Coming of Age

Finding My Asexual Identity in My Thirties

Going through puberty as an asexual person often felt like I was playing a board game and everyone had the instructions but me.

Nov 01, 2022
A Final Kampai for Angel’s Share, My Favorite Bar in New York

Why not form friendship around a love of good drink, openness, and a desire to treat each other with fairness?

In the Mid-’90s, We Didn’t Know the Word for Consent—But That Didn’t Stop Us

How do we match our desires with our demands? I didn’t have the language to ask.

Pivoting to Screenwriting in My Forties Because I’ve Never Been More Confident

Even on my worst day as a writer, I’m closer to the creative life I dreamed of at eighteen than ever before.

Oct 07, 2021
How a Black Girl Learned To Fly

As the plane began to taxi, the first line of the comic Riri Williams: Ironheart #1 danced in my mind: “I was never meant to fly.”

Lessons in Drowning

They say: I have to be honest, seeing that little girl and all that brown skin, for a second it was terrifying. Sometimes you forget people can look like that. No pink anywhere. Except her nails.

May 22, 2019
What a Woman Loses When She Turns Thirty Years Old

I feel what I feel, and I cry in the shower with a beer, but the week before I turned thirty, I felt nothing.

Feb 15, 2018
Two Encounters with Poison: Becoming a Doctor in Nigeria

“A smell of burning flesh fills the theatre. I was expecting the smell of blood—its rich, metallic, almost bitter-tasting organic scent.”

Jan 11, 2018
Coming Home to Myself: A Story of Healing

“For this is the thing with secrets: They are thrilling to a child who has lived his life only in the open.”

Drowning Little Things

“I heard the mower’s whine cease and a sound like screaming began.”

Jan 27, 2017
New Kids: A Personal Account of School Bullying

“A child is a monster of survival before anything else.”

Dec 08, 2016