 "Inspired by her readings of Nikki Giovanni, she first wrote poetry that was angry and admittedly awful, but that was important to her growing cultural awareness".She graduated high school at Buffalo City Honors School, and then moved on to earn her bachelor's degree from State University of New York at Albany (1981) and a Masters of Fine Arts at Louisiana State University (LSU) (1987).She has also taught creative writing at Emerson College, Southern Illinois University—Carbondale, and Milton Academy in Massachusetts where she started writing her first novel.