Celeste Rita Baker

I reach! On St. Thomas, Virgin Islands 'I reach' is one way of saying that you have arrived, you're at the door. So yes, I reach. I was born, but, even my mother said that I acted like I wasn't from around here. Pretty as the earth is, fascinating as people are, I've always had the feeling that this is not my home, and so I write.

When I was young, an 'other mother' of mine gave me a journal titled "How Can I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?" and that, for me, is one of the great fringe benefits of writing.

Happily ensconced now in Harlem, New York, I'm a Virgin Islander through the Head of Main Street Bryans and the St. Johnian McKetneys and I think writing is how we explain the unexplainable, sometimes to our liking.

Presently I'm working on a speculative fiction novel about a saint who reluctantly finds herself in the body of a Black woman in New York City about 50 years from now.