I'm often the person my grieving friends turn to when asking, "How do I get there?"

They want to know how get to the place where loss isn't the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning.

How do you heal enough to comfortably live in the space between grief and joy?

My newsletter is an ongoing offering to answer this question.

It's informed by the deep grief I experienced after the death of my four-year-old daughter Divine in 2002 and the death of my father in 2012.

But beyond my personal experiences with loss, my newsletter is also informed by community involvement, reading and research. 

I'm not a therapist or a grief expert, but I consider myself a person who deeply understands the healing power of community care of grief.

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I wrote the article The Revolutionary Power of Grieving and Public for Yes! Magazine about this as well. 

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Many of my creative pursuits have been informed by grief, and I work to share what I've learned along the way to support others, especially other parents, because I know what it feels like to care for children and be present in my life while tending a broken heart.

I break this challenge down in this article: Grieving While Parenting for Care.com. 

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I wrote the personal essay, "How You Get There" after tracking what it took for me to get to the place where I didn't feel lost in my own life. It was like living in Oz.  I didn't trust my own mind or heart because I didn't know how to get back that feeling of Home.

I created Between Grief and Joy as a digital space dedicated to the healing journey. It seeks to creatively explores the intersections of care, loss, language, and community. 

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You'll find poetry, essays, reflections, interviews, book recommendations, and healing tools as well as live conversations with other grief-informed authors who can act as either mirrors of your experiences or windows into understanding another. 

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Subscribe to Between Grief and Joy newsletter on Substack.

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Rocko Rocket is a STEM learning educational brand that uses books, video, and curriculum materials to translate the complexities of aerospace ambition into an engaging journey of persistence and discovery for kids through the character Rocko Rocket. 

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Watch the Think Space Kids series at rockorocket995 on Youtube. It's

an animated space and solar system learning platform created by Team Rocko Rocket.  

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In 2019 I was living in Coconut Grove Florida on Grand Avenue thinking, "Wouldn't be nice to lead a creative writing workshop that pairs poetry and prose with food and wine?" 

It was after I left the classroom and missed having coworkers and people to share my thoughts and feelings with. 

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Most of my friends at the time were teachers or people that worked in arts or arts administration. 

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Each live event started with Hellos and Haikus and before I knew it, I was hosting WDW events at Hotel Arya. 

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Wine Down and Write started as monthly in-person events before the pandemic. We sat at round tables and I gave the prompts live, we took breaks to sip and share. Then it shifted to a mostly online platform for low-stakes creative writing and high-impact connection.

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Now, WDW is a commissioned event and monthly newsletter, I guide others in using writing as a tool for creative expression, healing and co-creation.
 

Become a free member on this site for WDW Newsletter which include writing prompts and food, wine, and book recommendations.

"Seed and Story" was the installation project based on family archival materials and research.

My research-based work investigates the intersection of history, memory and ancestral legacy.

In 2021, I was selected for the inaugural cohort of the Earthseed Black Family Archive Project, created by Je'shawna Wholly. 

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This project led to a deeper investigation of my genealogy and my family’s sharecropping and tenant farming history. I became absorbed by their relationship with cotton and how it shaped their lives and their stories.

When the project ended, I created an art installation at City Arts Gallery in Orlando, Florida (2022). I further expanded on this body of work as a James Weldon Johnson Foundation Artist-in-Residence later that year.

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Visit the Seed and Story Exhibition page to learn more. 

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