As a poet, creative writing allows me to process and reconcile the human condition and what it is to be a woman of color in this society. I study creative writing in the pursuit of self-expression. As a poet in my teenage years, I had survived a traumatic childhood, poverty, homelessness, family dysfunction, and school bullying. When I was around age fifteen, poetry became my savior. Poetry was a personal craft where I could turn pain into art, trauma into some sort of understandable beauty. I am now in my early thirties and have been writing poetry for over seventeen years. Poetry is my passion. I write free verse poetry using my personal experiences of grief, loss, longing, and my relationship with nature. As my craft continues to evolve and improve, I feel stronger as a poet, woman, and as a human on this planet. In 2017 I was finally ready to immerse myself in the literary community of my home county, and I have bloomed as a poet and writer. My interest in being more involved in the literary community was born out of encouragement I received from other poets and writers. I began to participate in many writing workshops, group meetings, radio shows, and spoken word readings. I developed the confidence I now possess for sharing my work and networking with other poets and writers so much so that I began to build a community of writer friends and support not only within my home county but in surrounding counties as well. I made it a personal goal, going forward, to offer this same kind of support and encouragement to other aspiring writers. In 2020, I was appointed as Lake County, California's eleventh Poet Laureate just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact my county. I didn’t want the pandemic to slow down any momentum in bringing community together through poetry. I began my work right away, scheduling readings and workshops for local poets and authors. I collaborated with a local online news site to create and launch a poetry column. I collaborated with poets across generations and poet laureates from other counties and states for events inclusive of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC persons, disability rights, and immigrants in detention centers. And I created a poetry reading for the issue climate change when we yearned for rain during yet another year of devastating wildfires. My dream is to continue having an active role as a poet and advocate in my community with poets and writers of all ages and backgrounds, to bring poetry and creative writing to the forefront of my community, to offer a means of self-expression to others of all ages and backgrounds. I want to build a solid foundation within my own creative process to be able to better serve my community. My dream is to publish a collection of my original poetry and to further my education by completing my Bachelor's degree then moving on to a Master of Fine Arts program.