Naomi Scherelle is a living witness with Mississippi blood. She is a spirited healer, writer, educator, and alchemist from Chicago cultivating soft places for Black folks to land. In 2021, Naomi released a chapbook titled The Clearing: A Black Girl Collecting Her Bones. In 2023, Naomi was awarded the virtual Anaphora Writing Residency for her poetic works. Her short-story “on being claimed” was printed in the February 2024 issue of the Midnight & Indigo Literary Magazine. In January 2024, Naomi attended the Roots Wounds Words Winter Writers’ Retreat as a fiction fellow where she workshopped with Dawnie Walton.

 

Currently, Naomi architects curriculum rooted in self-exploration and compassion while centering the ancient art of storytelling. Naomi spent her early years in education teaching high school students how to read, write, hustle, and heal themselves. As the Director of Critical Consciousness and Programming for Vocal Justice, Naomi develops liberating spaces for educators to commune and deepen their practice. In her work, Naomi leverages intergenerational wisdom and researches abolitionist education practices to cultivate programming for both educators and young people. She is also the creator of 4ColouredGurlz Wellness, an ode to Black folks and a declaration that comfort and joy are a colored girl's birthright.