For me, life is all about communicating – telling my story and connecting – finding those aspects of the everyday life that unite us, that transcend culture, race, nationality, gender or any of the other barriers we’ve created. If I am able to accomplish this just a little through my creative work, then I am happy.

For years I’ve wanted to write a collection of short stories based on my experiences of growing up in the segregated rural North Carolina of the late 1950s. My stories will celebrate some of my trials and triumphs, as well as the courage, humor and faith gifted to me by all those giants who came before me, who taught me, and on whose shoulders I now stand.

I’ll describe that colored first grader integrating all-white Pleasant Grove Elementary school in 1964; revisit some of the church folks, gospel musicians and teachers, my first guides and mentors. Pay respects to Glenda Ann, a cousin murdered in front of her kids by her husband in 1972, and reconsider the plight of those first Black dental students at UNC in the late 70s. I’ll shed light on some of my fears, triumphs and the high costs of coming out just as the AIDS crisis hit.

"Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody" is in the works. Stay tuned!