My dear friend Terri and I serve as co-founders and editors of an online journal dedicated to exploring the humanities through various mediums & providing free learning resources for all. Founded in 2021, our magazine was founded to create a welcoming space for all forms of creative expression, from poetry and creative writing, to research essays and reviews, through the world of art and photography; our aim is to promote and celebrate the beauty that can be found everywhere in our world, in all its diversity.
This is an ongoing collaborative creative project with a friend, in which we share short stories, poems, and other creative vignettes with the intention of remaining creative and inspired.
NOVELS
The Heart of the Morning Star— A New Adult novel
Genre: Horror/ Paranormal/ Historical Fiction
Themes: Race Relations, America’s True History, Theology, The Power and Ache of Family, The Cost of Redemption, Finding One’s Self, Queerness, Generational Trauma, Black Womanhood, The Wounds of Love, Magic
A young woman named Adesina (Ade) lives with her black mother (a former slave) and her white father (the disowned heir of an oil tycoon) on the outskirts of New Orleans on the brink of the Civil War. Hatred is rising in the South, and it’s this hatred wearing white hoods as well as the murder of a loved one that awakens an evil force in the bayou. Through circumstances outside of her control and the reveal of a family secret, Ade must come into her power and come to terms with the role she is destined to play in saving the world and the city that has always treated her and her loved ones as less than human.
Cape Clandestine— A Young Adult Novel
Genre: Mystical Realism/ Coming of Age/ Possibly Fantasy?
Themes: Womanhood, Loss, Unexpected Love, Family Secrets, Abuse, Isolation, Finding Your Power, The Sea
A young woman named Sophie finds herself on a ferry to a small island off the British coastline, headed to the little known town of Cape Clandestine. Having lost her loving mother in a terrible accident and having never known her father, she is sent to live with her next of kin, her aunt (her mother’s sister). While the woman is kind, the grief that Sophie carries is never-ending, and mystifying things that she cannot fully explain begin to invade her life in the looming beachside villa that she must now consider home.
The Last Balcony— A Historical Fiction Novel
Genre: Fiction/Time Period Piece
Themes: Abusive Family Dynamics, Post-University Malaise and Ennui, Severe Mental Illness, Discovering One’s Sexuality, Love & Loss, A Search for A Single Life’s Meaning, Overcoming Circumstances
Anya, a depressive and apathetic university student, takes her first trip abroad from her small town the summer after graduating with a degree in English literature. The next three months are a whirlwind of firsts— true unbridled happiness, fresh baked croissants, historical sites, falling in love with the woman of her dreams, enduring the heartbreak of “not meant to be”— before finances and time force her to return to her small, somewhat conservative town, in her dysfunctional and poverty-ridden family home.
Anya’s is a story of overcoming systemic and interpersonal struggles and responsibilities such as finding a job, seeking an affordable therapist, and making it from one day to the next between the waves of depression that consume the majority of her life. Through these struggles she holds tight to the buoy of that summer as it begins to recede into the past. After an incident with her alcoholic mother, she decides that she will do literally anything it takes to reclaim the life that has almost been hers.
POETRY
I am currently sifting through about 300 pages of poetry that touch upon topics such as mental illness, generational trauma, body acceptance, womanhood, physical illness, loss, heartbreak, friendship, personal growth, love, spirituality, race, and nature.
My primary poetry project is my chapbook ”A Summer Mythos”, or ”Nostos Algos”.
My chapbook is an expression of adoration, longing, heartache, and sorrow borne of a summer love. It is based on my time working abroad at a bed and breakfast in Italy over the course of a summer season, but it mythologizes the experience in a way that I feel we often do with the tides of love and loss. Nostos Algos is intended to refer to nostalgia, the soft suffering one experiences when we yearn to return to something, and how it feels when we embrace that ache rather than seek relief through forgetting.
NOSTOS ALGOS WILL BE PUBLISHED IN AUTUMN 2023 WTH ETHEL ZINE & MICRO-PRESS
MEMOIR
I am loosely working on a memoir about my time living in a serverly dysfunctional family. I hope that it will shed light on alcoholism, addiction, sibling rivalry, the loss of childhood, abandonment, escape, the meaning of familial bonds, poverty, “learned” womanhood, and the reality of growing up in a mythologized place, Hawaii.
WRITING PROMPTS
I created a writing prompt for every day of 2020, to keep myself motivated to write during a difficult time. I have posted these prompts onto my social media channels as well as here on my blog.
BLOGS
All The Wonders You Seek is a travel blog created to inspire creativity, self exploration, and dream chasing.
I Am The Arrow is a blog that I created to discuss mental illness and the stigma around it in our culture, as well as general thoughts and insights that I have on the topic.
Kiss of the Seventh Star 