In my heart is the truth of who I am and the seeds of my becoming. I am the vastness of the ocean. I am old growth forest and ancient rock. I am an ancestor of the stars. I am an expansive, multidimensional, complex human being seeking to live my life fully and with heart. I am constantly learning how to love myself better and to create my life with love. I am a shape-shifting creature who has made a home of the liminal and in-between. I transcend binaries, boxes, and blocks in imagination. I am constantly evolving, and growing into my own truth, voice, and power. It is my capacity to love that makes me strong.

What I Do

Welcome! My name is mai. I am ​a writer, facilitator, and grief and death doula​. I support groups and individuals around processing grief, and teach how the natural world can support us through loss, death, and change​. I design and facilitate community offerings, as well as workshops and circles for groups and organizations around all forms of grief, specializing in climate grief and solastalgia. My approach is heart-centered, intersectional, and honors the inherent sovereignty and wisdom of all those who I work with. As a life-long student, I continue to evolve in being and practice through the guidance and mentorship of my beloved teachers and the earth. I approach this work and path with deep gratitude, humility, and love. 

My Background and Experience

Writing is the blood, bone, and fire of my being. It is central to who I am and what I do. I wrote my first poem. when I was nine years old, and published my first poem at sixteen. Since then, I have published and performed my work through the National Queer Arts Festival, the Poetry Project, RADAR Productions, LitQuake, and more. I hold an MFA in Poetry from Mills College, where I attended as a Community Engagement Fellow. As a fellow, I collaborated with local organizing projects such as Care Not Cops to bring reading, writing, and creating ritual with poetry into public space and political action. water/tongue, my first full-length poetry book, was published in 2019 and went on to become a Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Poetry in 2020.

Designing and facilitating community offerings is a beloved expression of my creative practice. I’ve been designing and facilitating workshops at the intersection of healing, creative, and spiritual practice since 2008 and have led workshops on radical dreaming, writing with ancestors, queer and trans bipoc poetry and craft, altar making, and more. From 2014-2018, I ran my own reiki practice, through which I offered accessible, trauma-informed energy healing centering youth, women and femmes of color, and survivors of violence. In 2020, I trained and certified as a death doula and began holding grief circles, facilitating writing workshops centered on grief, providing grief support to groups and individuals, and guiding people in ritual and ceremony development to honor all forms of loss and change. In 2022, I entered into study, training, and practice around supporting groups and individuals around climate grief and solastalgia, and teaching through writing and grief work how the natural world can support us through loss, death, and change. My work is informed by over fifteen years of experience in training, facilitation, counseling, and program development in the non-profit and philanthropic sectors, specifically in youth leadership development, anti-violence work, and gender, racial, and reproductive justice, as well as in DIY and community-based settings. I continue to be in deep study and practice, led by the elders and mentors who teach and guide me in my work.

A​s a femme, Mexican and Vietnamese person living with chronic illness and C-PTSD, I am healing lived and intergenerational trauma by writing a new story. I am grateful for the friends, teachers, and ancestors whose love, wisdom, and affirmation support me along the way.

For more:
Selected Works
Curriculum Vitae

To get in touch, email me at hello@maicortezdoan.com.