To Be A Writer…

A Profile on Rose Monet Little

Author of “A Mother in Need,” “The Experience,” and “Sex Ed is NOT Reproductive Health”

Malcolm Gladwell, famed journalist and writer once said, “we don't know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don't always appreciate their fragility.” The fragility of these first impressions, the notion that they are breakable at any given moment, is perhaps their most important attribute. But, if there is one thing we can always agree on, it’s that first impressions often get distorted or disregarded entirely. 

As a reader of the 11 Seconds Magazine, you get to meet all of our writers in the most special of ways – through the words they pen and the stories they tell. This also becomes your first impression of them. Can words have the same permanence in our minds? Or are they just as vulnerable to the fragility of the first impression? 

Rose Monet Little, is a 20-something writer, from the Central Valley of California, who now spends her days exploring the streets of Manhattan, assisting nonprofits on their scalability and assessments, and exploring a career that bridges clinical medicine and public health. Little is currently a Masters of Public Health (MPH) student at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, which is my own alma mater, so it is a logical place for our paths to cross. Though this was our first conversation, as face to face as one can get over Zoom, I arguably already knew things about Little, through her published work with 11 Seconds Magazine. 

When submissions began rolling in for the debut issue of the magazine in March 2023,  it was then that I first got to meet Little, through her two poems, “A Mother in Need” and “The Experience.” Both written to highlight the reality of a woman’s encounter with menstrual, reproductive, and sexual health, Little wanted to prioritize the interpersonal dynamic that is central in medicine, healing, and caregiving. The notion that sexual education’s narrow curriculum often leaves people in the lurch, when it comes to knowledge, access, or resources, inspired Little, too, as she carefully and poignantly writes about her own mother’s experience interfacing with the healthcare system. What happens when you don’t know what to do? 

I asked her what drew her to women’s health, if this was an interest that had been fostered over decades or days, and she admitted that since the field is so broad and all-encompassing, it was the education component that really interested her. 

“In education, in making sure that women are aware of different health resources, whether that has to do with maternal, menstrual, body dysmorphia, there are just so many different areas. I am amazed at how much that goes into women’s health that is often not highlighted,” shared Little.

But Little was especially candid when she shared that her first real foray into women’s health started with her own body, experiencing menstruation, hormones, and her body changing in high school and early college. She felt like there was still so much that she didn’t know about her own body, despite the fact that she should’ve. 

“I found myself not only explaining things to my mom, but my grandmother, my friends. This is why health literacy is so important in women’s health.”

This past summer, Little worked with Sisterweb, a community-based organization focused on serving Black, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and Latina/o/x pregnant and birthing people through doula-centered care in San Francisco, CA. 

“I do see myself working with Black and Brown communities. Those are the communities I was born into. I love the communities that I come from. I’m inspired to do this work because there is such a type of stigmatization in Black and Brown communities when it comes to women’s health, with what women should and should not endure.” 

Much like Little has drawn her purpose from her own background, her own experience in community, likewise, her journey to writing shared notes of the same sentiment. She laughs bashfully when she admits, “everyone in my family is a writer, and I always thought that maybe it wasn’t for me.”

Even though many people often share that sentiment – the idea that they are not a “real” writer – up to 81% of Americans genuinely aspire to write a book. Writing, storytelling, it is all a lot more central to the human experience than we think it is. Humans are, after all, confessional creatures. 

Little’s two poems, featured in First Things First, draw a lot on her own experiences, which have clearly been the impetus for not only her interest in women’s health, but her desire to advocate for it. A health advocate through and through, it was no surprise to me, as an editor with at least a slight penchant for forecasting material, that Little’s submission for Issue Two, Violent Delights, Violent Ends, took a journalistic turn.   

“Nobody knew I was a writer. Which, I guess, means I am claiming that I am a writer. I am stepping into it now and claiming it because it is so beautiful. Even though I want to represent a specific group, like women's health, or women of color, I want my writing to exist so that multiple people can connect to it. And so I kind of like the broadness of writing. I want someone to read it and be like, okay, I can understand this and relate to this to a certain point in my life.”

For her piece, “Sex Ed is NOT Reproductive Health,” though it was an opinion-editorial, Little’s style of drawing from her own personal experiences still shone through. In fact, it was her own experiences in high school, questioning whether sexual education, as it was being taught, was really even aimed at someone like her, that caused her to revisit it. In doing so, she leverages one key critique – the education system, as it exists now, does not necessarily provide someone accurate and crucial reproductive health material. Nowhere in the curriculum are things like mental and emotional health, changes in the body, or hormone fluctuation explained or explored. 

But even through all of this, through her tangible passion, her truthful remarks on how the system misses the mark, and her friends, colleagues, and family questioning her motivation for it all, it was never once frustration. I asked her, pretty point blank if we’re being honest, how she moves forward in a field like women’s health that is fraught with angry politics, frustration, and fatigue. 

Little was clear here like she was with everything else.

“It was never about the frustration. It’s more about a determination of…I'm gonna write this and I want to highlight this. And I really want people to know and understand why our healthcare healthcare system is the way it is today. Why does it impact the majority of Black and Brown communities? Why is it really so discriminatory against women? With it comes a realization that it wasn't built for that, it wasn't built for us, it was built for somebody else.”

You can find Little’s pieces, “A Mother in Need” and “The Experience” in Issue One and “Sex Ed is NOT Reproductive Health” in Issue Two. You can also connect with Little on Instagram @irosemonet.