I am a writer, teacher and resource mobilizer living in Minneapolis with my husband and 15-year old twins.  I grew up in San Francisco, where during the course of my life my father amassed a sizable real estate fortune.  As a young person I wanted nothing to do with that.  I was drawn into movements of international solidarity in opposition to US imperialism. I lived and worked in Haiti from 1994-2000, deeply embedded in Haiti’s movement for democracy and dignity, rooted in the Theology of Liberation. I was witness to some very intense history.  These experiences perhaps more than any other shape my outlook on the world.  After leaving Haiti I stepped back from movement work and came to Minnesota to pursue an MFA in creative writing. I published a book, Swallow the Ocean, about my childhood, and spent 10 years teaching in the MFA creative writing program at Hamline University.  I joined the Solidaire Network in 2016, and it was in this community that I learned to leverage the wealth and relationships I have to move money to social movements and grassroots power-building organizations in the United States. I'm on the board of the Solidaire Network and helped found the Movement Voter Project where I worked for seven years.  I am currently a strategic advisor to a project called Win the Midwest, which seeks to build multi-racial governing coalitions across the Midwest.   

Over the past 3 years, I’ve been participating in a conversation with Jubilee Gift, which is how Alexie and I connected. That conversation helped me integrate what felt like divergent threads in my life. I’ve been remembering the way that justice and spirit are deeply entwined. I’ve been reflecting about how historically the most powerful social movements we’ve known have been rooted in a spiritual tradition. I am conscious of the fact that no amount of money or brilliant strategic planning will be enough in the face of the multiple crises we are in. In times of deep burnout and despair I have refilled my own well through beloved community, prayers at the river, listening at the base of trees, asking the earth for help.