On Creative Presence:
As may be true for you, my artistic, spiritual, and professional paths have merged into what I call “creative presence,” a fusion that informs everything.
Over the past few years, my writing projects have shifted from fiction to creative nonfiction to memoir/nonfiction. This shift stems from accepting the truth of things in midlife, a softening spurred by embracing full sobriety three years ago. As a younger writer, I hid behind various characters. Nowadays, I’ve found the courage to be transparent, a growth I never foresaw.
Like many creative people, I exhibited a pronounced affinity for spiritual inquiry as a young person, which I satisfied through lots of reading. In brief: Transcendental meditation led me to a mindfulness practice that coalesced into a Dzogchen (non)meditation practice I’ll share more about in future posts. This journey has taught me to look inward for the peace I sought elsewhere, which, as corny as it may sound, is true.
My creative and spiritual paths have been one all along, and I’ve explored this more fully in my debut memoir, Taking Refuge in the Fire: Purification Through Creative Presence (Rebel Satori, 2026). This inquiry has even led to my becoming a certified mindfulness meditation teacher, which has helped me support others in ways I’d never imagined.
This foundation nourished the ground of my nonprofit development work, which is a fancy way of saying I write grants and seek funding for the Nuyorican Poets Café and Composers Now, organizations led by Latina leaders, Caridad De La Luz (aka La Bruja) and Tania León, whose compositions have been featured by the New York Philharmonic recently.
My professional life positions me at the crossroads of the thrilling New York City culture that fascinated me as a boy in the 1970s and as a teenager in the 1980s. Bolstering these organizations’ public profiles makes it possible for them to serve literary/spoken word and musical artists emerging onto their respective scenes.
This hasn’t allowed me much time to teach, a role I grew into organically during my time at the Bronx Council on the Arts (2013-2018). Each spring, I participate in DREAMing Out Loud, a creative writing program for undocumented college students in New York City, for which I serve as a writing mentor.
My 2020 cohort, which switched to online classes when the city shut down, inspired me to write my memoir after I shared painful tidbits about my early years to give them hope for what we were all about to face in March 2020.
My greatest hope is that you—whether I know you in person or not—can derive value from the pieces I’ll be sharing in this updated format. Whether we connect creatively, spiritually, or professionally doesn’t matter, since these categories are all intertwined for me now that I’ve tried to simplify my life.