A few months ago, Melonie Cannon, one of Segullah‘s beloved bloggers and poets, mentioned a dream she had in which her long-deceased aunt talked about the need for a “place like Segullah” for LDS girls. We were all enthusiastic about the idea, and I took it and ran with it.

Whenever I talk to teenage girls they express their loneliness . This is true of girls who are the only Mormon in their high school as well as YW in large wards. So many LDS girls want to connect with other girls who share their faith and beliefs. We’re creating a place where everyone belongs to gather, chat and share.

We originally though that the audience would be girls aged about 10-18, and while they are still our primary focus, we have also gotten lots of feedback that college-age young women are interested in the site as well. We’ve set up a group of young adult women to serve as mentors to the younger writers and staffers at RubyGirl, and so far it seems to be a wonderfully symbiotic relationship.

First and foremost, it caters to a younger audience, and many of the writers for RubyGirl are teenagers as well. While we will talk honestly and openly about struggles, we won’t dip into the waters of debate, as sometimes we do at Segullah. We also plan to use the website and daily blog as a place to gather, but will use lots of different social media platforms, like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube to stay connected.

I’ve been spending a LOT of time recruiting help. All of my kids fall into RubyGirl’s target age group, so I know a pretty large audience to draw from, but we’re focusing on making RubyGirl a site for LDS girls all around the world. I’ve also spent months building the website (with the help of our fabulous webmaster Emilie Knecht) and constant problem solving. It’s been a fun challenge to get everything ready for today’s launch!

The site has only been up for a couple of weeks, but we’ve already got some really great posts. I’ve been particularly impressed with “God Loves Teenagers” “Why I write terrible journal entries” “How a Justin Bieber concert improved my life” and “The NYC guidebook to building a testimony.”

We are eager for our audience to feel not just like readers, but like members of a community. We welcome submissions as well as ideas. Our site also has a really cool upload feature where any reader can send us content to be uploaded. We also plan to facilitate community by using interactive social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.

At first I was a little hesitant about Snapchat, but we now have so many fun plans, I can’t wait to get started. Once our Snapchat stories are up and going (and I need an intern for this!) we’ll pass the account off to girls all over the world so we can get a glimpse of their  daily life. We’ll also host events for General Conference, holidays, etc. we’ve just launched our new advice column “Ask Ruby,” starting next week we’ll have live vid
eo Q&A sessions and we’re planning a writing conference in August.