Dear Readers, I’ve been blogging at Redbone Afropuff & Black GRITS since 2009. It’s been a great run, but as…
In a recent interview on All Things Considered, Vanessa Grigoriadis, author of Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on…
Like many people, I spent most of Saturday at my computer and on my phone reading and re-tweeting updates about…
I had an epiphany the other day about the way I tell stories and about the stories I like to…
Author’s Note: If you’re a steady reader of this blog, you know I worry about writing in obscurity forever. It’s…
Notes: My most recent column for National Catholic Reporter references the freshmen class I teach in Philadelphia, not to be…
I sent this letter via email to senior high school students I teach in Camden, NJ, earlier this month. If…
I’m a storyteller. By the time my next NCR column is published, I will have successfully completed my thesis and…
My thesis is submitted(!) and now … there’s summer clothing I can’t fit into. Most weeks, I spend more hours…
This was first posted to Instagram on April 27, 2017. Submitted my thesis today. Digitally. It felt incredibly anticlimactic. I…
It’s Holy Week, and I’ve been spending it the way I normally do: working, grocery shopping, exercising, traveling among all…
The sentence is inflicted by white supremacy and its brother patriarchy, the same forces trapping so many people in prisons…
The original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton has been in rotation on my Tidal playlist since early January. That’s when…
I feel like I should write this in a whisper lest some enemy of joy hear my fingers pressing the…
I want everyone to care about stories that aren’t their own, that aren’t necessarily what they think they could relate…
Do you wear a wig around the house, even when you’re by yourself? I do, and I feel conflicted about…
I spent this past Thursday through Saturday at AWP17, the 50th annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing…
Thursday and Friday allegedly are my writing days, and finishing my thesis is taking priority. But these essays are to…
I know that the Zumba instructor at the main YMCA I go to is studying to be a physical therapist,…
This week’s essay is posted on The Thought Erotic for its inauguration issue, “We the People Won’t Be…
I started unpacking at 11:00 pm, almost as soon as I walked through the door. And as the contents of…
Since I’ve been staying in my home town with my mom for the holidays, I’ve had exchanged pleasantries and had…