About Me

Relevant Personal and Professional Experience

I am a Black, queer, femme woman who is a first-generation college and graduate school graduate, and a Yoruba-Lukumi priest of Ogun. These rich experiences inform how I conduct psychotherapy as well as my writing.

I have worked as a psychotherapist and consulted with various nonprofit organizations as a trainer, curricula developer, and grant writer since 1995. In the earlier stages of my career, I worked in foster care and adoption agencies, and with street-involved and unhoused LGBTQ/GNC young adults of color. As a behavioral scientist, I have conducted research with and written about LGBTQI people of color since 1999.

After over a decade in academia, I write academic and creative nonfiction and fiction in order to positively impact the lives of others.

Education, Postgraduate Professional Training, Certification, and Licensure

  • Education
    • Doctor of Philosophy of Clinical Social Work, New York University, 2003 (psychodynamic psychotherapy focus)
    • Master of Social Work, New York University, 1993
  • Relevant Postgraduate Training
    • Certified in Telemental Health, Person Centered Tech
    • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
      • EMDR Basic Training, EMDR Consulting
      • Recent Traumatic Events Protocol (R-TEP), Humanitarian Assistance Program Traumatic Recovery Network
      • Group Traumatic Events Protocol (G-TEP), Humanitarian Assistance Program Traumatic Recovery Network
    • Gottman Method Couples Therapy
      • Completed Levels 1 & 2 Training
  • EMDR Certified Therapist
  • New York State Licensed Clinical Social Worker, R048439-01

Professional Memberships

Writers’ Fellowships and Residencies

  • 2019, Lambda Literary Writer-in-Residence
  • 2017, Lambda Literary Fellowship in Nonfiction

Photo by JW Perkins