I am writer and adjunct instructor of composition at North Carolina Central University, a graduate of the fiction MFA program at North Carolina State University, and a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. My writing has been published in The Georgia Review, Oxford American, and Best Debut Short Stories 2021: The PEN America Dau Prize. I won the 2021 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and the 2021 Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize. I was long-listed for The Masters Review 2019 Fall Fiction contest. I received the honorable mention for the 2019 James Hurst Prize for Fiction. I am an #AWP25 HBCU Fellowship Program Faculty Fellow. I've participated in a workshop funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a 2023 Hurston/Wright Summer Fellow. I've also screened a film in the Cannes Short Film Corner and have won several screenwriting awards and a cinematography award. I've been mentioned in Campus Echo, LitHub, Hyperallergic, and Poets & Writers.
After leaving home at the age of 16 to attend the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (traveling during the summer) I briefly studied at Duke University before moving to New York to pursue a career in filmmaking through NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. There, I served as a city reporter for NYU's student run blog NYU Local, reporting on events ranging from Occupy Wall Street to advocacy for the homeless. My work with cameras has connected me with politicians in the North Carolina legislature, has allowed me to help create scripted content around top tier fashion shows, and brought me to the front line of the Poor People's Campaign during their march on the White House and at several other occasions. Upon graduating from NYU, I was inspired to return to a focus on creative writing that began in a high school classroom.