I Didn't Fit the Story I Was Given.
So I Rewrote It.
Who I Am
I grew up queer in the conservative South, in a house that had one clear idea of who I was supposed to be. I spent a long time trying to fit it.
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Then, as an adult, I lost my hearing.
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I'm Deaf. Late-deafened, which means I remember what the world sounded like, and I am not going back.
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I didn't lose my connection to the world. I found a different one. More physical. More honest. Sound stopped being the thing I could rely on, so the body became the instrument instead: vibration, rhythm, the weight of a room, the read of a face.
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That shift didn't take something away from me. It changed how I make things.
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Now, whether it's a song, a story, a scene, or a page, I'm not building things to be heard. I'm building things to be felt.
In a world that has spent a lot of energy trying to make certain people quieter, that's its own kind of defiance.
What Connects the Work
A memoir. A musical. An album. A horror archive. Essays that don't let you look away.
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On paper, that looks like five different things. It isn't.
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Every one of them comes from the same place: what happens when someone who was trained to shrink refuses to keep doing it.
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That's not five different projects. That's one studio, with one person building every room in it.
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Silent Horrors · Music · Memoir · Messy Reinvention · Speakeasy
A few things worth knowing, if you're the type who likes to know:
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My essays have appeared in HuffPost, the Chicago Tribune, and the Encyclopedia Britannica blog, among others. This fall, two more will appear in Proud Outtakes, a queer anthology from The Center for Contemporary Relationships.
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Before any of this, and still alongside it, I spent two decades as a marketing executive, which mostly means I've never needed anyone else to explain why a story matters. I've always known how to make people feel it.
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I've also spent a long time as an advocate, on stages, at podiums, and once, memorably, in front of a city hall, because some things are worth saying loudly.