I moved to the United States from the British Virgin Islands when I still had all my baby teeth. Though I’d heard a lot about America, I was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be too eventful — nothing big, nothing life-changing, and certainly nothing to write about. I was wrong.
I started writing stories when I was too young to make them any good. Characters would speak in cliches, act in broad strokes, and every story was cluttered with spoonfuls and spoonfuls of exposition. I would spend hours and hours reading any book that I could find in Barnes and Nobles (often leaving with one book after reading six during my time there — my first taste of petty crime), dreaming of the day where I could one day make someone feel the way the words on those pages made me feel. Seen and alive. And again, I was fairly certain this wouldn’t happen.
In high school, I dipped my toe a little bit deeper into the world of storytelling. The classroom setting forced me to read quickly, fully, and high volume — anything I would need to pass an AP test. Outside of it, I discovered the slam poetry scene in metropolitan DC, and started competing on a team — learning what it meant to tell your own story among a diverse community. The mic stood on a stand in the middle of each stage, daring every participant to bare their soul to a group of strangers. Surprisingly, I found I had a lot to say. I still do.
USC is where my world exploded. My classes no longer wanted me to read for test scores and DBQs — they wanted me to read to be acknowledged, to engage with others, and to get to know the world around me. As a Narrative Studies and Public Relations double major wit h a minor in Theater, I began to see the various ways in which storytelling could manifest. And the people. God, the people. I met incredible, truly amazing souls in my fellow students and my professors. They pushed me, they taught me, and they made me feel like those books in Barnes and Noble did. Seen and alive. And just this year, I lost one of them. A few weeks later, I learned that I had been chosen to receive this award.
And so, I am so honored and blessed to be named among those that will honor this young light that went out so quickly. Thankful does not seem like a big enough word. I did not know him personally, but Jimmy Gauntt seems to have had a little bit of magic in him. The kind that doesn’t go away. The kind that people don’t stop talking about. And the kind that makes you want to write him — to inscribe him, and his light, forever in verse or prose, however that works. And that’s something special.
In the fall, I’ll begin an MFA in Dramatic Writing at USC as an International Artists’ Fellow. My work, I think, will be primarily concerned with the liminal spaces — the in-betweens, and on those who think they have nothing to say. I hope to continue seeing through the written and spoken word and strive to leave a little magic on every page.
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