So, why do you write?

I often tell people that my love for writing began when I started combining letter blocks as a toddler. I have enjoyed writing and theatrical storytelling for as long as I remember. My “career” as a writer started by submitting short stories to creative writing contests at my local public library when I was seven.

As a writer and storyteller, my goal is to continue exploring underrepresented facets of our culture and history. Recently, my creative interests have focused on the intersections of race, coloniality, eco-justice, and queerness. The driving factor behind much of my work is building productive, supportive, and beautiful spaces.

My short plays include Eve and The Son Also Rises (Blank Theater’s Young Playwrights Festival), The Tamale Man and Slow Your Roll (Native Voices; CoNA Short Play Festival). My full-length plays include Calamus (The Custom Made Theater Co.), Bad Medicine (Native Voices; La Jolla Playhouse; Primary Stages), PIONEER (Playwrights’ Center), and Crocodile Day (Urbanite Theater; AlterTheatre). Crocodile Day is now available to license from Playscripts, Inc!

In 2021, I wrote, directed, and animated a four-part series entitled A Queer History of American Food, an exploration of LGBTQ+ history through iconic American dishes, which was produced through Center Theatre Group’s Digital Stage. The series is available on their Community Stories website.

I am a winner of the inaugural Black Creatives Revision Workshop, a collaboration between We Need Diverse Books and Penguin Random House. My short fiction received First Place in Flash Fiction in the 2021 Bridport Prize. My plays have been finalists in American Blues Theatre’s Blue Ink Award, the Yale Young Storytellers Competition, and B Street Theater’s New Comedies Festival, and semi-finalists in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

I was a 2021-22 Many Voices Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, and the inaugural Generation Now Fellow with Children’s Theatre Company and Generation Now partnership of theatres. I graduated from Harvard University in 2018 and am currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Newark.

When I’m not writing, I enjoy supporting local drag artists, baking, and exploring nature with my husband.

Writing is our window into worlds beyond our own. These are the worlds that once were and the world that one day might be. So, crack open the cover, raise the curtain, and let’s begin . . .