CBI Alumni ● Bachelor of Arts from SUNY New Paltz, Masters of Fine Arts from Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University ● Storyteller, Artist in Residence and Guest Lecturer at SUNY Oswego
I have a motivational relationship with CBI director of college counseling (DCC), Vanessa Kilpatrick. She is family to me. She met me homeless and fed me. She clothed me. She spoke up for me and taught me how to push! How to succeed and enjoy it all. She taught me the sky’s the limit.
Let the work heal you – you don’t heal the work. Let it speak back to you and open your heart to listen.
After high school, I earned my BA in theater arts from SUNY New Paltz and MFA from Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poets at Naropa University. In 2017, I received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence and am honored to have recently received SUNY New Paltz’s 40 Under Forty award!
Since college, I have published three books of poetry including 100 Poems for 100 Voices; African Booty Scratcha; and A Spring of Gay Black Feminine Joy. I also contributed to an anthology, Between Certain Death and a Possible Future, a collection of essays from Queer writers on growing up during the AIDS crisis. For my work, I have received a prestigious honor and award from the NACW, the oldest Black female organization in America and won two proclamations from New York state for my contribution in poetry. Performances of two of my most recent works, Smokin No Mo; The Revelations and Love Lessons with Lester, can be viewed on my website.
I am currently a Many Voices fellow and playwright at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis and writing several new plays that will appear off-Broadway in 2022. I also offer writing workshops once a month; My workshops are focused on creative writing and expressing self-love through letter writing, poetry, music, and dance. I often freelance at schools and universities as a teaching artist and it fills me with joy to be the 2022-23 Artist in Residence and Guest Lecturer at SUNY Oswego!
My advice to others is this: Let the work heal you – you don’t heal the work. Let it speak back to you and open your heart to listen. The work is your cure, not your disease. Handle it softly, protect it boldly, and if it ever becomes too much, don’t stress – let it go. It’s not abandonment, it’s trying it all. All. Including saving yourself.