About the Narrator

ecnarrator@gmail.com

I’m M. LaVora Perry, the founder and publisher of The East Cleveland Narrator. I’ve lived in East Cleveland since 1992. My children attended Chambers Elementary School.

I started The East Cleveland Narrator (2014-2015) print and digital newspaper after the editor of a local paper that constantly posted negative content about our city told me: “Nothing good ever happens East Cleveland.” Fed up with media coverage of East Cleveland that ignored our positive stories, I started The East Cleveland Narrator with the motto “One Community: Telling Our Own True Stories.”

I launched ecnarrator.org on May 8, 2026 to help residents share our ideas and vision for East Cleveland and beyond and to inform our neighbors about what’s happening in our community.

Voice your ideas and vision on our public comment form. Send information about community meetings, events, resources, and stories to ecnarrator@gmail.com.

Read The East Cleveland Narrator Issues in PDF.

Bio
I was born and raised in Cleveland’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood. In 1995, I became the first greeting card writer of African descent hired in American Greetings’ then 75-year history. I earned two of their Creative Excellence Awards — one for writing, the other for creating and editing the In Rhythm card line. I set my book — Taneesha Never Disparaging — in a city modeled after East Cleveland. It’s the world’s first children’s novel whose protagonist is a black Buddhist child. The Dalai Lama’s publisher, Wisdom Publications, released it. As an actor, I’ve performed in theatrical productions in Europe; and from 2017 to 2024, I appeared in several commercials shot in New York and other cities, including Miami. These include spots for American Express, Bud Light, and Navy Federal Credit Union.

I’ve been a practitioner and teacher of the Buddhism of the Lotus Sutra since 1987 and chant the sutra’s title: Namu Myoho Renge Kyo (I devote my life to the Lotus Flower Teaching of the Buddha). I publish Lotus Sutra Buddhism on Substack as posts, podcasts, and videos at lotussutrabuddhism.substack.com. Its subscribers and followers hail from every continent except Antartica. The top countries are the United States and the Netherlands. Go figure.

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