Healing Out Loud is a poetic celebration of the big, messy, grey area that lies between trauma and healing. An homage to the sights, sounds, and situations I encountered on my journey towards wholeness. This book is an exercise in describing all the things that they never show us in movie montages when pretty starlets get their life together. Like the pains our mothers and fathers don't talk about, or the processing we do in secret to deal with life's twists and turns, these are the things no one teaches us. This is the stuff we learn about by just hurting through it or surviving it. Poetry is the practice of reaching into yourself to pull out all of those things: the feelings, energies, burdens, and pains to describe them vividly.
Diana Medina is a first-generation Mexican-American poet and educator born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. Her mission in life is to use her gift with words to bring more clarity, compassion, and comic relief to the world. She believes that this is how she will leave the world better than she found it. Diana's writing has been featured by Modern Latina Magazine and Story Center. She has also performed at Da Poetry Lounge, The Sacramento Comedy Spot, Borderlands Theater, Sacramento Poetry Center, Capital Storytelling, and Yuba Sutter Art Gallery.Diana holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from California State University, Northridge and a Master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Southern California. She is the Founder and Chief Merriment Officer of Off The Clocker, a company that provides poetic interventions for an ever-changing world in the form of events, micro- coaching, consulting services, inspirational merchandise, publications, and performances. She is also the Program Director at The Practice Space, a Bay Area nonprofit that seeks to build confidence and community through communication skill development programs that advance inclusion, develop empathy, and elevate underrepresented voices for people of all ages. She is trained in storytelling, stand up comedy, and improv, all of which she brings into her poetry and education work.Diana is the daughter of Mexican immigrant parents, Jose and Natalia Medina. She is the youngest of their 8 children. She is a Tia to 22 nieces and nephews who she loves dearly. Diana enjoys pop culture, poetry, cooking, coffee, puns, thrift stores, knitting, hip hop, home decor, and her huge hilarious family; all of which she has a poem or story about. When she is not writing or working Diana enjoys taking road trips with her furbaby Kika, a chihuahua she named after her Abuelita.