Valerie Udeozor: Playwright & Director

Episode Description:

Born in Los Angeles, Valerie Alleyne Udeozor, a graduate of Howard University’s School of Fine Arts, has penned and produced numerous stage plays and films.  Valerie has feature films in development and short films currently streaming on TUBItv and BHERCTV and more coming soon.
Valerie is also a noted medical professional, Registered Nurse with experience at Cedars Sinai Med Center, St. Johns Santa Monica Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital and is a noted Nursing professor, serving Pasadena City College and currently Santa Monica College. 

In this episode, Valerie shares with us her unique journey into the industry through her start as a nurse.

TRANSCRIPT:

Fanshen: [00:00:00] Many, many, many thanks to our amazing patrons on Patreon. Your support lights up our Sista Brunch world. If you love what we do and you want to join this incredible community, head on over to patreon.com/Sista Brunch. That's where you can make a financial contribution to us to keep our podcast going. You can do it for as little as $5 a month - becoming an intern of the show or all the way up to a hundred dollars a month as an executive producer. There are perks there. And if you want to give us even more, we'll take that as well. And we're now tax deductible with our fiscal sponsor, Women Make Movies. We cannot wait to welcome you into the Sista Brunch family on Patreon. 

Hello, beautiful Sistas and Siblings. This is Fanshen Cox, your host at Sista Brunch, the podcast that celebrates the remarkable journeys of Black women and gender expansive people thriving in entertainment and media. [00:01:00] Before we dive into today's inspiring conversation, and it absolutely will be a quick reminder to explore all our past episodes on our website at Sista Brunch. com. You can also connect with us on Instagram at Sista Brunch podcast. We have some really exciting things happening this season. So keep an eye out on our Instagram for everything happening. 

 Now I am thrilled to introduce our incredible guest for today, Valerie Udeozor. We met her through our partnership last year with the Micheaux Film Festival, and we're so glad we could catch up with her for our season five. She is a Howard University School of Fine Arts graduate and a talented filmmaker with feature films in development and streaming shorts on platforms like TubiTV and BHERCTV.

And this is especially why I love Valerie. Because in addition to her creative pursuits, [00:02:00] Valerie is a seasoned Registered Nurse and also a noted nursing professor. So recently, she was even nominated for the 2023 Biddy Mason Unsung Shero Legacy Nurse Award. And she continues to make waves in both the film and medical worlds.

Welcome Valerie.

Valerie: Thank you. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction.

Fanshen: Oh, my goodness. It's easy with you because it was actually hard to figure out how to condense it. And we're going to talk about so many things that you do today on the episode. But we always like to ask our guests to start by going back to the beginning as far back as you'd like to go could be your birth could be your parents birth, your grandparents birth, as far back as you'd like to go. That helps us understand your journey of how you got here today.

Valerie: Oh my goodness. I'm sure not going back to 1971.

Fanshen: Why [00:03:00] not? and since you said that, we have to mention happy birthday, this episode will drop a little later but just so you know, there's a special, it's special that Valerie joined us just before her birthday.

Valerie: Thank you. My birthday is Saturday. I'll be 52. And I actually did win that award, the Biddy Mason Unsung Shero Award.

Fanshen: You won it. Yes.

Valerie: I'm not really into awards. I feel like sometimes the time and money could be better spent, but then saying, Hey, look at me. Let's reward. Look at me. Look at all I've done.

But the ceremony is actually this Saturday on my birthday and it's Biddy Mason and she was a slave and a nurse. So I am super proud of that. And so that'll be Saturday on my birthday, December 2nd when I received that. So.

Fanshen: Okay. You've won it. I saw that you had been nominated and now it's confirmed that you won and Biddy Mason, I love the opportunity to share a little bit about her because I think few people understand her [00:04:00] legacy. And I'm lucky I live on Pico in Los Angeles and we have a little mural for Biddy Mason here in my neighborhood.

Valerie: Yeah, you do here in Los Angeles. I'm so proud of that. That's wonderful that you get to go by that all the time.

Fanshen: Yes.

Valerie: Going back, I think about Biddy Mason. She was a slave. I'm going to go back to my. My grandmother on my father's side, she was a Registered Nurse, they say that we are our ancestors dreams and whatever our ancestors were is somehow ingrained in us.

So my grandmother on my father's side was a nurse, Registered Nurse who worked very hard to become a Registered Nurse. She was actually banned from nursing for 12 years in Massachusetts at that time due to her color. And then ironically, when the polio virus, which was a pandemic, when the polio virus came out, they said, Hey, we need some nurses.

So my grandmother was called back into the profession. She was allowed back [00:05:00] and she helped eradicate polio. And she went on to become the director of nursing at Beth Israel and several noted hospitals in Massachusetts. And then my mother is a doctor. She's a retired pediatrician.

First Black woman to graduate from University of Louisville Medical School. My father was a law professor, but he also was a great writer. He did articles and he also played the flute. I'm not sure if he ever took a class. To learn how to play the flute, but I do, my childhood I remember him just emulating a song like Ring My Bell or the Pointer Sisters or something would come on or like a Curtis Blow song and he would just play it on his,

Fanshen: my goodness.

Valerie: so I guess the arts and science are somehow in my genetics and in my bloodstream. They say nursing is an art and a science, so I do feel like I do live by that.

Fanshen: You definitely live by that. It's clear from everything you do.[00:06:00] 

Valerie: Yeah,

Fanshen: And where did you grow up?

Valerie: I grew up right around the corner from here where I live in View Park in Los Angeles. And I'm a long term resident here, Slauson and Overhill. Everybody's celebrating the anniversary of Simply Wholesome. I'm like, I remember when it was Witch Stand.

Fanshen: No! No! It's the anniversary? What

Valerie: my 40 year anniversary of it's a Black owned health food store called Simply Wholesome. So

Fanshen: Simply Wholesome.

Valerie: I love this neighborhood. I love Simply Wholesome. I've been in this neighborhood. My block where I grew up was African American professionals. And I am proud of that. Everybody doesn't have the same story and I'm happy and I'm proud that I grew up around Black professionals, doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers. There's something going around now where they're calling it like Black Beverly Hills. I don't subscribe to that. I don't subscribe to that. None of these

Fanshen: We have our own thing. It's us.

Valerie: none of these people were born privileged. These people are like a generation away or two or three from slavery. [00:07:00] So people like my parents worked very hard and endured a lot to get what they have. So I guess now that the property value has gone up so much that people think they're in Beverly Hills and I don't accept that. I reject it, 

Fanshen: And

Valerie: Good

Fanshen: was a great I saw a great, a little short documentary on gentrification in View Park and how the families are really, fighting against that. It is such a beautiful area. It is. Full of us and hard working, so many Black owned businesses. That's where I get my hair done. My nail done, my nails done up there on Slauson. Yeah. It is, it's such a beautiful area. Oh, I love that you grew up there. How did your parents end up there? Like how, or yeah. How did your family end up

Valerie: I think they migrated here due to, I think my father had the first opportunity at UCLA. He was a professor and he was a, an attorney, an [00:08:00] arbitrator. So I think he had the opportunity here. My mom, according to her story, there were choices and my father was looking at Palos Verdes. and places to live and my mother coming from the deep South born in 1932 was like, no, I'm not going to be the only Black cause it makes me nervous. I'm still nervous in restaurants with all these white people around just because. Cause I was born in 1932. So she didn't really like those neighborhoods. And when she saw View Park, I guess the amount of Black professionals is what attracted her, She said, this is nice. This is everything that I want. I feel comfortable here, I think is what her sentiments were. And she stayed there and she still lives in the same house. So I live around the corner from my mom.

Fanshen: Oh my goodness!

Valerie: I won't say how much her house costs because people will just want it

Fanshen: I can only imagine. I, oh my

Valerie: wasn't a few million dollars. It wasn't a million dollars. It wasn't a hundred thousand. [00:09:00] Not to

Fanshen: I know. And now, yes, I love it. Okay. you have some LA exposure. Some of our guests grew up here, but for the most part, a lot of them came from other places. Did having that exposure to L.A. play a role in you becoming a filmmaker? How did those two worlds having storyteller parents and also nurse parents, medical parents how did that end up influencing you to become also a filmmaker?

Valerie: With my dolls and the stories. I was drawn to dance class, and that turned into drama class in the community. Started Like a real drama class in like seventh grade at Paul Revere Middle School performed in The Wicked Witch. I'll never forget that performance because I actually fell on stage, which made me more famous. Yeah, that made me more famous in the seventh grade than I wanted to be. But anyway, people loved my performance. that fall, it was like, yeah,

Fanshen: It gives a new meaning to break a leg right when

Valerie: oh, yeah. [00:10:00] It was a funny fall though, because I like rolled and got back up. Yeah.

Fanshen: okay good all right there you go

Valerie: didn't hurt anything. So I performed in that. And then I just got into theater.

I love theater. I love the whole aspect of a play. I like the dust of the theater. I like the rehearsals. I'm like lights and the gels and all that stuff. So that just turned into me enrolling at Inner City Cultural Center in the neighborhood. Remember I think Marla Gibbs used to run it. And I ended up my mother took me to a lot of plays.

I have her to thank because she exposed me. They used to live in Harlem and she loved theater herself. So she exposed me to like Cats, Downtown, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and different plays. speaking to Inner City Cultural Center, I saw a play like 80s and it was called checkmates and it was Denzel Washington.

And I want to say, I think it was Vanessa Williams. And it's just interesting [00:11:00] to think. And I remember thinking, God, he's fine. She's so pretty. Good. Who are these people? And they weren't who they are now. And when I think about it, I'm like, man, I was in that dusty theater watching those two just this is amazing.

So anyway, I went to high school for the arts and I loved it. I was involved in all aspects of theater. Went to Howard university. I studied Fine Arts, was in all aspects of the theater, including playwriting. I took my first playwriting class. We did theater history and everything.

So we got all into it, studied Aristotle's Poetics. They Came Before Columbus and just looking at how we influenced theater. And then I just started writing. I graduated, I performed a little bit and I started writing my own plays and that

Fanshen: Was Do you know Kamilah Forbes, who she's the Executive Director of the Apollo Theater and she was there around the time. I wonder if they're about our age. I think they're about our [00:12:00] age with Chadwick Boseman that period at Howard University. So I was just wondering if that might've been, maybe that was just before you.

Valerie: Chadwick Boseman, I feel like he came after me a little bit, maybe.

Fanshen: did he? Okay. you know what? That's, yeah, I wasn't sure how old she was. Okay. Okay.

Valerie: Chadwick Boseman School of the Fine Arts. That's where I'm an alumnus.

Fanshen: Yes. That's right. They've renamed it and rightfully oh, beautiful. Okay. And then you make your way back out here 

Valerie: That's right here. I did I had some day jobs as like a peer educator. So I stayed it was like a health education. Worked for Children's Hospital at a, wonderful program called Project NATEEN which was a social service program for pregnant and parenting teens. I was like a case manager.

And at that time I had started nursing school and finished nursing school working there. But I also wrote my first stage play there. My first stage play out of college. So that play was called Trapped. [00:13:00] It was about six pregnant and parenting teens who came together through a support group.

So it's based on my job, but the play was so well received. I did it at churches. I did it at theaters. I was invited to Wilberforce university to do it. I got a grant. I did it at the Stella Adler theater in Hollywood. I did it all over Los Angeles, high schools, Crenshaw High, Locke High, Markham middle school. And at the time it really. It inspired and it educated and I love that. That was like a thing. So I was like, okay, this is good. I love people. Not only being entertained, but educated at the same time.

Fanshen: So I was going to ask you about that because all of your work has this aspect of educating, right? So all of us as filmmakers, we want people to see our, projects and so they're entertaining, right? That is a given to a certain extent. We know our audience and we want to entertain that audience.

But also everything you do has [00:14:00] this educational aspect to it. And I wonder, do you, Both for that, adding the educational aspect, as well as just being a Black woman and a proud, strong Black woman. Do you ever feel pressure to include those? Are there times where you're like, let me just do art for art's sake like everybody else or these other artists?

Or do you appreciate that, or, embrace, I should say, that everything you do is so impactful? Heh.

Valerie: Yeah, I appreciate it. I have been I have some elders that are like, in everything you do, you should, you have to uplift us. You can't ever show us in whatever light. But I actually have a very, a comedy side that where I have a short film called Bougie Ass Brandon, It's just that side of me but even that has a slight message in the end.

Yeah. Jermaine Hollman is the star, but it is just, it's a straight comedy. And I like that. Sometimes I'll bring that into my classroom, but I will [00:15:00] then figure out how to get back to that.

Fanshen: that little educational

Valerie: I'll relate that raw gutter ass comedy to something in that textbook. I do feel that I have a gift for that. But. It just depends, because in real life, there's, it's full of lessons, correct? So You know, over the summer I was when I was off, I actually took a writing class for the first time in a long time. It was called the Emerging Black Screenwriters Fellowship. Through the Metaphor Club, which is, you're probably familiar with them all. So they had a writing class over the summer and I came up with my script, of course it's about a nurse. I don't want to say too much about it because I'm wrapping up a couple of versions of it. Anyway. My project, my script was called Nurse Blackie. And it's funny because I wrote my 10 pages for the class and I had some deep stuff in there.

I had some deep stuff in there. However, we did table readings every Saturday, right? When they did my table read of those 10 pages, everybody was [00:16:00] cracking up. Everybody was like, dang, that was so funny. So funny. And I think it was my rawness and that perspective of bullshit, some things that are bullshit within healthcare and the way Black people are treated, but I just flipped it and made it made some light out of a lot of aspects of it.

And I said no, it's not a comedy. It's not a comedy. They were like I'm sorry,

Fanshen: It's fine.

Valerie: but this is funny as shit.

Fanshen: there's gotta be comedy in tragedy. Otherwise, we just, can get so hard, right? Life can get so

Valerie: it is. It can get so hard that maybe it just, it comes across as funny. But I do think of projects like I work with people who hire me to write. I've worked with my good friend Shondrella Avery has her production company Glass Slipper. I write for her.

I write for some other people. And sometimes they will have an idea or a book or something that I'm to do. They'll bring me a project. And what I like to do is say, okay, I'm going to do this, but I'm going to slip something in there. [00:17:00] I did one about I was to create a story about bank robbers.

So I said, okay I'm going to make this bank robber who is African American. First of all, we're going to see why he's robbing banks. We're going to see the backstory. I'm going to make him a book connoisseur. And he read a book. He read that classic called The Heist and he's obsessed with books. And he took this book, The Heist.

And started robbing banks based on this book. He's not just a bank robber. He is a bank robber, but he's educated and he reads.

Fanshen: Planting those seeds.

Valerie: like

Fanshen: So if you want to do well in your heist, then you need to be educated and you need to read.

Valerie: Something. So he's, so the characters aren't so one dimensional as we are. As sometimes portrayed. There's brilliant people and characters everywhere. Even in prisons. Brilliant people. Some of the most brilliant people in the world.

Fanshen: Okay. So speaking of brilliant people, tell us about How I Got Over. Hehehehehehe

Valerie: good segue, Fanshen! Ha Ha! 

 [00:18:00] Hi there. This is Valerie Udeozor, and you are listening to the Sista Brunch 

Fanshen: Hi family. It's Fanshen and you're listening to Sista Brunch. Give our guests some love over on our Instagram at Sista Brunch podcast. If you want, see the full videos of our interviews, head over to YouTube and subscribe to the TruJuLo YouTube channel at TruJuLo Media. T-R-U-J-U-L-O Media we're also on Tik TOK at TruJuLo Media.

Valerie: Fanshen speaking of my mother Dr. Dolores Gordon Alleyne. And How I Got Over is a 21 minute documentary. Some of you asked me why it was only 21 minutes, because that's how much money I had is 21 minutes worth of money to do something.

And I also wanted to direct her documentary to youth and I know how youth cannot sit for an hour and watch a [00:19:00] documentary. So what I did is I took my mother's story. She's the first Black female to graduate from University of Louisville Medical School in 1957. Her picture is on the wall. If any of you are from Louisville, Kentucky, Or you're in Kentucky for the derby or whatever, go to University of Louisville, go up on the third floor, you're going to see a picture of a Black woman who looks younger than me and she's got her hair pressed out.

That's my mother. She is the first female Black graduate ever from that medical school. So she's on the wall. in the building. I decided to finally get this documentary done about her. And what I did was I narrated it with rap music. I used her story. I grabbed some other notable doctors and nurses that I knew to promote health professions and to encourage more of us to get into medical fields, whether you're a doctor or a nurse or a respiratory [00:20:00] therapist or a physician assistant, there's so many things to do within science where you can have a steady check and do wonderful things for people and change the world. So I used the film and got all these people and strung everything together through rap music and her amazing story and interviews with Black medical professionals and made a a piece that we could all enjoy, youth classroom and anyone. I've had just women say that was just inspiring to me as a woman, not necessarily Black woman.

My colleague at Santa Monica College showed it to the CNA program. She said, I have a secret. I said, I didn't tell you to be sharing my stuff. She said, I showed it to them. I came upstairs and there was not one Black person in that program. It was mostly older immigrants in the program. Certified Nursing Assistant, Asian women from Brazil.

And they were like, that was so inspiring. I'm just inspired. And I was like, wow. Job [00:21:00] done and more and then some so it's really a short for everyone. Anybody who had any type of obstacle because boy, does she have some obstacles? Yeah

Fanshen: I know you make your mother so proud in doing that, right? And just allowing an opportunity to share her story. And I think a lot of people deserve that whether we are the first or the second or the 10th or that we deserve. Somebody or ourselves telling our stories and sharing them broadly.

Something I love about you Valerie, that's why I'm like, Valerie and I have had quite the journey to end up finally having this conversation together. And I was so excited because you, I have this way of making the work that you do sound and feel seamless and that it is just the natural thing to do.

And I keep harping on the fact that you do these two very different things and you do them really well and you constantly [00:22:00] find ways to connect them. So you do medicine. And you do filmmaking and theater and playwriting and storytelling. And I just, I mainly, I just want to say you're amazing.

Valerie: And it's not seamless. Nothing is seamless, I have struggles, but I make them

Fanshen: do you want to talk about? What are the challenges that you feel comfortable talking about?

Valerie: man, there's challenges with everything. I just don't want people, a lot of people look at me, Fanshen, and they're like, wow, she's just got it all. Like she's got her husband and her, and you're a nurse and you do all this stuff you got your kids and 

Fanshen: live in View Park

Valerie: Oh yeah, View Park and oh, shit, girl.

Fanshen: I know.

Valerie: I love that people love to create those images, but, I listened to a lot of podcasts and even the biggest people have struggles and nothing is easy. And we have hard days. Being a professor is not easy to teach people how to [00:23:00] be nurses is not easy. I'm dealing with a lot. I'm dealing with a lot and it's a difficult time.

Things in hospitals right now are not easy right now. I'm on my, so I do eight weeks of medical surgical nursing and eight weeks of psych. Psych ward is not easy right now. We got nurses and professionals who are burnt out. I'm coming in there with groups who I want to learn, who are taking up extra space.

This time of year, the psych ward is popping. I think the psych. institutions are popping just because we're post pandemic. A lot of nurses are

Fanshen: and there's a crisis right around mental health workers that we don't have enough.

Valerie: we don't have enough and we have more patients and we have more people struggling with mental health issues that have to be institutionalized. juggling is juggling. And I tell my students, My morning can be such a struggle. I may have had a morning where I ran out of gas.

God dang it. Let me just be real honest. I've run out of gas in my own driveway like four times. [00:24:00] when AAA comes, y'all have cash because they don't take cards and stuff. That's just

Fanshen: I didn't know that. Really? Oh, no.

Valerie: out of gas in your driveway. 

Fanshen: will say this is just because you are so busy. I would imagine that this has to do with, yeah, that

Valerie: I'm running and I'm always running and I may have a messy morning, but I will never show up to my students a mess, or I will say, I will rarely do that. I do wake up early and I think that gives me advantage. If I do run out of gas or something crazy like that happens . Nothing is easy. I do exercise for mental health. I take walks. And I do that. To keep my mind and I have to nourish myself and I have to keep myself well to do all these jobs of service.

I'm dealing with a classroom full of 30 different personalities, 60 a year, 60 a semester. Actually 120 a year, I have to even myself out and I have to be healthy. So I'm a big fan of taking care of [00:25:00] ourselves, I think as Black women, we forget a lot of us put more thought, money, time and energy into our hair and our nails, which I love these things.

But what about our body? What are we doing to make our body working well, to get our circulation going, to get moving, to get our mind as sharp as it can be?

Fanshen: It's so funny. You've already planted some seeds for our final question, but I'll ask one more and then we'll get to our final question. What is coming up for you? What's next for you? Especially around filmmaking or storytelling.

Valerie: So I am so excited. and I feel overwhelmed because I have so much coming up and I, and so much stuff in the works and I do get overwhelmed. Like how am I going to do all this? I get very fixated about my schedule and what I'm going to use my time to work on.

So just to put that out there to people, and a schedule is super important, I am blessed in my day job at Santa Monica College that I get months off. So this is how I [00:26:00] write, guys. This is how I have time. I'm not magical. I have the whole summer off three months and I have December to February.

So I already, this morning after my mental health walk, I was going to reach out to my team, some of the teams I'm working with and say, Hey guys, if you guys want this script, this would be a great time to do it because my mind is already thinking I'm gonna be down here in my woman cave two days a week.

I'm gonna be at the Metaphor Club two days a week and get going. I work with Glass Slipper Productions head by Shondrella Avery, my high school bestie, and a wonderful actress. She starred in Napoleon Dynamite, of course, and she has several films. We work together. I've written some features for her.

We are also working on projects with a group called the National Council Hashtag Free Her. It's my cousin's organization, Andrea Good James, she's working to end mass incarceration and end the incarceration of women. So she has [00:27:00] a series of books that she wants to turn into film.

So we are working on those. We're looking at different books written by incarcerated women that we are going to make a feature film out of. I also completed a stage play for a wonderful woman who I met in my mom group, Mocha Moms years ago. Her name is Maisha Young, and she commissioned me to write her a stage play back in 2021 or 2022.

We spent about a year just talking. Like a therapy session and I got her story and the stage play is called Little Black Magic. It's a coming of age story and the script is done. So we're gearing up for 2024. It'll be local in the community.

It is a wonderful coming of age story of a young Black girl who was abused and had to get through some things who blossomed into just an amazing woman and survived and became an amazing woman, [00:28:00] which I know will resonate with a lot of Black women. 

Fanshen: Beautiful. Okay. Valerie, you are sitting down for a sister brunch with young Valerie. What are you both eating? What are you both drinking?

Valerie: remember this one. Yeah.

Fanshen: And what do you tell her?

Valerie: Young Valerie, she got on some Guess Jeans

Fanshen: yes. Yes.

Valerie: looking good. She's probably eating crappier food, even though she's got a flatter stomach than Valerie right now. She's probably eating some good old grits and real, some sausage and pancakes. With blueberries, everything is smothered with her tight guests and her little cute little top showing her stomach

Fanshen: Love it.

Valerie: Grown Valerie is looking cute. Not showing her stomach, but

Fanshen: even if she's in her scrubs, she's looking cute. Like she's still looking

Valerie: thank you. And you said, what would I say to her? Or

Fanshen: What are you [00:29:00] both eating also? What do you eat for brunch? What do you drink for brunch?

Valerie: I'd probably have a mimosa.

Fanshen: Oh, and you said she, okay. And what would you have? She's having

Valerie: I would've a mimosa. She's had a

Fanshen: just a mimosa.

Valerie: mimosa. I, no, I'd have waffles and all that stuff too.

Fanshen: Okay. You both would.

Valerie: She wouldn't mess with the fruit. She'd be like, just give me the sausage and the grits and the blueberry pancakes smothered with syrup and all that stuff.

Fanshen: And what do you tell her?

Valerie: Man, what do I tell her? I would say be you, just keep being you and Everything I learned, I like how I learned it. And even if I learned it the hard way, it's good. I needed to experience everything. I needed to experience my wild years with the Guess and the show on my stomach and running around.

And everything came together. So I would just say just. Keep enjoying be kind and keep enjoying life and have your ears open to all these lessons that you're going to learn. not a fan of looking back and saying, Oh, you should have done this. Or you should have done that. Or I would have told myself to, Oh, invest in [00:30:00] this or that. No, I'm supposed to

Fanshen: It was what it was. It happened the way it was supposed to happen. Yes. Yes. 

Valerie: Yeah. But I liked her. I liked young Val. She

Fanshen: like the young Val?

Valerie: I liked her. She was smart.

Fanshen: Valerie Udeozor, thank you so much. Truly, you're an inspiration. Your mom's an inspiration. Now that I've heard more about your family, same. I'm so glad to have you in the world telling stories and have you be a role model for the rest of us. in nursing and in educating and in entertaining. We will certainly continue to follow you and support you at Sista Brunch and we're so grateful to you.

Valerie: Oh, thank you so much. And God bless you and everybody who's listening. I hope that I can provide a little bit of inspiration and just truth, truth and people who are just [00:31:00] regular people just out here doing it. And, I'm just. It's honored. It's an honor. Everything I do is an honor. The art, the science, existing, talking to you, it's, everything is a blessing and an honor and I take absolutely nothing for granted.

So thank you, Sista Brunch, for having me. 

Fanshen: And with that, we wrap up another episode of Sista Brunch. We hope this episode has left you feeling inspired to tell your impactful stories, just like Valerie does, or at least support those who do tell these kinds of stories, like every single one of our guests on Sista Brunch. Until the next episode, stay strong, sisters and siblings.

Sista Brunch is brought to you by TruJuLo Productions. Our show creators are Anya Adams, Christabel Nsiah Buadi, Brittany Turner, and me, Fanshen Cox. Sista Brunch is a Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program Project.

We acknowledge that the land I record the [00:32:00] podcast on is the original land of the Tongva and the Chumash people. 

We cannot wait till next time.

Take good care, everyone.