Welcome to Read Write and Create

Where I Started

It was the early days of the pandemic. My one-year sabbatical to Spain had been cancelled. I was hiding in the basement of our small rental house, trying to find a quiet place to write and think, away from my three children who were scattered around the house in various stages of homeschooling. I started listening to a podcast, one of many that encourage women to ditch their 9-to-5 jobs and follow their passions. Given the world’s tragic circumstances, I was only listening with half an ear - who plans on dream chasing in the midst of a global pandemic - but then the host said something that made me pause. She asked, “What kind of work would you do if you knew there would be no judgement, and you could just do whatever your heart truly desired?”

Before I could decide if I was going to answer the question, or how I might interpret it, or put some sort of restrictions on what I was allowed to say, one single word popped into my head; books. If I could be about one thing, my heart and mind agreed, it would be about books. Writing books and reading them. Buying them in bookstores, and being amongst them in libraries. Books make me happy. They bring me joy, and they always have. So, podcast lady host, what do I do now?

The Vision

From that moment in my basement, a vision began to form and that vision included me - always wearing colorful tunics for some reason - living a creative and colorful literary life. In this vision, I was writing novels and children’s books. I was painting and making collages to fuel my creativity. In the evenings I was attending literary salons, and during the summers, I was jetting off to writing retreats in exotic locales. It was enticing and harkened all the way back to the vision I had for myself soon as a recent college graduate when I told everyone I wanted to be the type of writer who chased stories all over the glove. And it felt true to the youngest version of myself, who at age 10, announced she was going to write the great American novel, whatever that meant. I just knew I would write it and people everywhere would read it and be moved. So, I knew this vision was accurate to my authentic self, so the question was, how do I make it come true? But more importantly, was I even allowed to?

Walking Away from Solving America’s Race Problem

For the majority of my professional career, I have written about race, identity and culture. Always with the intention of educating the masses about racism, so that one day we might stop upholding white supremacy like it was the lifeblood of our nation. I am speaking of course, of the United States. For the last 25 years, I’ve written books, articles and blog posts about race and racism and all of its ugly little cousins. I gave lectures and held workshops on how to be an anti-racist. I taught. I fought. I offered my expertise to major corporations so that they could change their corporate culture. But, 2020 broke me. I fought the good fight through the Black Lives Matter 2.0 movement, but I felt enraged and bitter when after all of that noise, and all of those promises, and all of those lives lost, white supremacy was still super popular.

As luck would have it, my disillusionment with being an anti-racist warrior, coincided with my book-based fantasies. And while at first, I hesitated to embrace a life centered on joy and passion for all things literary, in the midst of what seemed to the end of the world, I soon realized that uplifting, supporting and celebrating writers of color; providing a platform to help more writers of color get their stories out into the world, and otherwise being a cheerleader for the written word, could be its own form of activism. I firmly believe that storytelling can change the world and that the pen is mightier than the sword. Historically, we have hundreds of examples of people of color in the United States who have pleaded their cause, altered public opinion, and increased their personal fortunes and that of their communities via the written word.

While I no longer wish to be on the front lines of the fight to dismantle racism and white supremacy, I would be thrilled to still do my part by helping to change the narrative of our past, present and future. I’d like to make it far more colorful.

Starting Over

In less than a year after hearing that podcast, I quit my job as a tenured professor, sold most of our worldly possessions, and moved to the south of Spain with my spouse and two of my three children. My husband is from Spain, so the move wasn’t as bold as it may appear, but living in Spain meant I could pursue my creative dreams without worrying about the cost of health care or university education for my children. The need for me to make a staggering amount of money in order to survive was removed with those two line-items in our family budget significantly reduced.

The glory upon arrival on the Iberian peninsula in early summer 2021, was everything I had hoped for and more, even though when we arrived, Covid was still raging. We found a beautiful apartment to rent, just steps from the Mediterranean Sea, schools for the children to attend, and friendly neighbors who helped us adjust to life in a new country and culture. It very quickly felt like home, so much so, that I slipped right back into my routine of doing my anti-racist work, practically non-stop, as soon as the summer was over. The old me was in the driver’s seat and grinding was all I knew. And then I looked up one day recently and realized, that I had neglected to turn that most beautiful vision I had had - yes the whole reason I moved to Spain in the first place - into a reality. I was writing, yes, but for other people. I was continuing to lecture and do anti-racist workshops, because people asked me to. I wasn’t working on my own creative projects. I wasn’t immersed in a writing community. I wasn’t supporting other writers. And I had yet to wear a single tunic.

Introducing Read, Write and Create.

It took me a whole lot of inner-work, talks with friends, and a session with a really smart life coach for me to come back to my vision and realize that it wasn’t going to come true unless I made it happen. And so I spent some time with my dreams and my imagination and came up with this blog and the accompanying podcast. This platform and this community. Read, Write and Create. This is the infrastructure to launch my dreams. To focus my joy. To give me a place to share my skills, useful resources, and acquired knowledge gained from over 25 years in the media and publishing industries. And to unapologetically geek out over all things literary. This is my version of a sanctuary and a safe space for BIPOC writers and the readers who love them.

This is my vision come to life, and I hope it serves you well.