Connect What is your favorite type of art to create?

I immediately think of a line from the 90s romcom "Never Been Kissed." Josie, a copyeditor-turned-investigative-journalist, shrieks enthusiastically, "Words are my life!" A favorite chick flick of mine growing up, her affection for words resonated with my early-onset adoration for writing. Today, I express that love primarily through poetry as the Not Dead Yet Poet, turning my life-changing journey with chronic illness into stories that connect to people dealing with longterm loss and change.

Where do you find inspiration?

My lifelong insatiable thirst for words took me through the pages of all the Goosebumps books I could get my hands on to everything Toni Morrison ever penned. I devoured poems by Shel Silverstein, then Emily Dickenson, and Rupi Kaur. I critiqued the plaquards at Yellowstone National Park and the gravestones of famed renegades, Bonnie (a poet) and Clyde. Everything I read inspires my commitment to craft my story into a legendary legacy, forever interred by the written word.

What would you do with $25,000?

I've been dying of kidney failure, which allowed me to focus on telling my story in my voice. What a vulnerable place to be, compared to building brand content as a creative writer at a design agency! I've focused on writing and performing poetry that helps people – not just other patients – feel less alone with their loss and grief. Now that I'm getting a kidney transplant and expect to live longer, I want to write a memoir and companion collection of poems about living with chronic illness.