I am a Harlem, N.Y.-born journalist based in Maryland. I began my career in police and local government reporting for The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C. after interning at the Charlotte Observer, the Charlotte bureau for Reuters News Service, Hispanic Link News Service and Community Pride, a magazine targeting African Americans in Charlotte.

I was also a religion reporter for The News Sentinel in Knoxville, Tenn., where I also taught journalism classes at Knoxville College.  And I reported for The Tennessean and worked as an online producer for WTVF-TV, a CBS affiliate also in Nashville before joining Washington Post Digital in 2009.

My training also includes participation in the Gralla Fellows Program for Religion Journalists at Brandeis University; the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland; the inaugural NVision conference at the Newseum and the inaugural NABJ Nashville Media Institute at Belmont University and the First Amendment Center in Nashville. I also shared a Kaiser Family Foundation media fellowship with two other writers and a photographer.

My writing has also been distributed by the Associated Press and news services for Scripps Howard, Gannett, and Hispanic Link. It has also appeared in poetry collections and an encyclopedia about African-American literature published by Facts on File, “A Gift of Story and Song: An Encyclopedia on Twentieth Century African American Writers."

My professional affiliations include Religion Newswriters Association and the National Association of Black Journalist, organizations for which I have spoken at their annual conventions.

In high school , I participated in a program sponsored by the Washington Association of Black Journalists. As an undergrad, I received a scholarship from the Charlotte Area Association of Black Journalists and participated in its programs.

I completed a master's degree in library and information sciences at the University of Tennessee, a graduate school for which I serve on an advisory board. My studies, mostly conducted online, were supported by a fellowship awarded to the university by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. Prior to this, I completed a B.A. in communication arts from Johnson C. Smith University where I was also active in the honors and international studies programs. I traveled abroad and held leadership roles on campus including newspaper editor and junior class president.

My volunteerism focuses on serving as a media liaison, mentoring and promoting literacy through organizations, institutions and events. I have volunteered for the annual Operation Christmas Child  in Nashville; the Knoxville Area Urban League; the Stellar Gospel Music Awards in Nashville; the Nashville Area Red Cross;  Read Across America; Freedom Schools training and the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy, both at the Children's Defense Fund's Haley Farm in East Tennessee; the NAACP and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Commemorative Commission of Greater Knoxville. For more information click here.