My memoir, Fire, is my journey of self-definition and can be best summarized in words of the poet and writer Audre Lorde: "If I didn't define myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive." My struggle for self-definition was not optional either. If I had not faced who I was and acted on it, I could never have harnessed my creative fire and become the woman, storyteller, and poet that I am.