ABOUT ME.

As young as I can remember, I’ve always had writing on the brain. With paper and pencil, I would craft illegible stories and poems to share with my family. I collected and read books to learn what made a story a story. As I got older, I watched films and plays with an eye on the script; ears listening for the dialogue. When I decided to become a journalist, with my first string of articles appearing in The Source, I discovered a real love for research and sharing stories about people and places that don’t regularly receive coverage.

Growing up in New York City and working as a journalist gave me ample opportunity to reflect critically on culture and my memoir, The Community (Amazon’s Little A, 2022), was born from an article I published early in my career about the collapse of an isolated, Black religious community in Georgia. In realizing I had a personal and unique perspective on the struggles and achievements of Black people and people of color, I sought to examine the intersecting throughline between my family’s history and that of my country’s. The result is a story that weaves memory, history and multiple interviews conducted with my mother through a narrative that gives voice to those who are often silenced: Black women and girls.

As a writer, I use every journalistic tool I have at my disposal to elevate voices that are often marginalized, whether that is interviewing White House presidential advisors, psychology experts and media professionals for the TIME’S UP campaign “We, As Ourselves,” or locating law enforcement and academic sources to discuss marches and movements or the disappearance and murder of Indigenous and Black trans women for Colorlines.

 I’ve spent 20 years researching and writing about culture to better understand its drivers and have penned countless articles for dozens of media outlets, including BET and BET.com, Glamour, Essence, Ebony, Real Simple, The New York Times, Vibe and The Village Voice. I have also worked as an editorial consultant for RFK Human Rights and Gyrate Media. 

I earned my undergraduate degree in English literature, with a minor in creative writing, from the City College of New York; a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Southern California; and a Master of Fine Arts from The Foundry at St. Joseph’s College.

WHERE I AM TODAY.

I currently live in Brooklyn, N.Y., where I am preparing for the release of my first book, The Community: A Memoir, while working on a second book, a novel. In addition to leading creative content at Barnard College, I am also an adjunct associate professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs (SIPA), where I’m teaching about the importance of storytelling to create positive social and narrative change.