HI, MY NAME IS TUNISIA.

Thank you for checking out my website. It's great to meet you! 

I guess you clicked on this page to learn more about me. How nice of you. I guess the easiest way for me to do that is by telling you a little bit of my background and how I came to this point where I have a site like this for you. So let's rewind back to when I was a child (yes it goes that far back unbeknownst to me). 

Apparently, my reading and comprehension skills were atrocious as a child. This fact was especially obvious in my homework assignments. I remember my mother’s sighs and older sister’s comments as they scoured my paper with black pens, asking questions, changing words, adding punctuation, and challenging phrases with circles and strikethroughs. The only solace I found was in my editors’ choices of ink color. It could have been worse—my papers could have been bloodied and on the brink of death from being torn apart with scarlet lettering. I would have never guessed that twenty years later, I would have a website featuring an online journal where I write my feelings down as well as self-publish 6 poetry e-books. That would've been unheard of back then. Funny how life works. 

Despite my growing pains, I was, albeit unintentionally, preparing for this endeavor. The preparation started around my teenage years when I was filled with angst and needed an outlet to release my emotions. A blue notebook became my therapist and my poetry became our sessions. At the time, poetry was the perfect way to express myself because there were no set rules, no set structure and my idealistically critical family did not have to read it; naturally, I did not feel inadequate while writing it. I began to think less about whether my writing was good or not. I just needed to express myself and have my voice heard— even just silently, on the written page.

Also around this time the Internet was brought into my home, changing my life significantly. I began dabbling in graphic and web design, creating e-newsletters, learning basic HTML and creating a few websites. In addition, I began to take more risks with my writing, stretching it beyond the confines of the abstract utterances in my poems to literal sequences in short stories. Though my short stories, mostly fan-fiction, were not reminiscent to classic literature, I kept churning them out because writing had become my escape and a labor of love.

By the time I was a freshman at Temple University, I wanted to specialize in Graphic Design, as I had begun to think of it as more than a hobby. I came to realize, however, I did not meet many of the qualifications needed to enter the major. Devastated by this set back, I went to school aimlessly for the first two years with no major until my counselor suggested an English degree: I dove into it head first. While studying English, I improved immensely as a writer and began finding my voice.

Twenty years ago, I would have never thought that I, the little girl with reading and comprehension problems, would turn out to be a college graduate with a Bachelor’s in English, a creator of various blogs, e-newsletters and websites, and an author of six poetry e-books.

Upon finishing my Bachelor’s Degree in English, I became employed as a Special Projects Coordinator by America’s oldest and largest continuously published newspaper reflecting the African-American experience, The Philadelphia Tribune. The job consisted of a variety of projects including event planning, graphic design and copy writing. When I started in 2008, one of my main projects was to write the internal newsletter for the company. I wrote a good portion of the content, and researched the rest of it. I also had to develop different sections for the newsletter, conduct interviews with my fellow employees and lay out the entire publication on Microsoft Publisher. This particular project was special because it utilized my two loves—writing and design— and was my first foray into journalism.

Now, I wouldn't classify myself as a journalist by any means but this experience did cement my love affair with words and made me realize how far I had come and the irony of it all. Twenty years ago, I would have never thought that I, the little girl with reading and comprehension problems, would turn out to be a college graduate with a Bachelor’s in English, a creator of various blogs, e-newsletters and websites, and an author of six poetry e-books. God willing, I will be able to add even more to that list! I am learning to be more confident in my creative pursuits and be more bold with my dreams hence all of the drastic changes to the website.  

I hope with this website, that you too, will be doing the same with your dreams and that we, collectively, can spread good vibes all around the world through our own pursuits of self-love and perseverance. I look forward to building with you and thank you so much for checking out my little corner of the huge internet world.