▶ Mercy Quaye debuts her weekly column with her take on the New Haven shooting.

A new weekly column by Mercy Quaye debuts statewide this week in Hearst Connecticut Media newspapers.

“Subtext” will offer readers a lesser-examined perspective on topics affecting local communities and Connecticut, including the racial, socio-economic and generational roots and ripple effects of any given issue.

Quaye, a former New Haven Register reporter who has been a regular guest on Connecticut Public Radio’s WNPR, is a selfproclaimed “inner-city kid who went to college.”

Her perspective on life has been shaped through a number of experiences including: converting from Christianity to Islam to agnosticism; joining a historically black sorority at a predominantly white university; section hiking the Appalachian Trail and having a brief stint in the outdoor industry; having an oddly in-depth interest in astrophysics; and being in an interracial marriage with a former Wyomingite from a conservative family.

Quaye’s column will appear on Mondays in the New Haven Register, Connecticut Post, Stamford Advocate, Greenwich Time, The Norwalk Hour, Danbury NewsTimes, Middletown Press and Torrington Register Citizen.

She joins a lineup of statewide Hearst Connecticut columnists that includes Colin McEnroe on Sunday, Dan Haar on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, James Walker on Wednesday and Sunday, and Jacqueline Smith on Friday.

Quaye holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in public relations from Quinnipiac University.

After leaving a formal career in journalism, Mercy began working in mission-driven communications for public and nonprofit organizations focusing on equitable education, undocumented students’ rights and more. She has also spent time working in public relations as the managing director of external affairs with Educators for Excellence, the director of communications with New Haven Public Schools, and as a communications associate with the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now.

The daughter of a Ghanaian immigrant on one side and a first-generation college student on the other, Mercy’s relationship to justice through storytelling and exposure was born shortly after moving from low-income housing in Newhallville to the West River neighborhood — a Westville adjacent community with the promise of opportunity, but far fewer resources than it required. She strives to “effect positive social change through collaboration and highlighting lesser-discussed aspects of the black and American experiences.”