On the Wings of Words

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Greetings to all readers, thinkers, and literati.

From time to time, I post items for premium subscribers as a thank you for making this space possible. Usually, I’ll post something that I’ve written that isn’t available or not widely available. But today let’s do something different.

This is a bespoke post made just for you.  

I’m writing from 2023, when I’ve been for about 352 days. There’s no point in beating around the bush. This was the best year of my writing life for all the reasons I’ve mentioned before in the main feed. Briefly, some highlights: I announced the publication of my third book and revealed the cover. I spent a month doing research in Africa. My second book was the city read for the year, which allowed me to go into women’s shelters, prisons, and libraries to participate in conversations about literacy and storytelling. And I’m the 2023-2024 Louisiana Writer Award recipient.

There were a lot of other cool things, but maybe the coolest was ending the year giving the commencement speech at my alma mater. I went to the University of New Orleans for undergrad (English c/o 2000) and an MFA (c/o 2013). I remember sitting in Lakefront Arena during the Clinton Era surrounded by my favorite people. The speaker was a soon to be disgraced politician who gave a not very inspiring speech about how conservative he was or something.

I remember wishing we had a speaker to send us out into the world with a sense of hope and joy with a sprinkling of rugged determination. Well, I never would have guessed I’d have a chance to be that speaker 23 years later. But amazing things can happen on the wings of words.

As such, I’m sharing the text of the speech here.