A Conversation with Nichelle M. Muñoz

At seventeen, an evangelist found me in the crowd and simply said: "You are predestined to be the Voice of Grace." For years, I carried those words while struggling to extend that same grace to myself. I loved God, and I was a gay woman trying to understand where I belonged. There were experiences I struggled to speak about and questions I could no longer ignore.

Writing No Thorns gave me a way to look honestly at that life: the Caribbean girl, the Air Force veteran, the woman who learned to keep going even when she was hurting. I wanted to make room for the parts of my story I had been afraid to share.

I also wanted to reach the person who quietly wonders whether being fully known would cost them love. I know that fear. My hope is that someone reading these pages feels less alone—and a little freer to tell their own truth.

A field of thorns is an image from a deeply personal spiritual experience in my life, and it sits at the heart of this memoir. It gave me a way to explore questions I had carried for years: What do we come to believe about suffering? About love? About what God requires of us?

Those questions became inseparable from my experience as a Black gay woman whose faith mattered deeply to her. Through the people, places, and moments that shaped me, No Thorns follows my search for a way to live honestly without abandoning that faith.

The title holds a personal meaning that unfolds through the story. I want readers to encounter it there, alongside me.

They might be surprised by how much faith remains. I am a gay woman writing honestly about experiences that complicated my relationship with religion, but my love for God is still part of the story. So are questions I could not simply pray away.

There is also humor, Caribbean family life, childhood mischief, and the stubborn little girl who was convinced she could do just about anything. I wanted readers to meet her, too—to know the person beyond the painful experiences.

You do not have to share my beliefs or my identity to find a way into this book. If you have ever wanted to belong and wondered how much of yourself you would have to hide to do it, we already have something to talk about.

Honest. Searching. Grace-filled.

Allowing myself to be seen. There is a difference between knowing your story and letting other people read it, especially when you have spent years wondering what the truth might cost you.

Some experiences were painful to revisit. Others made me think about the people who would recognize themselves in these pages. I had to find a way to tell my experience honestly while remembering that the people in it are human, too.

Then there was the fear of being misunderstood. I could write carefully and speak sincerely, but I could not decide how everyone would receive it. Finishing the book meant accepting that uncertainty and allowing my voice to be heard anyway.

The childhood slide scene stands out. I was a little girl looking at a tall metal slide with a brick wall much too close to the bottom, utterly convinced: “I can do that.”

It ended with a trip to the hospital and my unforgettable announcement: “MY HEAD IS BROKEN!” My father called me fearless.

What I love about that memory is the little girl in it. Her confidence was considerably greater than her understanding of physics. Readers meet me through some difficult experiences in this book, and I love that they also get to meet that child—bold, curious, and ready to launch herself into the world.

I hope readers leave with more compassion for themselves and a little more curiosity about other people. We rarely know everything someone has carried, even when we think we know them well.

Faith, identity, belonging, and grace run through No Thorns. What happens when the person you are does not fit the expectations you inherited? Can you ask difficult questions and still believe? Can you love people and acknowledge that something hurt?

I do not expect every reader to arrive at my answers. I hope my willingness to ask those questions gives them room to consider their own. And if someone has been hiding a part of themselves because they fear losing love, I hope they finish this book feeling less alone.

Nichelle M. Muñoz is an Air Force veteran, retired federal leader, and the author of No Thorns: A Memoir. Born in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, she brings her Caribbean roots and a lifetime of searching to her writing about faith, identity, and belonging.

As a black gay woman and a lifelong woman of faith, she explores the deeply personal questions that arise when lived experience challenges inherited expectations. In No Thorns, she shares moments of humor, heartbreak, and grace, inviting readers to consider what it means to live honestly and make room for their own questions.