Writer. Storyteller. Creator.
Videos
RAGE, Sizzle Reel
April, 2022
Produced for the AT&T Performing Arts Center's Elevator Project, RAGE is a show dedicated to shining a light on lesser-known historical events from the Black woman perspective.
Dear All Lives Matter
June, 2016
Written in 2016 Dear All Lives Matter was written after the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille. This poem is Janelle's attempt reconcile her silence and her anger in constructive ways.
Plays and Short Films
The Origin of Freedom
February, 2023
Commissioned by Bishop Arts Theatre Center
When college professors Eden and Farrah attend an Independence Day program at their school, they are confronted with the many ways The Declaration of Independence has failed to live up to its promise.
RAGE
2022
RAGE is a one-act play that explores the stories of Black US-ian women throughout the history of the United States. Ten women take their place on stage to share their stories of strength, resilience, perseverance and struggle across the history of the nation. From the 1842 Cherokee Revolt, to the Streetcar Boycotts of 1900-1906 and the continuing injustices of our traumatic present, RAGE honors the spirit and tenacity of our foremothers and is a dedication to no longer ignore the voices of Black women. This play encourages the audience to witness varying methods of rebellion as they truly are and displays moments of Black women’s greatest resistances against dehumanization and degradation.
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#voiced
2023
For the seniors at Lamont Private School, there’s nothing but blue skies ahead as they prepare to head to college — that is until a mass shooting at a nearby school hits a little too close to home. With only a semester left until graduation, six student journalists explore the tragedy only to find that their relationships with issues like parental pressure, racism, immigration, religion, and mental health may affect their ability to make positive change. Tired of being silenced, these six friends have to decide if it's worth the sacrifice to move from reporting the news to creating it, risking their reputation and future in order to finally speak out about issues that really matter to them.
Uprising
2019
When the African-American staff at an African-American Museum sees an opening to reclaim the power to tell their own stories, they find that they aren't the only ones pulling at the strings of the major donor, putting their voices, their jobs, and their freedom all on the line.
Essays
Welcome Home
May 2017
Sometimes you never know the experience you’re having until you’ve had it. In South Africa, I sat on balconies in hammocks, I drank wine on rooftop patios, I stood in the high courts, and walked the Apartheid Museum. Statues and images of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela watched over my shoulder from almost anywhere in the city. Heroes from the war against apartheid are tattooed...
Trouble Called Peace
May 2019
I write. My spirit, my human, my existence is wrapped up in pen and paper, thought and blank canvas. I have great respect for words and acknowledge the power in their dispensation. Because of that, I sometimes cower at the responsibility of it all.
In a 2008 acceptance speech, Toni Morrison talked about the role a writer has. “Writers are trouble,” she said. “Writers...these people disturb the social oppression that functions like a coma on a population, a coma despots call...