I Am A Creative Because I Write

My adult daughter, who finds a creative use for most things, says, “You are not artistic.” However, I reject that and insist that I am artistic. I AM a creative! My art is expressed through language and the written word. I write to explore my feelings and clarify my thoughts. Writing helps me unlock colour, shape, and sound from within. There's a rhythm and flow to my writing, with a baseline and harmony. More than just a creative outlet, writing serves as a connection to the beauty of Indigenous Black communities.

I recognize that the artistry in my words, being distinctly Black, may be foreign to some and simply challenging to others. Still, how I marry words to convey a concept or idea challenges dominant systems and culture that seek to stifle Black truth and expression. I write to challenge racial power imbalances by revealing erased or hidden narratives of Black people. I write to confront the concept of whiteness, which is, at its core, anti-Blackness. I believe controversial communication should be neither pretentious nor overly academic. The language we use for truth-telling and dissent is crucial. Using plain, everyday language makes the conversation inclusive and accessible for all. My words create space for my voice, and I aim for them to do the same for the reader. Prose is my literary passion, blending persuasive and narrative styles. In short, this is how I craft the artistry of my written words.

Alt text: Black woman with locks wearing a black t-shirt with the words, "goals, dreams and melanin.",

Centred on my lived experience, my writing often takes the form of first-person narratives that reveal the beauty, power, and pain of Indigenous Black life. It also challenges dominant thought patterns, offering more relational ways of thinking and being in this world. Some might politely say that I hold strong opinions. I am comfortable with being seen as outspoken, opinionated, or even fierce. I do not shrink out of fear from the stereotypes reserved for Black women like me. I lean in and say, “You don’t define me.”

Writer wasn’t something I saw myself as until recent years. However, when I reflect, writing has been my way of releasing emotions for most of my life. It’s how I made sense of pain and pleasure. Writing is a beautiful struggle that rescues and releases my voice about things that light me up or grieve me most. Professionally, I mainly wrote emotional, motivating, action-oriented appeals and reports as part of my work as a fundraiser. In my personal life, poems sometimes poured out during intense love affairs due to the flood of oxytocin in my body that ignited a poet. And of course, because I was raised by Black women who didn’t tolerate nonsense, I never hesitated to express my discontent to various audiences when necessary. Still, in 2019, I started writing for another reason—to refine my Blackness in a sea of whiteness.

My first articles were published in an online project called Our Right to Heal, which featured first-person narratives from 10 Black Canadian fundraisers. Initially scheduled for release in January 2020, the publication was delayed to March and then temporarily stopped due to COVID-19. I wasn’t sure this project would happen, but what followed launched me into a writing practice. 

Alt text: Black woman on a balcony wearing a white shirt.

After months of waiting in uncertainty, one April day, we finally received a publishing date for this project: May 26, 2020. Little did any of us know that this would be the day after the racist murder of George Floyd. This tragedy opened the zeitgeist through its vivid and brutal video replay. A rare dialogue about race emerged, and Our Right to Heal was thrust into the centre of global calls for racial justice. In this rarified atmosphere, we shared our truths as Black women. Within days, a Canadian publisher contacted us to consider writing an anthology that would share our experiences as Black people fundraising.

In July, we signed a book deal. In November 2020, we published Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love, a binational anthology featuring 15 Black authors sharing their experiences of anti-Black racism in the charitable sector. I wrote the introduction and the final chapter of the book, titled Our Love is Our Only Freedom. Less than a year later, an American publisher picked up our book. Collecting Courage is now available in both Canada and the United States.

The book was published on November 25, 2020. I realized then that I was a writer, and I’ve never looked back since. Much like my fundraising career, I stumbled into writing publicly. I now see that both skills were within me all along, but only came alive when opportunity met intention.

In all my blogs, I include words by bell hooks, “No black woman writer in this culture can ever write too much. Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’…No woman has ever written enough.” And so I continue to write.

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Nneka Allen is a Black Afro-Métis woman, a Momma, and a descendant of the Underground Railroad. As a relationship builder, freedom fighter, storyteller, and leadership coach, she founded The Empathy Agency Inc. to guide clients toward hope, purpose, and justice in their relationships with themselves, others, and Earth. Her mission is to inspire wholeness by honouring our humanity through compassionate coaching.