An essay about Sam Levinson’s Malcolm & Marie and its monologues on the subject of being a writer with a minority identity and how that can influence or even restrain one’s creative mind.

In the opening minutes of Sam Levinson’s mumblecore drama, Malcolm & Marie, Malcolm (played by John David Washington) rants about the overtly woke convictions of a white female film journalist from the LA Times. After a successful debut of his latest film, he raves about his individual conversations with critics who began to trace his talents to Spike Lee, Barry Jenkins, and John Singleton. He’s quick to…

An essay about the President & his demented legacy that serves as an essential reminder of the significance elections play in a democracy….

Here’s to a better tomorrow.

It is possible, I think, to narrow the views of the 45th President of the United States into one word: corrosive. Some might choose: divisive. A fair choice, if not for the nation’s centenarian divide upon race, ecumenical and other religious organizations, and ideologies. Others might joust with the word despicable or slash with the name repugnant, but it is no surprise that Trump did not fit into the normalized, bureaucratic outlines…

An essay about Netflix’s adaptation of August Wilson’s famed play and its messages on how systemic oppression informs violence.

George C. Wolfe’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is, if nothing else, educational. An adaptation of famed playwright August Wilson’s original 1982 play, Wolfe’s film is a dense but swift dance through a story colored by as much fiction as history. Much like its original author, it strives to provide insight into an experience known by only those who resemble its cast.

Born to a White American father and an African American mother, Wilson was influenced by revolutionary Black writers like James…

A small essay about the attempted insurrection yesterday afternoon at the U.S. capitol by domestic terrorists emboldened by a President who should be impeached for his heinous action against the institutions he swore to protect four years ago.

It was yesterday evening, in the echoes of an attempted coup d’état led by the incendiary demands and conspiracies of a former President, that I began to write this. Few scenes of history can compare, moments that have been cleansed by the time passed. The time that has hollowed the emotional context that has deafened the importance of those vignettes. The breach…

A countdown of the 15 different stories from a variety of genres and mediums that made 2020 just that much easier.

2020 was a year colored by a bilateral emotional compass. Most of us were either up or down, rarely living between the lines. We all partook in different methodologies, pathways, and shortcuts to make our way to the other side, but there were still some similarities. For me and others, our time was best spent living elsewhere (for the most part). Journeying to unseen, unreal worlds in which reality dwells outside the forbidden door of imagination, waiting to be…

An essay about the medium of Professional Wrestling and its ability to teach the basic rules of narrative construction, character creation, and the three-act structure of storytelling.

Professional Wrestling, as long as I can recall, has been dubbed as an entertainment slur. It’s a medium of storytelling that has so often been given the boot by major media outlets or mass pop culture attitudes that it’s hard to imagine it’s near decade-long span of break-room status. At one time, it was one of the major industries in television, a reliable form of over-the-top, hyper-dramatic, and occasionally vexatious programming that eventually…

A short story that adapts the Little Red Riding Hood mythos for a new audience with a new character.

There once was a girl who wished to travel across the wood to bring her grandmother sugary delights.

Her fortunes went awry, and a last, her adventure did not arrive at the sweet end she had intended.

Now, in a village clouded by a history of gobbled up princesses, there lives a boy, or a girl, no one’s quite sure.

They enjoy the cutting of wood and love to assist in the more laborious chores. But they also enjoy braiding their…

An essay about giving thanks to those MCs who saw our struggle and provided us a moment of bliss, which so happened to lend to the voice of rebellious wordsmiths from the Bronx.

I would not consider myself a melophile, an obscure one-word term to define those who consider themselves enthusiasts or fanatics for the art of music. This can diversify by genre, of course, as few are probably just general aficionados of craft. More probably identify with specific genres, able to rattle off the chords of rock n’ rolls more irreverent characters or the rhythms of pop’s arcane originators…