Recently, I read an essay by Audre Lorde entitled Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. In this article, Lorde discusses how women’s erotic power has been suppressed and how we need to access it and use it to its fullest extent. This made me think of all the…

And other thoughts on sexual exploitation. I woke up crying because I had a serious monster nagging my brain, so I’m writing until he’s gone. When I write stories, there’s usually a point. I don’t have a point, but I’m sure I will come to one by the time this…

As a writer, I have a tremendous interest in language, words, and how they are used. Today I read an article in The New York Times entitled “As Neo-Nazis Seed Military Ranks, Germany Confronts an ‘Enemy Within’”. I’m extremely bothered by the term “Neo-Nazi”, which is a term described by…

Last week, I was sick and trying to work. My supervisor kept telling me to take time off and reflect on self-care. I kept arguing that I did not need it. That I could push through and that everything would be okay. Finally, I got to a point where I…

An Essay on How I Learned to Love My Black Hair. [SPOILER ALERT: I WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILM HAIR LOVE IN THIS ARTICLE. PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW BEFORE READING THIS ARTICLE.] I just watched the Oscar-nominated film Hair Love, and it reminded me of some painful parts of my childhood, and how challenging it can be for a girl when her mother has cancer. One…

When I tell most people I’m a new mom, or I say that I just adopted a child, they think I am talking about a baby, but I’m not. I adopted a beautiful, emotional, and creative 17 year-old girl. I first saw Grace a little over a year ago. I…

Recently I read an article in the New York Times called Doctors and Racial Bias: Still a Long Way to Go, and it brought to mind an incident that happened to me as a child. While I openly tell other stories of my childhood, this one has been especially hard…

I often get asked for poetry book recommendations, and since we are in the middle of Women’s History Month, and we just finished Black History Month, I thought it would be a good idea to share a list of recommended poetry books by black women. I chose a wide range…

As a writer, inspiration is my driving force. If I have no inspiration, I have no poetry, and I have no articles, so I work constantly to stay inspired. Sometimes I feel like finding inspiration is a job in and of itself. Inspiration is not only for artists and poets…