Writing and Reporting 

Writing never came easy to me, as it did for my peers. My grammar was not "up to par." For my first assignment for the Newspaper, I spent 5 hours trying to perfect it and making sure everything fit into place. In return, I received several edits. These edits did not seem to stop. They just transformed from paper edits to online suggestion edits on Google Docs.  For every story, I would write, there would be hundreds of edit suggestions mainly grammar related. I had the puzzles of quotes and words together. It was all there, but making the was something I needed to work on. But I realized, telling the story and writing sophistically are two different things. Listening and understanding is the key to bringing light to someone's voice.  Writing and reporting have given me the opportunity to not only share important perspectives but also to learn from those perspectives. It's a blessing to listen to the people I interview. Giving a voice to them, through stories is something that I am very proud of.  Even though I went through hundreds of edit suggestions, accepting each one of those and receiving feedback has made me a better reporter, writer, storyteller, and truth seeker. Sharing the stories I wrote with the Ann Arbor and Detroit communities, my only hope is to create history, and inspire change.