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.

  • “‘On Desire’ [winner of the 2020 Indiana Review Nonfiction Prize] is architectural in the way it builds on itself, stacking foundation, and layer after layer of story into a slowly crafted structure. Each line is wonderful; passages poignant, but there was a moment, in the middle of reading, when I realized I’d been holding my breath. I was afraid to disturb the thing that was being constructed. At first, it felt fragile and delicate, but then I realized how solid the writer was, how sure, how steady, how purposeful. How much I trusted them to tell this story. [It] made me hold my breath in spaces…not due to fear but to feeling like if I could hold this breath in, maybe this sentence won’t end…one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read…‘Beautiful’ is overused, but not here—it can not be stated enough.”

    -Bassey Ikpi, New York Times Best Selling author & judge of the 2020 Indiana Review Nonfiction Prize

  • “These stories have made my core shutter. They are haunting, upsetting, and deeply moving.”

    Starrene Foster, Artistic Director of Starr Foster Dance

  • "a raw, honest portrayal of the narrator's teenage years and the abusive patterns with substances and with men that have followed her into adulthood...masterfully deploy[s] the detachment of the second person in excavating these painful memories...will stay etched in our hearts."

    2024 Disquiet International Prize Judges

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.”