About Shay Stewart-Bouley
Shay Stewart-Bouley is the creator of Black Girl in Maine, also known as BGIM for those who want to keep their typing-related finger stress down. She is a Chicago-born, Chicago-raised chick who was forcibly relocated to Maine in 2002. (How else does a Black woman from Chicago end up in Maine?) Shay is a graduate of both DePaul University and Antioch University New England. Currently Shay Stewart-Bouley earns her daily bread by working as the Executive Director of
Community Change Inc, a 47 year old civil rights organization in Boston, MA that has been educating and organizing for racial equality since 1968.
In 2003, Shay Stewart-Bouley decided to test the waters of a childhood dream of writing and started writing periodically for publications such as the
Portland Press Herald and the
Journal Tribune. Later that year she landed her own column in the
Portland Phoenix, “
Diverse-City.” For over a decade Shay shared insights and commentary monthly on a variety of diversity issues ranging from race to class, gender relations to sexual orientation, and workplace issues to lifestyle choices. In 2011, Shay Stewart-Bouley won a New England Press Association Award for her work writing on diversity issues. She is currently the diversity writer for the new Maine weekly
DigPortland where her musings and observations can be found every four weeks.
