I became vulnerable and vulnerability is power. 

Written by senior Sam Krug, this quote from her poem was one of the 16 selected from hundreds of submissions to be featured on a wall at the Natural History Museum. 

“My poem was a metaphor for getting better at communicating and being vulnerable with people. I’m not super guarded, but I definitely used to be and I found that I was able to truly connect with way more people once I was able to show myself a bit more,” Krug said. 

She submitted the piece as part of a Natural History Museum project by WriteGirl, a nonprofit organization dedicated to hosting monthly writing workshops for girls and nonbinary teens to introduce them to different forms of writing.

Despite being picked in the end, Krug’s submission didn’t initially make the cut. 

“I was kind of sad, but then I was like, ‘You know what, it’s okay.’ But then [the museum] sent out a correction email that said, ‘Actually, we had to move some things around and now there’s a new list of people,’ and I was on it. I think I screamed because it was so unexpected,” Krug said. “I wrote the submission completely last minute, so I thought I didn’t even have a shot.” 

These quotes, which centered on the theme of “becoming,” are meant to serve as bright greetings to the people who visit. 

“[The museum] reached out and said, ‘We’re gonna make it super colorful, and the community can come and see the works from these wonderful girls and nonbinary people from all different walks of life,’” Krug said. “But because the organization has over 100 members, they couldn’t choose them all, and so they selected 16.” 

Krug began writing about nine years ago. At 11, she attended the Yallwest festival (a book festival for meeting authors) and came across the WriteGirl tent, inspiring her to join. But, she fell short of the minimum age requirement by two years and knew she had to wait. 

“[The festival] was really intimidating because I was the youngest person there for a really long time,” Krug said. “What drew me to it, though, was that I thought it was a great opportunity to become a better writer and meet like-minded people.” 

Krug sees writing as “[her] form of play and therapy” and plans to continue creative writing after high school. 

“What I really love about writing is that it gives me the opportunity to push the boundaries I want to push. I’ve been a storyteller my entire life, and writing is definitely something where once I discovered it, everything clicked,” Krug said. “It just felt powerful to me.”