Once upon a time, in the beautiful and lush Jamaican countryside, a little girl grew up surrounded by stories. Her grandmother would tell her duppy stories, and tales about Anansi and his friends. These nighttime folktales always left her hungry for more and sparked in her a lifelong love for storytelling.

Today, that little girl is now a mother of two, an educator, and a storyteller, writing the kinds of children’s books and stories she considers love stories to the places and people who helped to shape her.

She has spent countless hours immersed in the literary traditions that inspire her storytelling, including the works of authors such as Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid, Zadie Smith, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Zora Neale Hurston, Gayl Jones, and Toni Morrison, writers whose voices taught her that stories from the Caribbean, Africa, and the African diaspora deserve to be told, celebrated, and passed on.

When she isn’t writing or teaching, you might find her scribbling poetry, getting lost in music of all sorts, or dreaming about the day she’ll finally learn how to play the drums.

Her greatest hope? That the children who read her books will see themselves reflected in the pages and feel the same magic that she felt growing up under her grandparents’ care, where every story promised wonder and endless adventure.