Noted Three Times in The Best American Essays. Winner of the 2020 Indiana Review Nonfiction Prize. Chautauqua Janus Prize Finalist. Longlisted for the First Pages Prize.
At work on a memoir.
For six years, the man I thought I loved convinced me that his dead best friend was communicating with us.
At sixteen, I couldn’t see that this twenty-two-year-old was controlling me—to do cocaine, to take my parents’ money, to submit to sex, to believe in prophecies. For his stories, I was a perfect audience: eager to be loved, to be special, to be numb. For years I lied to my loving family, who feared that if they forbade me from seeing him, they’d lose me forever.
Richmond-based choreographer Starr Foster selected my writing for Page to Stage III, a cross-discipline project combining writing and dance. Starr created original choreography, inspired by my flash nonfiction piece, “Not a Dream,” to be performed by her award-winning contemporary dance company, December 5-8, 2024, at Firehouse Theatre RVA. Of several excerpts from my memoir, Starr wrote, “These stories have made my core shudder. They are haunting, upsetting, and deeply moving.”