“If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.”
- Audre Lorde

I come from a land where the river meets the sea and mountains are called hills. Gentrification took me from San Francisco, the city where I was raised, because I could not afford to build a family there. I now call the flat land of Chicago and the beaches of Lake Michigan home. My ancestors on both sides have been tending land and feeding their families for generations, and my body knows the language of that work. I understand what it means to be displaced by forces larger than yourself, and that understanding shapes everything I do.

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I am a writer, filmmaker, organizer, and communications strategist. I build programs, design educational initiatives, secure grants, and help organizations say what they actually mean in ways that move people. I believe that clarity is a form of care, that the right story told well can change what people think is possible, and that the communities most affected by injustice deserve communications tools as powerful as the institutions working against them.

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I ask hard questions and I do not leave when things get complicated. I am most calm near water, and I use every skill I have to protect what fresh water we have left. The world is on fire and I am not interested in staying quiet about it.

AUDRE SMIKLE