The marriage of heart and intellect is a beautiful thing, made so for its rarity. And yet, in my conversation with Dr. Yolanda (Yolie) Sealy-Ruiz, we get just that as she shares her work bridging the arts and academia to make layers of ourselves available for our own life practice and for our work and relationship with others. One such example is her program, Archaeology of Self, where she encourages new and seemingly seasoned teachers to do the inner work (in the trenches), socio-emotional work, to understand what motivates and informs their practice in the classroom.

Dr. Sealy-Ruiz is an accomplished scholar in the areas of racial literacy, culturally responsive pedagogies, Black Girl literacies, and work with Black and Latinx high school boys. Her work is featured in her books and articles and made accessible in public forums, such as her TedX Penn Talk on Truth, Love, & Racial Literacy. Dr. Sealy-Ruiz is also the author of two volumes of poetry, The Love Vortex and The Peace Chronicles, in which she does the excavation work for herself that she coaches educators through.

And she also hails from the South Bronx, USA! A lover of words and poetry, she is currently writing her forthcoming poetic memoir about coming of age in the 80's Regan Era economics, the war on drugs and Black and Brown communities, and the birth of hip hop which she will align with the 2023 50th anniversary of hip hop and the opening of the Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx!

Follow Yolie's work in a few places.

Her website: https://www.yolandasealeyruiz.com/

Instagram: yolie_sealeyruiz

X (formally Twitter): @RuizSealey

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ysealeyruizpoetry

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yolandasealeyruiz-714a24126/

To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠

Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah

Instagram: @drwendiwilliams

Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠