Making your dreams come true, at Your College

Leatra Goins-Ahmad

By Rebecca Bell
Dean of Community Relations & Special Events

“I wanted to be a writer since I was in high school; however, it wasn’t until I got to Midland College that I was able to see this dream come to fruition,” states Leatra Goins-Ahmad. “I love Midland and Midland College. I’m so glad that I came here. Midland has really opened a lot of doors for me.”

Thirty-one-year-old Goins-Ahmad, who is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, moved to Midland approximately four years ago when her boyfriend, Andrew Hernandez, was offered a job as a truck driver in the oil industry. Goins-Ahmad says that after graduating from McCluer Senior High School in St. Louis, she attended a couple of community colleges in the St. Louis area, but she explains that those schools didn’t give her the passion to succeed like Midland College does. After high school, she also worked for a manufacturing company in the St. Louis area, but always had the desire to write.

“One of the classes I took at Midland College was creative writing with Dr. Glenda Lindsey-Hicks,” says Goins-Ahmad. “Dr. Lindsey-Hicks is a wonderful instructor, and she critiqued the poems I wrote in a way that taught me how to improve as a writer. She also helped me to learn how to edit my work.”

In fact, the creative writing class at Midland College helped Goins-Ahmad to enhance her writing so much, that this past fall she was able to publish her first book entitled Flirt which is a collection of poems and a short story. Most of the poems in the book describe romantic and family relationships from an urban perspective. The book’s short story “Addicted” is also an urban tale of drug addiction and its impact on several lives. Goins-Ahmad self-published the book and has had several book signings both in Midland and Odessa. It is available at Hastings, Barnes & Noble and online at Amazon.com

“I enjoy writing urban fiction about people of color,” says Goins-Ahmad. “The books I read by other authors fall along those same lines. The subject matter for most of my poems and stories will come from ideas that I get while reading or watching television and movies.”

The oldest of 12 children, Goins-Ahmad says that it is important for her to be a role model to her younger siblings. She is a first-generation-to-college student and says that she is proud to have led the way into higher education for her family. She is also proud of the fact that her family has a tradition of U. S. military service and public service. Two of her siblings are currently serving in the military, and a younger brother is getting ready to attend college and major in criminal justice.

Goins-Ahmad is now taking classes online from Grand Canyon University where she hopes to earn a baccalaureate degree in English. She is employed as a floor director and editor for KMID TV and is working on her next collection of poems and short stories. Her ultimate ambition is to get a doctorate degree and publish a novel.

She says, “It’s important to have a goal and work toward it. Don’t let people stop you. Stick with it, and your dreams really will come true.”