“Room for Ghosts” is an unpublished creative nonfiction collection by Damieka Thomas. This collection explores the complex intersections of grief, mixed-race identity, Indigeneity, and coming of age. Place features as a main character in this collection. These essays traverse from the trailer parks of Olivehurst, CA to the sleepy (or maybe not so sleepy) Northern California town of Fort Bragg, then travel across the country to Watertown, NY and settle in the not-midwest but not-South Elizabethtown, KY, all to just return back to Northern California.

In this collection of essays, the needles found on cracked NorCal streets are just as much a main character as the ocean and redwoods, serving as the unsettling but always true backdrop of a young woman’s becoming (and unbecoming and becoming again.)