ABOUT THE NEWSLETTER: I write personal essays, literary criticism, and musings about writing alone and with company. I share my journey as a writer, teaching artist, and literary citizen. Mostly, I just like to write what’s on my mind and heart to you on the other end of the screen.
ABOUT DES: Hi. I’m Desireé, and I wrote Sink. I am Chahta, and an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and I am a poet and I am a teaching artist and I am a sister and I am an auntie and I am a comrade. I’ve been writing alone and with company since 2009, when I began reading my writing at poetry slams in South Louisiana. For a long time, I read my poems at open mics and in poetry slams and I placed in the top 3 poets at every major poetry slam in the United States (IWPS, NPS, and WOWPS). I coached some slam teams, I was on some slam teams, and I taught poetry in high school classrooms for over a decade. In 2016, I started a writing retreat and it changed my life and the way I understand the ecosystem of being a writer. I teach writing and facilitate community space for writers.
When I was 32, I went back to school and got my undergraduate degree in Feminist Studies, and now I am an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan, where I am a first-year fellow.
Maybe you’ve been here, with me and my writing, since Tumblr.
Maybe we met at a poetry show in 2010 and you’ve been here with me since.
Maybe you found me on instagram or you bought my book or you saw me on Youtube.
Maybe we once wrote together or currently write together.
Maybe we sat next to each other at a dive bar in Boston listening to poems or we met on your college campus.
However you got here, however long you stay, I’m so happy to have you.
Though you don’t have to pay, of course, your support makes it possible for me to dedicate time to my writing.
I hope you’ll think of this newsletter as a thread between us- you and me, you and my writing, you and your writing, you and my teaching.
You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition goes directly to your inbox, and then can be found on the archive page.
Thanks for believing in me. It’s what got me here. It’s what keeps me here.
