The most tenacious Black woman in the world.

Warm greetings to you! My name is Miss Cleis Abeni. (My other name is tree turtle.) 

If you are meeting me through this website or through my writing and editing, please call me Miss Cleis Abeni. 

(Cleis rhymes with dice. To pronounce my name, use a hard "KL" sound at the beginning of Cleis). 

This website is devoted to my work as a writer and editor. 

For over 30-plus years, I have been a progressive, humanist ordained Buddhist Upāsikā.

For 30-plus years, I have also been a professional writer, an investigative journalist, a grant-writer, a creative writer, and a multifaceted editor (both freelance and on-staff).  

I was the staff copyeditor for the Baltimore Alternative; a staff writer and editor for the Institute for Survey Research; and a reporter for the Baltimore City Paper and the Philadelphia City Paper. 

My journalism, essays, poems, and fiction have also appeared in 30-plus news outlets, literary magazines and journals since 1988 like Reimagining Magazine; Prick of the Spindle; Capitol Black Arts Bulletin; Mountain Record: The Zen Practitioner's Journal; Columbus Alive; Dance Research Journal; Dance Magazine; Dance View; Ploughshares; Good Foot Magazine; Fence Magazine; Identity Principle; Locus; Press Board Press Magazine; Spoon; The New Baltimore Visitor; Urbanite; The Formalist; The James White Review; Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement; Hook; The Washington Review; Tomorrow Speculative Fiction Magazine; and more.  

I am a lifelong peace educator; restorative justice practitioner; multifaceted healer, carer, health navigator, and former nurse; life science teacher and environmentalist; and facilitator who helps people work through conflicts.

Consequently, when I am not writing and editing, I work as a community builder, movement organizer, and advocate for peace, violence prevention, justice, equality, and environmental care. I have also been a nonprofit executive and an administrator that has helped several organizations execute high-quality violence prevention projects, justice-oriented programs, science programming, arts programming, and educational programming, as well as operations and fundraising.