About
Once a New Yorker, always a Native New Yorker! Taya Dunn was born and raised there; however she has fallen in love with Baltimore since making it her home in 2012. In the blog world, she’s known as an “OG – Original Gangster” because she’s been blogging since 1999. Writing as MrsTDJ since 2006, “Write. Release. Breathe. Repeat.” is beyond a tag line for her blog – it’s a mantra Taya has adopted and shared with her readers. She’s a rebel who breaks blogger rule #1 – post on a regular schedule. Her readers don’t mind, as they ride the emotional waves while she navigates life as an expressive, vulnerable, humorous and audacious widowed mother of an amazing 12-year-old autistic son. Upon the sudden death of her husband, Taya made bold decisions to no longer be afraid of her dreams and has set out to redefine her purpose while caring for her son.
Taya is a writer, speaker, panelist, and workshop facilitator. She has been published in the anthology, “Listen To Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now”, online at xoJane, www.BlackAndMarriedWithKids.com, The Midlife Mixtape and contributed to articles on Buzzfeed and Everyday Parent. She is currently writing a memoir as well as a fiction novel. Her writing has gone viral with, “Please Read This Before Your Post Another RIP On Social Media”, published on Upworthy and at least 50 other places across the web. As of June 2020, the piece had been viewed 4.7 million times and shared 1.4 million times since its initial original publication date of June 9, 2016, four years after her husband’s death.
As part of her mission to empower others to tell their authentic stories, Taya has been facilitating storytelling workshops with nonprofit agencies in Maryland including the House of Ruth and HopeWorks of Howard County. Taya has been a speaker at conferences such as the 2015 Mom 2.0 Summit and the FemWorking Conference. Speaking to high school and college students at local institutions including Notre Dame of Maryland and Loyola University is important to Taya. In spring of 2015, she was selected as a “TruWoman of Courage”, a video series celebrating women who are resilient in the face of tragedy.
The Listen To Your Mother Show was a live, 90 minute staged reading show that consisted of local residents reading their personal thoughts about motherhood and all of the various emotions that go along with it. Taya was introduced to the Listen To Your Mother project when she was chosen as a cast member for the 2013 DC show. In 2014, Taya sought to bring the LTYM project to Baltimore, MD and she did. 2017 marked the 4th and final show for Baltimore where Taya served as producer and director. The 2015 show was featured on page 2 of the Baltimore Sun newspaper. Taya was asked to join the LTYM National Team as the Diversity and Inclusion Outreach Consultant in the fall of 2014, a role she served in for 3 years with her unique combination of humor, warmth, bluntness, vulnerability and honesty.
In her community, Taya serves as the Vice President on the Board for the Autism Society of Baltimore Chesapeake, the United Way of Maryland Women’s Leadership Council and in various volunteer roles across the city of Baltimore. She was featured in July 2017 in the local magazine, Baltimore’s Child as a “Mom on the Move”. Taya has turned her passion for writing and sharing her personal story into a mission to help others overcome adversity through storytelling and embracing authenticity in word and deed.
