Some Of My Best Essays of The Decade…

Let’s start from the very beginning

When I decided to become a full time writer in the fall of 2013, I had already been writing steadily for 7 years, prior to when I took the fateful leap into the unknown.

For the first couple of years, all the work I did was for the privilege of well-touted “exposure,” which we now know was the slyly preferred tactic of publications, both prominent and barely recognizable.

It was the biggest lie of a demanding industry, that enslaved hopeful and ambitious talents, who truly believed the hard work and long hours would actually lead to substantial results.

To say that my trajectory has been dramatically uneven is putting it mildly.

In the early days, I did everything from covering the iconic Chocolate Festival at the Javits Center, to spending an hour-long lunch break, while working as an executive assistant at JPMorgan, interviewing an up and coming filmmaker, whose latest release was garnering major buzz for the African Film Festival that year.

None of those outlets that I wrote for back then, are still alive and kicking. Including the ones that showed the initial promise for longevity, based on target marketing that smartly gave Black women what we craved in ways that the world of print…