I'm from the Mississippi Delta Valley, the place where Blackness, liberation, and soil are so tangled up that nobody alive now can remember when they were separate from one another.

My parents were civil rights leaders who taught me that truth-telling was fully sacred, sometimes dangerous, and always necessary. I learned early that a story could heal a wound, challenge power, and keep history alive, even when the world tried to make us all forget it.

As a writer, scholar, and activist, I use stories to shine light on what's been hidden and to give voice to the people and places too often overlooked. My fiction—like my novella The Benefits of Eating White Folks, a finalist for the Best Book Award in African American Fiction—centers southern Black women with honesty, unflinching power, and love. My stories and essays have found homes in storySouth, Torch Literary Magazine, Swing Magazine, Waxing and Waning, and Fellowship Magazine. I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and shortlisted for the SmokeLong Quarterly Award out of more than 1,200 writers. My nonfiction book, The Fire We Carry: Black Belonging and the Future of Unitarian Universalism, is scheduled for release in 2027.

But the credits are not the point. The work is. Through Assisi House, the organization I founded, I help communities reclaim their narratives and turn pain into power. Everything I create is an invitation: to see yourself, to speak your truth, to embrace who you are without apology. Storytelling can transform individuals and entire communities. I write because I know: when we dare to tell our stories, we dare to believe we can set ourselves free.

So tell your truth. Walk in the power of your history. And make your voice heard.

The world is waiting for your work to arrive.