Courtesy of Sonia Mehta
Dublin Jerome High School senior Sonia Mehta is a published writer, poet, editor, national award winner and entrepreneur with a mission to create a community for young women writers, a safe space where connections are shared and opportunities abound.
Mehta took initiative and founded central Ohio’s Celtic Literary Review two years ago. The online quarterly magazine, which now has a staff of 10, serves as a launching pad to amplify the voices of girls and young women who write fiction, nonfiction, plays and poetry.
The publication started out of a desire to create opportunities that Mehta didn’t find when she started.
“It was very intimidating,” she says. “There were very few resources for me.”
Mehta is the recipient of a 2021 National Gold Medal from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards in the category of science fiction and fantasy writing, a departure which pushed her from her traditional comfort zone of fiction and poetry.
Mehta is eager to share her experiences with others through an apprenticeship with the BreakBread Literacy Project, a central Ohio initiative with the mission to elevate the voices of people under age 25 though a literary journal, internship opportunities and events. She is on the organization’s fiction team and works with a community of artists practicing in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual arts.
Solitude Fellowship
Courtesy of Sonia Mehta
Mehta sensed a communal feeling of isolation late last spring due to the pandemic and looked for a way to unite others to explore their feelings through art. She began by contacting fellow poet Bea Bolongaita, a 2021 Dublin Jerome graduate currently studying political science and government at Kenyon College.
Mehta continued to reach out to other notable young writers, visual artists and musicians to ultimately collaborate in the creation of a 12-artist multimedia project titled Solitude, which is now available online. The project includes stunning visual artworks accompanied by impactful written and spoken word, underscored by music primarily composed and performed by students from Maryland, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
The sense of community between the young artists grew organically, eventually resulting in the artwork that Mehta curated and produced over a seven-month period. Solitude provides an intimate view into a broad exploration of identity, trepidation, meditation, introspection and fortitude.
“We began with poetry and then built around the literary work,” Mehta says.
The visual artists felt an aura around the words, which the artists then expressed in their drawings and paintings. The composers stated they could hear the music while reading the words. The different mediums blended well, Mehta says, with the poetry’s vivid imagery initiating the multimedia artistic process.
The aural backdrop to Dylan Keessen’s drawing, The Invention of Lockets, is a lilting piano solo by Sam Braveman, combined with a selfreading of Mehta’s poetry, expressing feelings of doubt, angst, anger and loss. The combined elements clearly illustrate the myriad components of introspection.
Lily Wang’s painting the difference a year makes evokes thoughts of Salvador Dali’s work, perhaps attributed to a flaming watch face or the perspective and foreboding of a trip into the unknown. Poet Erin Ye speaks of individuals as legendary movie starlets, “… where the ashes of burned-out piles unfade; you would be there to smoke an apology, to roll up a good-bye.”
The concept of identity is explored in the bright oranges and yellows of The Tomato Woman by Diana Vins and in the arresting descriptions of the woman, stretching and bursting to fulfill her destiny in the poetic words of Bolongaita.
The Solitude project, Mehta says, aims to help resolve some of the negative emotions that some are currently feeling, bringing the viewer into a mental headspace where they no longer feel alienated or alone.
Mehta aspires to use her resources as a young, relatable, multi-ethnic mentor to provide advice to others. Over time, she has learned that feedback or artistic criticism need not be daunting, scary or awkward. Her passions and projects connect around literacy and education as a means to provide opportunities for all to function in American society.
Next school year, Mehta will attend the University of Pennsylvania with a major in English, and she dreams to someday have a nonfiction novel on The New York Times’ Bestseller List.
Courtesy of Sonia Mehta
Janet Cooper is director of engagement, Dublin Arts Council. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
