Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast, Kelly here, and we are spending the week with our fantastic guest, Morgan Harbor Nichols.

Oh, what a treat this conversation is going to be for you all.

Morgan is an artist and a bestselling author from Atlanta, Georgia, whose work blends art and

storytelling to create reflective and interactive experiences. Diagnosed with autism, ADHD,

and sensory processing disorder in our early 30s, Morgan's art has long explored themes of personal growth

and self-discovery, often inspired by messages she receives online. With the MFA from Linwin

University and a PhD in communication studies underway, Morgan continues to innovate, whether it's

her popular app storyteller or her online shop Garden 24.

We have such a powerful conversation with Morgan.

She is so generous and honest and insightful.

Truly, truly, truly, oh, fantastic week ahead.

Let's start the conversation with Morgan as she talks about

how she has reconciled her diagnoses with her art, how she has opted out of struggle in her life.

Let's check it out.

Morgan, I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. I really cannot say it up.

I actually, I didn't tell you this before we got started. What, I did show and tell. I'm going to do it again.

I was so happy to see it because you have one that I don't have. So I know it's out there. I was like, wait, I don't even have that one. But I'm glad I'm glad you have it. And I very selfishly said, on the top, way to build community. I said, well, you can't have that. You can't have it. It's mine. I use it. Oh, well, I tried. I tried. And I told someone today, I said, oh, I'm going to be having Morgan Harper Nichols on on the podcast. And he was like, Morgan, I love her. I did like a voiceover to her spoken words of her poetry. Oh, my goodness. And she DM me. She's such a wonderful, nice person. So you are beloved. Oh, thank you. Oh, my goodness. I, that's, well, I am very grateful to hear that. And that just brings me so much joy because I, with everything I do, I'm,

I'm always just thinking about connection. But in this day and age, that's very hard. Because it's like,

well, you know, who do you connect with? Where, Wow. You know, how you don't always know. So when I hear things like that, it's just like, yeah, that's what I hope for. That's what I'm trying to do. So that means a lot to hear. It's what you're doing. And that is what I want to talk to you about today is really, it's a good segue to talking about how your work really intersects

with our audience and what they're looking for, which is that connection and that kind of mentality

of this podcast, we say opting out of struggle, right? Then we all have things and challenges,

but it's about a mentality and a framework of saying, my life is not my challenge. My life is maybe challenges

...