Does any of this sound familiar?
You were appalled to learn that over 70% of people working in publishing identify as white*.
You’ve been made to feel othered in your creative writing workshops or writing groups.
You were once told that your writing is beautiful, but it doesn’t quite make sense.
You were banned from writing genre fiction for school assignments.
You were told that writing novels doesn’t make “real” money.
* This stat comes from Lee and Low’s Diversity Baseline Survey.
All the above happened to me.
I’ve wanted to be a novelist since I was ten years old. I scribbled in any journal I could find, read the occasional fantasy book, and fell in love with all sorts of fantastical, non-Western stories that I watched on television.
But the moment I got into my first college-level creative writing course, I was made to feel ashamed and othered for wanting to write so-called “genre" fiction. I also read little to no work from other BIPOC authors—especially from those who were like me as a Black, queer, nonbinary, and neurodivergent speculative fiction writer.
So, yeah. I’ve been where you are.
And I’m here to make it right.
Not only did I graduate from UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA program with a 4.0 GPA and a POC-coded, queer-normative, epic fantasy novel as my creative thesis. I also reconnected with my literary and cultural heritage through intensive study of the African speculative literary diaspora.
And, I became an Author Accelerator-certified fiction book coach so that I could help other systemically oppressed storytellers feel seen, heard, and empowered in any space that they’re in.
Because, Here’s the thing about being A systemically oppressed Storyteller.
For far too long, both academia and the publishing industry have excluded marginalized voices in speculative fiction from the greater conversations we should be having about them and their work.
I am especially compelled to be a book coach for systemically oppressed storytellers of speculative fiction like myself because I know exactly what it’s like to be disconnected from one’s literary and cultural heritage and to have to pick up the pieces when no one else will.
Our voices Matter.
Our stories matter.
Yet at everY turn,
we’re silenced.
No. Not anymore. Not on my watch.
That’s why Through anti-racist pedagogy and encouraging, equitable feedback, I help my clients not only plan, polish, and pitch their novels to literary agents or help them self-publish if they so choose.
I also help them become more confident within their own communities so that they might become stewards of past, present, and future storytellers.
