Coloratura

 In high school chorus class, a white classmate called me Brillo head. In-between our Doh-Ray-Me warm ups he caused the line of Altos to chuckle as he asserted his preferences over brands of dish soap. The widening eye of adult scorn feel upon the entire Soprano section when our chorus director noticed the smirks. He …

Publication News!

Check out my first published nonfiction piece "Here" featured in Gulf Steam Magazine! Woman in Blue by Sam Aleks

Exhale 2020

My childhood had a clear delineation between before and after: pre-trauma and post ( or continued smaller) traumas. I cant help it but sometimes it takes me by surprise tinged with wonder that my children's lives have not mirrored my experiences and that to me is evolution... These past four years with Trump triggered so …

Mercy: Bilingual Writing Prompt

I thought it was about time to shout out my fellow bilingual peeps out there. This creative writing prompt is for you: choose a word in your first language (or any language if you acquired more than one language around the same age) and look up the etymology (the history)… write your thoughts on the …

Headlines Be Clunky: Finding Words Amidst Chaos

This time last year, we took our first family trip out west. My husband, a community organizer, got the opportunity to attend a conference in Olympia, Washington, a place he called home for four years as a college student at the Evergreen State College. I had never been out west before and my eagerness to …

Long Distance Love Before WIFI: a true story

Ive kept a journal most my life. I remember my first journal was a gift from my aunt when I was in the second grade. It was one of those themed journals, in this case it was from The Secret Garden. It was fully illustrated and included short quotes from the book alongside broad blank …

Desk

Are you following me on IG? @nadasamihwrites Now is a good time to start! It's almost Fall and almost a full moon, a great time to deepen my writing practice while giving followers an inside look at how that happens. Hopefully, that will encourage all of you to find your flow and build that relationship …

“This is Where We Used to Live”: Revisting the Providence Mall Apartment

https://youtu.be/8ggJS0p-QQc Providence residents might recall the strange case of the Providence Mall apartment back in 2003. That was when a group of artists known as Trummerkind built a secret 750-square-foot apartment in the mall where they lived in on and off for 4 years. According to the artist website, "The post-WWII term Trummerkind - German  for "children …

A Rhode Island Story of Racism: The Watchman Institute

"If you take racism away from certain people ― I mean vitriolic racists as well as the sort of social racist ― if you take that away, they might have to face something really terrible: misery, self-misery, and deep pain about who they are. It’s just easier to say, ‘That one over there is the …

Pandemic Gardening: Lessons in Healing

Im certainly not the first gardener who’s noted the parallels between gardening and life. Gardeners know a good harvest begins with good soil or that weeding makes way for more of what you want in your garden and less of what you don't. This summer of 2020 the parallels seem especially magnified.   Even though we …