Every single time Dara writes even so much as a Facebook status, I rush to read it. She is that friend you have who says exactly what you were trying to find the words to say. Dara is a mom of three, a writer, an editor, and she will have a book out soon if I have anything to say about it. She hid in her basement to record this episode with me because mom life is real.

Her essays often interrogate the intersection of race and gender, politics of respectability for women, concepts of femininity, and motherhood. Her writing has appeared online in xoJane, Clutch Magazine, The Root, For Harriet, Improving Birth, and The Feminist Wire, and in print. She earned a BA in Creative Writing/ French Literature from the University of South Florida (2005), and an MA in African-American Literature from Florida State University (2007). She is a former college-level composition teacher.  Since 2007, she has written and edited professionally in The Apartment Guide, the mortgage servicing industry, and for Southern Fried Poetry Slam, Inc.

Dara’s Website: http://www.trulytafakari.com/