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Dana

@hellofrom_dana

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Jamaican travel essayist writing about repatriation, renovations & finding community at home and abroad

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Hi Literary friends! Sharing a BTS of my process while I’m revising and trying to release myself from the grips of perfectionism. Production-wise I’ve finally found a flow that works for me to start publishing all the things I want to say.

Getting to know myself as a writer this year has been incredibly rewarding & interesting.

I’m starting to understand my brain & it’s 3 different literary flows: there’s the memoir-writing & travel essay collection where I play with humour and social commentary.

There’s the academic writing where I’m invested in archival research & the humanities, hoping to contribute to existing conversations on migration and its impact on mental health.

There’s the journalistic writing where I contend with societal failings. I enjoy interviewing subject matter experts & have a desire to document current realities with a penchant for human interest stories that lean towards radical optimism.

Who knows where this journey leads? I’m enjoying the ride 🚀 ✨ by @hellofrom_dana

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Hi! I’m Dana, a creative nonfiction writer from Kingston, Jamaica 🇯🇲 ✨

I am in a season of writing the book I want to read.

When I go to bookstores I look for myself.

I enjoy narratives of migration & building life in foreign places. However, I haven’t seen many present-day tales of repatriation & the decision to ditch your adopted land. I want to see the turbulence of rebuilding a connection to the place you once knew as home.

In the travel section I see books written by white people with a sense of wanderlust. I want to indulge in stories of Black women who go abroad and are instantly welcomed by shared cultural memories & diasporic connection. And I want it written by someone who isn’t American.

My essay collection has all of this and more. Each chapter is dedicated to a place where I’ve either lived or visited that ushered in an era of personal growth: Kingston, West Palm Beach, Bilbao, Leeds, London, Washington D.C, Marrakech, Johannesburg, Port of Spain, Panama City & more.

It’s taking me time to write. I am very intentionally orchestrating the reader experience. I want my audience to feel everything I felt: grief and rage, humour and joy, embarrassment and pride.

I’m looking forward to sharing more of my work this year. If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to “Hello,From” my travel essay series at the link in my bio

Thank you for following my journey! by @hellofrom_dana

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6 months ago