Hi! My name is Selam. I’m a 24-year-old writer and sewist from Portland, Oregon.

I learned how to knit, crochet, and sew early in my childhood and began sewing my own clothes (like the skirt seen here) at the age of ten, using second-hand fabrics from my local Goodwill. At twelve years old, I spent a summer in Ethiopia with my uncles learning how to use the antique Singer sewing machines at our family’s tailoring business. Since then, I have been making and altering clothes for myself, my friends, and my family, ranging from prom dresses and graduation suits to t-shirts and jeans. Designing new clothes, repairing well-worn ones, and applying problem-solving skills to create garments that make the wearer feel beautiful is when I feel the most bold, decisive, and confident.

In 2019, I began an apprenticeship in the costume department of the Jefferson Dancers, a local dance company in Portland. Working under Teresa Perrin, I gained experience sewing performance and athletic wear, as well as providing costume fittings, ordering fabrics, organizing a sewing studio, managing a large archive, and caring for garments used regularly on tours. Although my apprenticeship was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, I credit my experience with strengthening my technical skills and deepening my appreciation for all of the steps of the sewing process, from sourcing materials to final alterations. It was in this spirit that I launched this blog in 2020 with the goal of helping others learn how to sew their own clothes.

In 2020, I left Portland to begin my studies at Howard University. In 2024, I earned my Bachelor’s of Arts in English with a minor in African Studies. I have worked as a freelance copywriter for Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, participated in the inaugural Zora Neale Hurston Advanced Writers’ Workshop, and received the U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship for my studies of the Amharic language and literature. My fiction explores the experiences of Ethiopian-Americans in the Pacific Northwest and has appeared in Sterling Notes and So to Speak. I am currently studying my Master’s of Arts in African Languages & Cultures at the University of Hamburg. You can find me online at sincerelyselamm.com