sheena d!

The Wanderer: A Black Woman’s Search For Her Place in White, White Vermont

Longreads Best of 2022: Readers Favorite

"A moving study of the mutability of the idea of home; how the word itself can ring so differently from place to place. This piece has such an interesting take on race in America, both from afar — when the author spent time in Germany — and from deep within, at the snowbound confines of a university campus in the middle of Vermont. Romero deals with it in such a tactile, subtle way that I felt like I was coming to the subject completely fresh, feeling her confusion, hope, and frustration almost viscerally."

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—Rohan Kamicheril

Numbers in My Phone

I didn’t think I liked her like that, but, then again, thinking she might like me made me wonder if I might like her. If I should like her. If I could like her. If I would start to like her.

Don’t despair, reader, I found an amazing therapist right in the nick of time.

Visiting a Boy’s Room

• The Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology (Sonder Press), Nominee

• Wigleaf 2022 Longlist

• Will be republished in the EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories, Volume II: Writers of Color

Someday I would definitely drink beer out of your high heels.

• Wherein the Civil Court of State Sanctioned Companionship Considers a Petition, Emerge: 2022 Lambda Fellows Anthology

• Woe is Angsty, Tired Little You, Black Femme Collective

• A Series of Observations Regarding the Present Pandemic’s Persistence, Zone 3 Press

Fried Fish

• Pushcart Prize Nominee, 2021

• The Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology (Sonder Press), Nominee

He’s not going to stop making messes or watching junk TV or being vain just because he’s dead.

A Fortune Teller Worth Her Ball Should Refuse to Tell You When You’re Going to Die

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" A voice at once both intimate and conspiratorial guides us through one woman’s fortune. With details as bizarre as they are precise, sheena d. delivers a story that approaches the mundane in the same way as the terminal, with all the joie de vivre of your best friend on a particularly fluorescent weekend night."

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—Heath Joseph Wooten, Associate Editor

On Guacamole That Comes Out of a Squirt Gun

My culinary understanding of the world may be as preteen as my training bra, but some things I know for sure are that:

• Wendy’s costs more than other fast food because they wrap their sandwiches in foil. Source: My dad 

• A McDonald’s cheeseburger can be forty years old and still look ‘fresh.’ Source: An exhibit at the Center of Science and Industry

• Kentucky Fried Chicken had to change its name to KFC because it doesn’t use chicken at all and instead grows featherless, headless, giant chunks of poultry, in a lab. Source: A kid on the playground

If I Had Known Then That Casey and Rhian Were Both Terrible Pieces of Shit, Puberty Would Have Been Way More Fun

I thought he was going to ask to make love to me then and there. And I thought I would have said no, not because I was gay, or opposed to having sex in the middle of a public playground, but because I was waiting on the Special One. Plus, I was on my period. And if we had sex how would I ever know if it was hymen blood or menstrual blood?

• Writing to Cope: A Conversation with Debut Novelist Yaffa S. Santos, The Rumpus

• Cancel Culture, Feminism, and Comedy: A Chat with Comedian Liz Miele, Ms. Magazine

I've written about DEI and professional development at HigherEdJobs.com. My essay, "Letting Lived Experience Matter" will be anthologized in Routledge's Through the Lens: Educational Developers of Color. Blah, blah, blah. Once upon a time, for Idealist.org, I wrote career stuff, like:

• Career Advice from a Serial Job Hopper

• Confronting White Supremacy Culture in the Social-Impact Sector

• Boss More Frantic Than Usual? Here's How to Cope