Jeneé Darden is an award-winning journalist, author, public speaker and mental health advocate from Oakland, Calif.  She has reported for NPR, Marketplace, TIME Magazine Europe, The Los Angeles Times, Ebony, Refinery29, Shondaland and other outlets. She is the author of When a Purple Rose Blooms (Black Lawrence Press), a collection of essays and poetry about her personal journey through Black womanhood, Jeneé curates the reading Let Her Tell It! about Black women and mental health. Her work is also published in We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, Previously on X-Men: The Making of an Animated Series and Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation.

Jeneé holds a BA in ethnic studies from UC San Diego and a master’s in journalism from the University of Southern California. She’s a former National Book Foundation Summer Writing fellow. When the mic is off and her pen is down., Jeneé loves to go to the beach, dance, read, travel, watch superhero films and Star Trek shows. Follow her blog www.CocoaFly.com and her website www.jeneedarden.com.