Feature Story

African Renaissance TV featured Isatou and it has generated attention around her and her work. She also won The Gambian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in 2025. My story of our day, Secka Unique Glamour, was published in Unwoven Literary Magazine.

You can read it here, page 67.

"I went looking for stories of women entrepreneurs. What I discovered instead was the woman connecting them all."

Pictured (left to right) Jaytee holding her artisan products, me, and Isatou holding one of her organic tie-dye backpacks. The Gambia. November 2025.

Stories from the Field

Stories from the Field is a collection of essays exploring belonging within ourselves, through relationships, with the objects we carry, and in our institutions. They examine micro-moments that often pass unnoticed as we move through the spaces that make up our world.

Scenes of Self

Micro-moments set against the larger histories, relationships, and experiences that shape a life.

Scenes of Self
Why the Left’s Patriotism Problem is Actually Exhaustion
Why the Left’s Patriotism Problem is Actually Exhaustion

A 4th of July Reflection.

I was reading Michael Kazin's recent essay in The Atlantic, arguing that the Left needs to rediscover patriotism. His argument was straightforward: successful movements don't emerge from contempt for a country.

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I thought I was Reinventing Myself.
I thought I was Reinventing Myself.

I read somewhere that transformation—an internal change that women experience—is a part of reinvention.

Women’s friends and family will notice the transformation. They will wonder what is different about them.

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Am I Becoming My Mother?
Am I Becoming My Mother?

I am in a daydream: the sun shines even amidst the gray clouds hanging in the sky—I go out to ride my bike even if I am going to get wet. Slogging rain off me, I sit at a table drinking tea. Finding a version of myself that moves.

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When There Are No Tears
When There Are No Tears

My brother died in November.

While I had talked to him more recently over the last year, I hadn’t seen him more than a few times in the last twenty years. We weren’t close and I thought maybe I didn’t even know him. When I found out he died, I didn’t cry. I just went back to sleep.

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Stories from the Field is supported by readers who believe ordinary moments still matter. If you’d like to help sustain this writing and Africa 2027, you can support the project here.

Scenes of Connection

Micro-moments set against relationships and the histories and cultures that shape a place.

Scenes of Connection
The Escalator Dance
The Escalator Dance

I’m late even as the red line Metro speeds ahead during the morning rush hour.

Getting off the train, passengers spill out the doors and onto the platform. They merge from every direction, moving toward the first set of escalators. It’s a well-choreographed dance, left, center, center, right. Climb or stand in place.

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Across the Armrest
Across the Armrest

I am headed home.

I can feel the vibration of the engine before I hear its roar. I look out over the wing and see the belt loader lifting suitcases into her belly.

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The Crossing
The Crossing

The girl passed by.

Her blue dress flowed to the floor. She pulled her foot high as she stepped over the outstretched leg of a passenger. She’d walked the route a few times.

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Souvenir Shelf

Objects collected along the way—and the stories they continue to carry.

Souvenir Shelf
San Francisco in the '90s
San Francisco in the '90s

When I traded the East Coast for the West Coast

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From Bags to Flags
From Bags to Flags

I stood at the entrance to the souk.

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Lost in Barcelona
Lost in Barcelona

Third of ten stops and I was lost again.

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Sake, Sushi, and Courage
Sake, Sushi, and Courage

I’m not afraid to try something new.

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Craft of Institutions

Stories of institutions and who belongs in them.

Administrative Friction in Mission Driven Organizations

We fund vital programming, but our legacy systems often make it difficult to deliver. Reflections on compliance, mission, and the unintended consequences of institutional design.

Authority without Precedent

A newly created role has no inherited relationships and no established claim on what it's allowed to ask. This piece traces what it means to hold financial oversight in an institution that has never had it before — where legitimacy has to be built from nothing, often while everyone else keeps working by the old, informal rules.

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