Gabrielle David

I grew up in Corona-East Elmhurst, Queens, New York. I was a Girl Scout and a member of the NAACP Youth Group. I attended Intellectually Gifted Classes (IGC) in elementary school and went to day camp and sleepaway camp up until I was sixteen years old, spent a couple of summers as a camp counselor, and briefly served as a Girl Scout Troop Leader. I discovered a love for poetry in fourth grade, started writing my poems and stories in a black and white composition book my mother gave me, and launched a class newspaper using the rexograph machine. I began playing the song flute in second grade and started private piano lessons by third grade. I attended the music program at Andrew Jackson High School in Cambria Heights, where I learned to play the alto clarinet, flute, and guitar. While there, I was briefly a member of the swimming, volleyball, and basketball teams, and created a school newsmagazine called The Liberator, produced using the mimeograph machine. I also studied ballet, modern, African, and jazz dance, and by my teenage years, I had joined a local dance company at BCL in Corona. I became interested in politics early on when a family member won a seat as district leader in my neighborhood. I helped with her campaigns for the NY Assembly, and she went on to serve on the NYC Council and as Queens Borough President. When I was sixteen, I was hired as the youngest page at CBS, assigned to work on several shows at the Ed Sullivan Theater and CBS Broadcast Center, where I met Captain Kangaroo and Walter Cronkite, who were the network’s two biggest stars at the time. I played keyboard in local bands and later managed a few of them. I was among the first students accepted into NYC’s high school internship program and worked at Essence magazine for five months, gaining experience in publicity, and later did PR work for local NYC bands.

During my time at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY), where I studied literature and journalism, I also enrolled in photography courses and wrote for the campus newspaper. Additionally, I performed piano in a concert featuring the compositions of the acclaimed composer Carman Moore, who led the orchestra for this special event. I established Hotshots Unlimited Photography, specializing in portrait, fashion, and event photography, working for clients like  Showtime at the Apollo Theater and WBLS FM. I held a successful photography exhibition at the Langston Hughes Community Library & Cultural Center in Corona, and was later hired to produce literary programming there. I bought my first computer in 1988, freelanced as a Word Processing specialist at Fortune 500 law and financial firms, and was introduced to desktop publishing by an award-winning art director at ITT, which led me to freelance as a designer. He also helped me develop the design and layout for phati’tude Literary Magazine using a revolutionary publishing software, Aldus PageMaker (which later became Adobe InDesign). I attended The New School pursuing a Master’s degree in Media Communications. Still, I ended up shifting my focus to create phatLiterature, A Literary TV Program at the Langston Hughes Library. Since that time, my main focus has been on writing and publishing, leading me to establish 2Leaf Press in 2012.

After taking a short break to handle some personal matters, I have been collaborating closely with board members to transform 2Leaf Press Inc. (2LP Inc.) into a top-tier, nonprofit publishing and multimedia organization that is independently operated and led by Black and Brown women. Our goal is to widen our reach by expanding our publishing efforts to include podcasts, films, videos, apps, and audiobooks that will captivate and engage our audience. I am also working on completing the TRAILBLAZERS book series and hope to see it adapted into a docuseries by 2026. Lastly, I am excited about discovering new books that will surprise and inspire us all. 

You can learn more about my origin story at 2Leaf Press Inc. and phati’tude Literary Magazine.  Cheers.