In all honesty, writing was not my first love. It was not the career path that I was willing to center my future around, not immediately. However, it was always there in my life somewhere. As a child I had a great passion for artâpainting, drawing, and such. I remember the fun I had making drawings for the kids in my first-grade class who would give me a quarter to draw whatever they wanted.Â
Another form of art that I enjoyed as a kid was cooking. For some reason after watching Walt Disney’s The Princess and the Frog when I was six years old, I fell under the illusion that I was destined to be a famous chef, and that I too could have a talent for making delicious food with ease that brought people together. I would collect multitudes of recipes from grocery stories that I would never use. And like many kids I would help my mother with cooking meals in the kitchen. A family friend was a chef and on one occasion when we came over for dinner he made beignets. He let me help because he knew how much I enjoyed cooking, and the film that got me interested in cooking in the first place. Â
I would say that my intrigue with writing stories began in the fourth grade. I wrote a couple of short stories then, and I would include cover art, an about the author section, staple all the pages together, and I even drew the Caldecott medal on some of the covers of my little books. After reading a book about slavery in class, I wrote a short story about two enslaved siblings who escaped to Canada to live with their uncle. At this early time in my life, I was already being introduced to more serious subjects in history. Through the stories I had written I was understanding these issues, and connecting to them in my own way.Â
Going into high school I still thought that I was going to go to culinary school because that is what I had told myself I wanted to do all throughout my childhood. When college admissions came around I was so overwhelmed, and culinary school was not looking like a viable option for me anymore. The culinary schools that I looked at were either very expensive and/or out of state, and I was not ready to move out of state for school. My parents also had my four siblings that they needed to try to send to college at the same time. For a short time I felt lost. Things were not going how I expected them to go. However, there was a day when I went to my father and told him of my predicament. He simply suggested that I should focus on writing as I never did much cooking anymore. âWhen was the last time you were in the kitchen?â my father had asked me with a laugh. I remember being upset about that comment at first as I wasnât sure if I was going to enjoy writing at the college level, and if I could do so successfully. But I got accepted into Ohio Wesleyan, picked Creative Writing as my major right away, and I have stuck to that major.Â
I am currently a junior at OWU, and I have had the opportunity to discover and practice many different styles and genres of writing. I have particularly enjoyed learning how to write good screenplays, poems, short stories, and meeting published authors. Itâs nice to realize what I struggle with as a writer, and to have the guidance to properly navigate those challenges and improve my writing.Â
Good stories are great mechanisms for motivating and influencing people. They can help people feel seen, and allow them to view the world through different perspectives in an interesting and thrilling way. Stories take many forms and inspire many things. I took writing for granted for much of my youth, and didnât embrace it until I was shown how much it actually influenced me in my life. Iâm still finding my way as a person and as a writer. After I graduate from OWU, I will strive to publish my own fiction pieces and write screenplays. I want to accomplish these goals, and find fulfillment and joy in doing so. I hope I can help others, especially other black women, to feel seen through my stories. I also hope to share stories that can positively benefit the world.