I grew up inside the Beltway in the 1990s and graduated from Georgetown University at the height of the Great Recession with a degree in French and Political Economy.
In my 39 years, I’ve lived many lives: I’ve worked as a Senior Writer for the French Embassy, pursued love on reality TV, tried my hand at standup comedy, and found a deeper calling in activism for criminal justice reform.
I’m a third-generation Washingtonian—the daughter of a loving and scatterbrained poet, the granddaughter of a witty and dry economics professor at G.W., and the great-granddaughter of a historian who, while at Columbia, co-authored a book called The South Looks At Its Past—a document as erudite and “civilized” as it is devastatingly misguided in its analysis of the other.
Maybe it’s that legacy that pushes me to reflect on the stories we tell ourselves and others—on the shortcomings and dangers of official narrative, and the staying power of a poem, a line, or a footnote strategically placed.
A note on subscriptions:
I write primarily to connect with readers, and to that end, I don’t put the vast majority of my posts behind a paywall. A paid subscription isn’t required to comment or engage.
If you do choose to support my work financially, think of it like a donation to NPR — paid subscriptions gift me the time and space to craft the words you see here.
A note on AI:
I have strong feelings about craft and evolving feelings about AI. My 85-year-old father wants to know why I don’t let Grok edit my poems. My long-lost German brother insists I should meet Claude. I’ve sat at dinner tables with friends who look at me in shock when I talk about writing prose un-AIssisted and others where I would get ex-communicated at the mere mention of an LLM.
Where I land in this moment as a writer is this: I believe AI is a tool that is only as good as the hand that wields it. I enjoy conversing with ChatGPT when I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole on a niche topic and my human friends’ ears are all talked off. I use it as a way to expand — never replace — my thinking, in the same way I might scroll Reddit or TikTok to get a grasp of publicly available information and the zeitgeist. I use it for high-level feedback, pep talks, occasional light copyedits and a second set of eyes when I’m about to post something and need to double check there’s no metaphorical lettuce in my teeth.
I do not let it write for me.
If and when ChatGPT has helped my thought process, I will cite it here as I would any other source. If and when my thoughts on the above evolve and I decide to replace myself with a robot… you’ll be the first to know.
“But it is part of the business of the writer — as I see it — to examine attitudes, to go beneath the surface, to tap the source.”
— James Baldwin
