From Research to Screenplay: How Storytelling Became My Creative Purpose

​I thought I was writing a dissertation. Turns out, I was building a creative blueprint—one that would take me from field notes to film festivals.

2017 was supposed to be the academic finish line. I earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology with a dissertation on Black cowboys and masculinity in Texas. The plan? Turn it into a book. Follow the track. Stay in line.
But my spirit wasn’t aligned with the track. It was tuned to the stage.
Specifically, the stage at Mo’ Betta Mondays, Chocolate Sundaes, and The J Spot—comedy clubs where Black men told stories that were sharp, moving, and deeply self-aware. I wasn’t there to study. I was there to breathe. To witness.
And eventually—to shift.

When the Book Wouldn’t Come

Every academic around me expected a manuscript. But something inside me said: not yet.
Instead, I kept returning to comedy clubs. I watched how performers shaped narrative, played with silence, and rewrote their pain with punchlines. It wasn’t procrastination—it was reorientation.
That’s when I started writing my first screenplay.

The Creative Breakthrough

What began as a movie based on my fieldwork evolved into something larger. I didn’t just want to write about Black men’s self-expression—I wanted to join it. To participate in the storytelling tradition that shaped the very communities I studied.
So, I taught myself screenwriting. Built characters from composites of real people. Reworked dialogue from old field notes. What didn’t fit the academic mold found a home in a script.

The Results

🎬 Fowl Play became my first short film and directing experience.
🎞 Quieted won awards and opened conversations about silence in academic spaces.
📚 The book I resisted? It’s now in second-draft form—and stronger for the detour.
The lesson? Sometimes storytelling needs to live outside the syllabus before it can change the canon.

I didn’t abandon research. I translated it.
And that’s how I found my creative purpose.