Welcome. I’m Sharifa. I’m a writer,editor, speaker, and sometime singer based in Dallas, TX.

I am the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, born and raised in New York. I graduated from Columbia University in New York with a Bachelor in African American Studies before earning a master in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary.

I consider myself a conglomeration of intersections: Bronx wisdom and prep-school code-switching; smoke shop Now-and-Laters and church peppermints; hip-hop and hymns. Intersections can be a mash-up—rife with both tragedy and opportunity; places of pause within movement.

I aspire to use writing as a vehicle that moves readers to intersect with the sacred and the honest.

In 2025, I published When We Talk to God: Prayers and Poems for Black Women, a collection of accessible writings that address topics from foundation matching to work ambition to abortion.

In 2024, I co-authored Only Light Can Do That: 60 Days of MLK Devotions for Kids with Lisa Crayton, which in 2025 became a finalist for the Christian Book Award.

I also contributed to the books Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, & Marginalized Women of the Bible and Rally: Communal Prayers for Lovers of Jesus and Justice.

More writing of mine can be found on Substack.

I am married to a Renaissance man, mother to two lively boys, and watched over by a loyal dobie.