sheena d! is an essayist, doodler, and humorist. Her writing has been published in Ms. Magazine, Autostraddle, and elsewhere, featured on the Longreads Best of 2022 list, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions Anthology. sheena d! is a Brooklyn Public Library Incubator grantee and a Margolis Social-Justice Journalism Award finalist, and has received support from Hedgebrook, Lambda Literary, Kimbilio, and other literary organizations. She is from Ohio, lives in New York City, and spent a chunk of her life moving around. An inaugural resident at St. Nell's Humor Writing Residency for Ladies, and former artist-in-residence at Bryn Du Mansion, sheena’s working on a few projects, including an essay collection that bridges memoir and cultural criticism to meditate on blackness in far flung places. Contact: thebookofsheena@gmail.com.
words
The Wanderer: A Black Woman’s Search For Her Place in White, White Vermont
Longreads Best of 2022: Readers Favorite
"A moving study of the mutability of the idea of home; how the word itself can ring so differently from place to place. This piece has such an interesting take on race in America, both from afar — when the author spent time in Germany — and from deep within, at the snowbound confines of a university campus in the middle of Vermont. Romero deals with it in such a tactile, subtle way that I felt like I was coming to the subject completely fresh, feeling her confusion, hope, and frustration almost viscerally."
—Rohan Kamicheril
I didn’t think I liked her like that, but, then again, thinking she might like me made me wonder if I might like her. If I should like her. If I could like her. If I would start to like her.
Don’t despair, reader, I found an amazing therapist right in the nick of time.
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The Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology (Sonder Press), Nominee
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Wigleaf 2022 Longlist
Someday I would definitely drink beer out of your high heels.
Other Stories & Essays
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Wherein the Civil Court of State Sanctioned Companionship Considers a Petition, Emerge: 2022 Lambda Fellows Anthology
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Woe is Angsty, Tired Little You, Black Femme Collective
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A Series of Observations Regarding the Present Pandemic’s Persistence, Zone 3 Press
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Fried Fish, Hennepin Review,
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Pushcart Prize Nominee, 2021
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The Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology (Sonder Press), Nominee
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Writing on Professional Development
I write about DEI and professional development at HigherEdJobs.com. Once upon a time, for Idealist.org, I wrote career stuff, like:
A Fortune Teller Worth Her Ball Should Refuse to Tell You When You’re Going to Die
" A voice at once both intimate and conspiratorial guides us through one woman’s fortune. With details as bizarre as they are precise, sheena d. delivers a story that approaches the mundane in the same way as the terminal, with all the joie de vivre of your best friend on a particularly fluorescent weekend night."
—Heath Joseph Wooten, Associate Editor
On Guacamole That Comes Out of a Squirt Gun
My culinary understanding of the world may be as preteen as my training bra, but some things I know for sure are that:
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Wendy’s costs more than other fast food because they wrap their sandwiches in foil. Source: My dad
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A McDonald’s cheeseburger can be forty years old and still look ‘fresh.’ Source: An exhibit at the Center of Science and Industry
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Kentucky Fried Chicken had to change its name to KFC because it doesn’t use chicken at all and instead grows featherless, headless, giant chunks of poultry, in a lab. Source: A kid on the playground
If I Had Known Then That Casey and Rhian Were Both Terrible Pieces of Shit, Puberty Would Have Been Way More Fun
I thought he was going to ask to make love to me then and there. And I thought I would have said no, not because I was gay, or opposed to having sex in the middle of a public playground, but because I was waiting on the Special One. Plus, I was on my period. And if we had sex how would I ever know if it was hymen blood or menstrual blood?
Conversations
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Writing to Cope: A Conversation with Debut Novelist Yaffa S. Santos, The Rumpus
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Cancel Culture, Feminism, and Comedy: A Chat with Comedian Liz Miele, Ms. Magazine
woahs
Artist in Residence, Bryn Du Mansion
Funding Recipient, Lambda Literary Emerging Fellows
Fiction Fellow, Kimbilio for Black Fiction
Provost Diversity Fellow, Columbia University
Summer Comedy Workshop Award Recipient, Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation
Scholarship Recipient, Dave Family Humor Studies
Finalist, Richard J. Margolis Social-Justice Journalism Award
Scholarship Recipient, Aspen Words
Resident, St. Nell's Humor Writing Residency for Ladies
Editorial Resident, The Seventh Wave
Diversity Grantee, Delacorte Review, Columbia Journalism School
Grantee, BKLYN Incubator, Brooklyn Public Library