Writer.          Dancer.        Cultural Curator.

I write to find answers, dance to find joy, and curate to deepen understanding. An ancestral call to speak for and through Black women who could not, cannot, who would have spoken and written, if only their brilliance hadn’t been feared, shunned, and silenced inspires me. 

Like Ntozake Shange, I have immersed myself in Pan-African scholarship, multicultural women’s networks, African and Latin dance, and creative writing for much of my adulthood. Like Maya Angelou and Katherine Dunham, I’ve traveled to Brazil and Ghana for research and spiritual exploration. All of these academic, creative, and interpersonal experiences inform my work and as Shange described, “propel” one another. In this forward movement, I find a flattening of mind-body-spirit divisions. Dancing connects me deeply to cellular memory and ancestry that I, as a Black American woman whose ancestral paper trail ceases in Louisiana in the 1800s, otherwise wouldn’t be able to access, confirms that my body is not a mistake, and invites experimentation of the word. I know the curiosity many Black women grew up thinking would kill us will, in truth, set us free. That’s why I love learning, finding connections and correlations between seemingly distant subjects, and curating research, books, or art to invite deeper exploration and meaning into those subjects. I believe self-love in a world that upholds white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and misogyny is one of the most subversive acts we can commit. Therefore, I read, write, dance, and research through my questions about African Diaspora identity, belonging, Black womanhood, sisterhood, corporeality, and spirituality, and towards healing, wholeness, and self-love.

How I Got Here

Though dance and writing have been significant parts of my life since early childhood, my professional devotion to the combination of art, literature, and Black women’s freedom began in 2010, when I started writing creative nonfiction that explored the ways my maternal family, sister-friendships, and Black American culture, including the Southern Black Church, influenced my views of spirituality, sexuality, and Black womanhood. This personal excavation led me to research womanism, Black feminism, Black Liberation Theology, and the workings of the African Diaspora through syncretic spiritual practices. (Prior to this shift, my subject matter was by assignment; I’ve been a business news reporter, radio copywriter, and op-ed columnist.) My passion about Africa and the workings of the Diaspora has continued and deepened through my visits and extended stays on the African continent since 2022. I’ve journeyed as a solo traveler and sojourner in search of the threads that bind narrative and revelatory self-knowing.

How I Work and What I Do

I believe Black women will find liberation for ourselves and our communities through radical self-love because it reminds us we are worthy of freedom, just as we are. Self-love begins with self-knowledge, and individuals can unearth self-knowledge by writing about the self and by listening to the wisdom and truths the body holds. As Ntozake Shange wrote and performed pieces of what would become her timeless work, for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, she discovered that the intimacy with her body she encountered in dance led to self-acceptance and to “a clearer understanding of my voice as a woman & as a poet.” She wrote in Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo that dance is “how we remember what cannot be said.” I have experienced similar revelations. That’s why my workshops range from introspective writing to dancing for performance, why my signature program combines writing and dance, and why my programs are as valuable for writers and dancers as they are for people who don’t consider themselves to be either one.

When teaching dance, my intention is that participants leave with a deeper sense of global Black history and with the joy that comes from knowing what West African and Afro-Latin dances first revealed to me more than 25 years ago: my body is not a mistake. I invite participants to experiment, to return to the uninhibited spirit of childhood by assuring them there is no wrong way to dance and emphasizing technique only as it serves to reveal the subtext.

Similarly, a course or workshop with me that includes or is primarily writing is often about unearthing what’s beneath the surface. I always say that I write not because I have answers, but because I want to find them. I ask workshop participants and students to explore introspective questions and to be brave when doing so. Within these written and nonverbal investigations of lived experience, topics including intersectional identity, mental health and healing, sexism, misogynoir, race, colonialism, liberation, corporeality, agency, bodily autonomy, and sexual freedom come to light, and workshop participants are able to see the effects history and larger systems have had and continue to have on their lives.

When it comes to cultural curation, I like to think of myself as a facilitator rather than a teacher or teaching artist. Rather than be didactic or prescriptive, I highlight connections through story, prompts, questions, or design and let participants or viewers draw their own conclusions.

In 2019, I founded the Black Womanhood (Re-)Affirmation Project so that I could develop a literature and dance curriculum that centers Black women’s liberation, amplifies our stories, and edifies and deepens our existing sisterhood and community. The Black WRAP is a course and workshop series that builds radical self-love in and affirms Black women, utilizing writing and creative movement work that center Black women’s experiences. It is also the name under which I conduct independent cultural curation projects, which include a dialogue series in Accra, Ghana. My largest cultural curation project to date is under my own name, as Project Director of Chronicling Resistance, an archival fellowship, public programs, and exhibition in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Sankofa and How I Move Forward While Looking Back

I follow in the footsteps of ancestors such as Ntozake Shange, Maya Angelou, Katherine Dunham, Toni Cade Bambara, and Toni Morrison—artists who proved we can re-member our lives, (re-)consider our futures, and find peace within ourselves. I do my best to follow these legendary Black writers, dancers, and artists as I use my art to illuminate the journey towards freedom and wholeness.

Why Work With Me

Hire me as a writer because:

I’ve won awards from Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Society of Professional Journalists, and Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for my work as a creative nonfiction writer, columnist, reporter, and screenwriter. 

My writing speaks to a range of audiences, with my bylines found in literary journals, popular magazines, newspapers, and short films.

My formal education includes an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers-Camden (where I gathered knowledge from three Gugghenheim Fellowship recipients), a screenwriting certificate from UCLA, and continuing education from giants like VONA and Sarah Lawrence College.

Hire me as a cultural curator because:

I’ve done this work under the hardest of circumstances: a global pandemic, institutional leadership changes, a season of national protest, facilities damage, and as a foreigner.

Even within those circumstances, I know how to bring projects to fruition and to a successful conclusion and how to remain in budget.

You want to gather groups of people with diverse experiences together and build bridges towards new ways of thinking, healing, and being for all.

Enroll in the next Black WRAP series because:

YOU are a Black woman who’s ready to enter a space that centers YOUR liberation, hears YOU, and deepens YOUR sisterhood and community with other Black women