From a Studio in Oakland, California: 108 Notes on Existence
In a literary landscape saturated with noise, From a Studio in Oakland, California: 108 Notes on Existence arrives as a quiet, confident offering — part meditation, part memoir, part mirror. Written by Enia Oaks, a Nigerian-born emergency medicine doctor and author who found permission for her creative voice while living in Oakland, California, the book is a soul-led reflection on what it means to be human in the midst of becoming.
From a Studio in Oakland, California: 108 Notes on Existence is a hybrid collection of poems and micro-essays that explore the beauty, burden, and becoming of a life fully felt. Through themes like healing, grief, sensuality, purpose, and personal expansion, author Enia Oaks invites readers to reflect on the unseen architecture of their own humanity. Written during a season of personal reckoning and return, it offers both precision and softness. The book is structured as 108 soulful pieces—part poetic observation and reflection, part self-help and mirror—offering comfort, clarity, and quiet revelation. This is a book of shared wisdom, supportive permission, and soul level reminders to the readers: of their wholeness, their capacity, and their right to take up space in this world. It is for anyone standing in the middle of their own becoming. More than anything, it was meant as a love letter to whomever may read through the pages.
“This project isn’t just about writing,” says Oaks. “It’s about transmission. I wanted to create something that might make someone feel less alone in the world, or more in touch with their own quiet knowing.
Oaks’ approach combines the vulnerability of poetry with the narrative intention of cultural commentary. It is a work grounded in spiritual clarity and creative sovereignty.
About the Author:
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.
The decision to write this book is rooted in Oak’s own decisions about the ways she wants to impact the world. Her entry point to writing it was burnout and near-complete disillusionment when she found herself in the center of a medical system that had long stopped honoring the human soul. And something inside of her broke when she realized how casually we’d stopped treating life as sacred. That violation felt like a kind of sacrament. It woke her up.
So, she began writing. First, as a reminder to self. Then slowly, with reverence for her interconnected position — as a sister, a daughter, a friend, a doctor, a thinker. Someone who had walked through painful soul expansions that others might just now be entering. She does not want instruct, but rather provoke thought and deeper exploration of self. She wanted to offer something honest. Something that could be picked up when it was needed, like a note passed at exactly the right moment.
Readers can connect with Enia Oaks on Instagram.
To learn more, visit EniaOaks.com