About Me — Shamontiel L. Vaughn

An activist lives in my head, a writer lives in my heart

August 23, 2023: I am no longer a regular writer on Medium, but I have had an AMAZING time talking to the 4,000+ followers I earned while writing for this site from 2019 to the spring of 2023. I had about 1,000 posts on here and six publications between this timeframe. However, due to Medium’s constant changes in the Partner Program, I made the tough decision to risk losing followers here to try to gain them all back on Substack. We’ll see how that goes!

I read a tweet recently that said, “Tying your identity to your occupation is dangerous because if work disappears, who are you?”

My first thought: Why would work “disappear”?

My second thought: When you have a job, this is true. When you have a career, that just doesn’t disappear. It follows you around like my Hound mix, staring at you no matter where you are and sitting in the window waiting for you to return if you dare to leave.

My name is Shamontiel Latrice Vaughn. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write so badly that I was laser-focused on learning cursive handwriting. I couldn’t do it, so I would draw squiggles over and over again on sheets of paper. I was determined to master handwriting long before teachers would show me…