Artistic Statement

Artistic Statement

I write love letters to Black women of the American South. If given the I am Soul Residency, I will enjoy the artistic space(s) provided as an outlet for that. I am thirty-nine years old. Of those years, 27 were spent in the rural American South, Arkansas to be exact. Though I currently reside in Minneapolis, the South is still home for me. Much of my family is there; and, when my characters speak to me, the stories they tell are from Southern mouths. So I lean into that. I lean into the sounds of the South, the imagery of the South, the well-known and barely acknowledged dichotomies that exists in the Southern region of America. And, I interrogate the softness and hardness of it. Three plays that I have written, Crackbaby, “Southern Shade,” and FLEX are examples of that leaning in.