Writer Enia Oaks chats with me about her collection of poetic essays, From A Studio in Oakland, California: 108 Notes on Existence.
Bio:
Enia Oaks is a Nigerian-born emergency medicine doctor and author who writes at the intersection of self-inquiry, healing, and transcendence. She has spent years in high-stakes medical environments before turning inward to begin exploring the emotional, spiritual, and existential truths that shaped her. Her creative voice crystallized while living in Oakland, California, where she began to translate lived experience into language. Her debut book, From a Studio in Oakland, California: 108 Notes on Existence, is a collection of poems and micro-essays that navigate the space between the ache and awe of being alive. Through quiet wisdom and refined clarity, her work invites readers into deeper intimacy with their own becoming.
Welcome, Enia. Please tell us about your current release.
My debut book is titled From a Studio in Oakland, California: 108 Notes on Existence. It’s a collection ofpoetic essays exploring themes of healing, self-inquiry, spiritual expansion, and the sacredness of ordinarylife. It’s the kind of book you can open to any page and find something grounding or illuminating—whetheryou’re rebuilding after loss, making sense of your inner world, or simply seeking a more soulful relationship tobeing alive.
What inspired you to write this book?
This book began as a question. Actually, many questions–about who I was, what I believed, and how much of my life had been shaped by survival rather than true alignment. At the time, I was working as a physician in an intense ER setting, and though I was functioning at a high level, I felt disconnected from my own inner life.
Writing became a way back to myself. Slowly, it turned into something more–a body of work that could offer others the very kind of resonance I had been looking for.
Excerpt from From a Studio in Oakland, California:
“We are not here to simply endure life. Yes, there is alchemy in pain and struggle, but there is also alchemy in slowness, in softness, in choosing ease where ease is available. In choosing beauty where it is offered.” – From a Studio in Oakland, California: 108 Notes on existence, p.28
What exciting project are you working on next?
I’m currently working on a summer audio project–an album of voice notes called *The Frequency Tapes*[working title]. It’s a series of ten-ish minute spoken pieces designed to uplift, affirm, and re-attune listenersto their soul frequency. Think of it as a pocket-sized dose of clarity and energy, an audio extension of what Iattempted to offer through my book. I’m also beginning the early ideation process for my next book, whichwill likely be shaped by my time living in New York.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I think I’ve always been a writer, even before I admitted it to myself. I’ve kept journals since I was achild–now up to nearly a dozen–full of wonderings, observations, and soul-level processing. But Ididn’t consider myself “a writer” until I had the courage to write something meant for other people’s eyes.
That shift required vulnerability and self-trust in equal measure.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I do not write full time, and not on a fixed schedule. I still work as an emergency medicine physician, though I’m now shaping a life where writing and creativity lead. My writing practice is seasonal–some weeks I write daily, other times I pause and gather. But writing is always happening beneath the surface. It’s how I metabolize the world. For me, to get into that space where I can access my deepest knowing and voice, the stress and cortisol from my ER shifts need to have settled. So I balance the two, planning my writing for times when I know my energy will be better rested.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I often write late at night, I’m not sure if it is a quirk. But something about the late hours when the world hasgone quiet, feels like a portal to self, deeper truths, existential musings.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be everything–a gymnast, then figure skater, then artist, then an architect. I was always asking big questions and narrating my world in my head. I now see writing as the medium that lets me be all of those things at once.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
If you’ve ever felt like your life had more to say, or like your truth is just beneath the surface waiting to be claimed–this book is for you. I hope it meets you where you are and reminds you that you’re not behind, you’re not broken, and you’re certainly not alone. You’re just becoming. And that’s a sacred and beautiful thing.