I am made of the stories of the earth and
hand-woven love of my grandmothers.
I am an expansive, multidimensional, complex human being seeking to live my life fully and with heart. I am constantly learning how to love myself better and create my life with love. I am a shape-shifting creature who has made a home of the liminal and in-between. I transcend binaries, boxes, and blocks in imagination. I am a child of the earth, sun, and stars. I am healing and finding my way back into my voice, truth, and power.
I am made of the stories of the earth and hand-woven love of my grandmothers. In my heart is the vastness of the ocean, fields of wild flowers, and a sky full of stars. I take baths and lay in the moonlight to remember myself. And when my mind drops down into the space of my heart, I float through my own sea. I feel my own rhythms and waves. I feel the fullness of both my grief and my joy. And I continue to swim. I continue to make room.
About Me
Hello! My name is mai. I am a writer, facilitator, and grief and death care practitioner. I work with grief, writing, and storytelling as doorways and guides to loving and life affirming ways of being —with ourselves, each other, and the earth. As a femme, Mexican and Vietnamese person living with chronic illness and C-PTSD, I am healing intergenerational trauma by writing a new story. I live in Albuquerque, NM with my dog, Story, where we make home with the mountains and the moon.
My Background and Experience
I started writing when I was nine years old as a way to navigate intergenerational trauma, racism, sexism, and the unprocessed loss, death, and grief that impacted my family. When I was eleven years old, I wrote my first poem, and I published my first poem at sixteen. Today, I have published and performed my writing and poetry through the National Queer Arts Festival, RADAR Productions, the Poetry Project, and more. My first full-length book, water/tongue, was a 2020 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Bisexual Poetry. I am a certified end-of-life doula and conscious dying coach, children’s bereavement facilitator with The Grief Center NM, and teach grief stewardship through A Sacred Passing. I am a skilled and attuned facilitator with over 18 years of experience in program design, curriculum development, and facilitation. I’ve worked in the non-profit and philanthropic sectors, specifically in youth leadership development and gender, racial, and reproductive justice since 2008. Through this work, I have developed and managed intersectional leadership development programs as well as participatory grantmaking programs centering queer and trans BIPOC youth and adults.
My work is shaped and inspired by the queer, femme, disabled, and BIPOC people that have loved, held, and grown me throughout my life. I continue to evolve in being and practice through the guidance and mentorship of my beloved teachers and the earth. I approach this work and path with deep gratitude, humility, and love. I am grateful for the friends, teachers, and ancestors whose love, wisdom, and affirmation support me along the way.
You can find a full list of my work here.
Contact: hello@maicdoan.com