Crafted with Care: Sensitivity and Awareness in Writing

Great writing stretches us. It helps us see more of the world, more of ourselves, and more of one another. That capacity to expand our understanding is part of what draws us back to meaningful stories again and again.

Our guest today embodies that kind of expansive, generous storytelling. Adrienne first connected with Sharifa Stevens while searching for a sensitivity reader for her novel. What began as a professional inquiry quickly became something deeper. Sharifa offered not only thoughtful critique, but care, clarity, and insight. It became clear that her voice was one listeners of The Exhale Podcast needed to hear.

Sharifa is the author of When We Talk to God: Prayers and Poems for Black Women, a work that beautifully blends prayer, poetry, and personal narrative. Her writing creates sacred space for honesty, lament, hope, and belonging. In this conversation, we explore her approach to storytelling, the role of language in shaping spiritual imagination, and the ways writers can cultivate redemptive, life-giving spaces for their readers.

This episode is an invitation to listen deeply and to consider how the stories we tell—and the stories we receive—can open us, heal us, and help us better understand one another.

Bio: Sharifa Stevens is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, born and raised in New York. She graduated from Columbia University in New York with a Bachelor in African American Studies before earning a master in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary.

Sharifa considers herself a conglomeration of intersections: Bronx wisdom and prep-school code-switching; smoke shop Now-and-Laters and church peppermints; hip-hop and hymns.

Sharifa aspires to use writing as a vehicle that moves readers to intersect with the sacred and the honest.

In 2025, she published her debut solo project, When We Talk to God: Prayers and Poems for Black Women, which is a collection of accessible writings that address topics from foundation matching to work ambition to abortion. Later that year, she collaborated on a book of poems and essays called Set Me Free: The Good News of God's Relentless Pursuit with Lecrae and Adam Thomasson.

In 2024, she co-authored Only Light Can Do That: 60 Days of MLK Devotions for Kids with Lisa Crayton, which in 2025 became a finalist for the Christian Book Award.
She also contributed to the books Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, & Marginalized Women of the Bible and Rally: Communal Prayers for Lovers of Jesus and Justice.

She is married to a Renaissance man, mother to two lively boys, and watched over by a loyal dobie.

Links:

Connect with Sharifa on Substack or Instagram @sharifawrites or through her website.

Sharifa’s Book Stack:

• The Trial of Mrs. Rhinelander By Denny S. Bryce

• Red Rising (Red Rising Series) By Pierce Brown

• Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community By Katie Geneva Cannon

• Atomic Habits By James Clear

• Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence By Rick Hanson

• The Brain That Changes Itself By Norman Doidge

• The Power of Habit By Charles Duhigg

• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies By Resmaa Menakem

• The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity By Nadine Burke Harris

• Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope By Johann Hari

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