When I heard Elizabeth Acevedo read at last year’s inaugural Bronx Book Festival, I understood exactly why The Poet X was as important and astounding as the author herself. It wasn’t just an authentic narrative for authenticity’s sake, but a work of beauty particularly for women of color meant to inspire them to find their […]
Last night, I was watching Brene Brown’s The Call to Courage and so much of it resonated with me because what writers do, all the time, is meet risk and vulnerability with courage. We have this in common, of course, with other artists: Actors, visual artists, musicians. I spend a lot of time wondering about […]
I am just settling back into being home after a quick, amazing trip to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair – one of the world’s largest international fairs for children’s books – where I discussed the children’s book series I’ve been working on over the past year, I Can Write the World. I was in Bologna as […]
For several months last year, I worked diligently to write a longer piece on potential solutions to the chronic stress that impacts Black women — most notably discussed in the context of Black maternal morbidity and mortality. I was astounded to learn that Black mothers in New York City are six times as likely to […]
View at Medium.com I wish I knew how to talk about Us in a way that makes it clear that I love the aspiration but the execution was both confusing and intriguing. I tried to do that here, but I’m not sure it worked. If you’ve seen the film, I’m curious to hear what you […]
The word content has always bothered me, even though I recognize its utility as a shorthand across platforms, brands and markets. It turns out that the gig economy, which is only making up more and more of the work in the global marketplace, loves this word, content. Some of that may have to do with […]
In the ’80s, my mom took night classes at Bronx Community College. She wanted to be a paralegal, and sometimes she could focus on it, but mostly her mania made it hard for her to pick one thing and see it through. But when she was present for her career ambitions, I went with her […]
I am ecstatic to share my review for Bitch Media on Toni Morrison’s stunning collection of speeches, essays and meditations, out today, The Source of Self-Regard. I inhaled it and underlined entire paragraphs over the last two months. I went to the Schomburg for something else entirely and found an annotated bibliography that informed a […]
I’m on a lot of listservs that vary by city after spending so much time living in different parts of the country. I received this list of ways to assist the federal employees living in the DMV area from one such listserv that offers resources in the Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia area (or DMV […]
My second semester as a Part-Time faculty person at The New School in the First Year Writing Program has officially started! I was tweeting about this course – the second I’ve designed — and there was a request to share it, so I thought I’d put it here and share with other scholars curious about […]
