selected writing

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

• Longreads Best of 2022: Readers Favorite

"When I moved to Burlington, Vermont in 2015, I thought I knew what I was signing up for: too much snow, not enough black people, and a just-right amount of maple syrup. "

Numbers in My Phone

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"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."

On Guacamole That Comes Out of a Squirt Gun

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"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

Visiting a Boy’s Room

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

• Wigleaf 2022 Longlist

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

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

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"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?"

• 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, Hennepin Review,

  • Pushcart Prize Nominee, 2021

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

• 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 write about DEI and professional development at HigherEdJobs.com.  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