An army of teenage girls write their own, uncensored stories

RED REVOLUTION The book (right), and its mascot (left)

Teenage girls are typically portrayed in one of two ways: either as the catty social-climbing Heatherettes of Mean Girls, or the wild hellions of 13, who, at the first surge of hormones, terrorize their parents with pierced tongues, Manic Panic dye, and Girls Gone Wild antics. The effects? Swarms of misunderstood adolescents and legions of anxious parents leashed to lawyer and rehab hotlines. (The situation's no better with Showgirls alum Elizabeth Berkeley and Atoosa "Alpha Kitty" Rubenstein acting as the grande dames of teen self-esteem, propagating their particular brand of powder-puff feminism on a cotton candy–coated website near you.)

Enter Red, a new collection of essays compiled by former Seventeen and New York editor Amy Goldwasser and written by 58 teenage authors that provides a raw new look at modern adolescent girls. The book's essays, written by ladies ages 13 to 19, cover a well-known spectrum of teen trauma—from perfectionism to family issues to an unabashed confession of an unhealthy obsession with Johnny Depp. But the tone is thankfully uncensored, and with Red, there's not a patronizing dash of pink or a heart-dotted i in sight.

Radar caught up with Goldwasser to talk about the budding teen media industrial complex, the challenges of launching an anthology with a set of unknown writers, and, of course, what it's like to dive back into the world of adolescent angst.

SCREEN GIRLS The pink-swathed plastics of Mean Girls. Not found in Red

Radar: How did the project begin?
I'd been working with the Lower East Side Girls Club and was always impressed with their writing. One of the things I tried to do at multiple places was to create a teen-written column, including at Seventeen and New York magazine.

It just didn't take?
No, for various reasons. But both times I was blown away by the submissions I received in a matter of days.

How tough is it to get a publisher to back an anthology written entirely by young, unknown girls?
It's both easier and harder. I mean, what I've found is that if I can get people reading, they're really drawn in. You know, especially women are so sympathetic.

The media seems obsessed with the lives of teens, but I don't know of any books or TV shows that are entirely generated by the girls themselves.
In general, working on the book really confirmed my suspicions that there are a lot of women in their 30s or 40s assigning to women writers in their 30s and 40s and trying to capture teenage girls. It's become ludicrous. I mean, it's like if there were a young African American magazine put out by all middle-age white people. I'm not sure why that's acceptable with teens.

How did you select which essays would make the cut? Were you trying to cover certain issues?
No, I wasn't trying. I was really, really committed to letting them decide what the issues were. Sadly, I could have done a whole book on body issues.

That's the most common subject?
Yeah, by far the most. I don't know what the percentage would be, but it was pretty sad.

Did you find that surprising?
What surprised me was how much it's proliferated and how things like cutting have become commonplace. When I was in high school there were probably one or two girls who cut, and maybe people knew about them. But today, these girls can identify what kind of knife their friend is using to cut themselves. That really worried me.