I want to sharpen my conscience in life. I do not wish to live suspended, adrift, and painfully distracted. I want to be wide awake, intensely truthful, and stretch my capacity to be curious. I’ve found writing and reading to necessitate this passionate awakening, this impulse to learn and become. Once I came to understand the potent nature of writing, it was hard to imagine living and expressing myself in any other way. Because of writing, I pay close attention to the world. Because of writing, I listen for what's not said. Most importantly, because of writing, I am constantly challenged to be an empathetic human and one who's unashamed to recognize and navigate the complicated layers of being. I don't know that I'm 'inspired' to write as much as I'm invited, often compelled, to radically participate, witness, and think deeply about the human condition and the world. It is truly a gift, and a candid and private experience that I'm delighted I get to fully lean in—all open, all vulnerable, and always in anticipation of some wonder, some truth, some possibilities.

In writing, I hope to bring to my own witnessing a level of imagination that is true, forceful, and evocative in its expression of ideas. It is important to me that I am present in my life, first as an individual and then as an artist, to “not simply be stunned by the hammer” as James Baldwin writes. To not pass my life in a kind of limbo of denied and unexamined pain. To not merely know the occurrence of an event but rather, to understand what it is that I have lived through, what it is that I have seen and touched and felt and learned (Baldwin’s words paraphrased). For me, this begins with the urgent work of paying attention.