet, we rise. At Generation Fearless, we believe in the power of storytelling to inspire, connect, and transform.

A Mini Anthology:
Six Stories. Six Defining Questions.
Coming March 2026

This collection centers the voices of first-generation women, trailblazers, and culture-shapers through short stories that reflect truth, transformation, and tenacity. Each writer selects one defining question as the heart of their narrative, opening a window into identity, growth, and becoming.

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From origin stories and quiet reckonings to legacy, survival, and purpose, this anthology invites bold storytelling rooted in lived experience. Together, these six stories will reflect the many ways first-generation women rise, rewrite, and reclaim their power.

Overview

We’re inviting six first-generation women to craft personal narratives that explore resilience, self-definition, and legacy. Each story (1,500–2,500 words) will respond to one of six defining questions: 

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1. What is your origin story—the moment or place that shaped who you are?
   The seed story—memory, sacrifice, geography, or disruption that sparked your becoming.

2. What’s one moment where you felt unseen or profoundly seen in a space meant to serve you?
   A reflection on belonging, power, and the spaces that honor or erase our presence.

3. What story did you once tell yourself that you’ve since rewritten?
   A journey of confronting old narratives about worth, identity, or capability, and replacing them with truth.

4. Who did you have to become to surviveand who are you now becoming to thrive?
   An exploration of growth, boundaries, and the shift from survival to intentional living.

5. What truth did you have to confront in order to grow?
   A pivotal moment of reckoning with self, environment, or relationship that sparked transformation.

6. Where do your roots begin, and how have they shaped who you are today?
   An honoring of ancestral threads, culture, and generational strength that inform your path.

This is more than a writing project; it’s a collective act of reflection, healing, and bold self-expression.

Each selected contributor will receive coaching, editorial feedback, and the opportunity to be published and celebrated in a printed and digital collection.

Our Timeline

• July 2025~Call for Writers Opens 

• August 2025~In-Person Kickoff & Creative Workshop (Northern, NJ)

• September 2025~Virtual Outline Feedback Session

• October 15, 2025~First Drafts Due

• November 2025~Editorial Feedback Delivered

• December 2025~In-Person Revision Retreat (Northern, NJ)

• January 15, 2026~Final Manuscripts + Author Bios Due

• February 2026~Proofing, Design, & Advance Copies

• March 2026~Official Book Launch + Reading Celebration (Northern, NJ)

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Meet Our Writing Coach: Hope Coppinger

This project is guided by the brilliant and generous Hope Coppinger, a writer, coach, and creative thought partner who thrives on bold questions and imaginative possibilities. Hope Coppinger loves a creative challenge, a great question, and a chance to play. As a writer and a writing coach, her experience, imagination, and wide-ranging curiosity all enable her to ask questions from fresh perspectives, see problems from new angles, and help individuals and organizations develop writing that is both authentic and moving. She combines her strategic skills and love of language with spontaneity and creativity, making for a playful approach to any project.

Hope is committed to helping individuals and organizations identify, clarify and amplify their stories in order to build a stronger sense of community and belonging. Having worked in nonprofit and higher ed communications for over twenty years, Hope has a wide range of experience with engaging audiences through direct mail, web content, video and social media. Her short fiction has been published in North Dakota Quarterly, Bluestem Magazine, Qwerty, and The Platform Review. Her degrees in education and creative writing have helped her develop into a thoughtful listener, and an observant supporter for people and organizations seeking to develop their writing and elevate their communications.