fun facts
I wear my hair in a sidebraid every day (12 years & counting).
In fourth grade, I had a playdate at Michael Jordan's house. #POAT
I cared for nine hamsters throughout my childhood.
I own a portable karaoke machine, named Kari O’Key.
Over the next five years, I’d share over fifty stories on my blog—writing my way through my twenties, Corporate America, a global pandemic—all leading up to 2022. That year, amidst a quarter-life crisis, I booked a one-way flight to India in hopes of an Eat Pray Love transformation. And it kinda worked! I returned home with the concept for my first memoir. A few months later, I followed that “leap and the net will appear” adage and retired from my consulting cubicle to work on my book manuscript.
In 2013, I left Chicago for Yale, where I’d study economics, compete on the women’s basketball team, and run naked in the library. Writing and I took a bit of a hiatus in college, but by my senior year we reunited like long-lost lovers as I launched my blog Sidebraid Stories (b.k.a. my public diary).
Today I’m pitching my memoir for publication and hope to find the perfect home for it. I’m currently a data scientist by day and a writer by heart (I’d say “by night,” but I have a strict 9 PM bedtime)—continuing to write for my Substack, anthologies, and other presses. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about my story!
Stay tuned to see where this leap takes us next…
and if that wasn't personal enough...
the longer story
As a middle school graduation gift, my aunt presented me with a brown, top-bound journal, slightly bigger than the size of a smartphone. On the cover were the words: How will you give something beautiful to the world? This journal became my high school diary—the place where I would transcribe my uncharted feelings into words, scribble down my secrets, and discover I was gay.
