In this bonus episode of Black & Published, Nikesha is sharing her story about becoming a writer and finding her way in the publishing industry. From exploring and utilizing both traditional and independent avenues, Nikesha discusses when she knew she was a writer, the 7-year-long journey of publishing her debut novel, Four Women, founding her company, NEW Reads Publications, and how she has kept going despite lots of rejection to publish four more novels, a poetry collection, and four other authors in addition to doing all the things in life, love, career, and the pursuit of dreams.
[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_01]: What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black & Published on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network.
[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds.
[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm excited to share with you five of my favorite episodes from the last four seasons.
[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_01]: This week's Rewind is from Season 1 with me!
[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So, this was the bonus episode that capped off the end of Season 1 where I told my own Black & Published story up until that point in my life, which was sometime around May 2021 when I actually recorded the story.
[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So, what I wanted to share in this episode is the same thing that I want to share in this podcast overall when I interview other authors and that is the journey.
[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_01]: No one's journey looks the same and no one is an overnight success, even when it seems or sounds like they are.
[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Writing takes time. It can be lonely. You can have a million different things going on in life at once while you try to make time to write.
[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And still, there are no guarantees. But validation or acceptance should not determine the compulsion to write.
[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Even though it sometimes does, but you know we won't dwell.
[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to get off my soapbox and let you listen to the episode and I'll holler at you on the back end.
[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So, here's Writing Past Rejection featuring me, Nikesha Elise Williams.
[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I first knew I was a writer, probably as a child.
[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: My mother has all of my writings from elementary school, kindergarten.
[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think the memory that sticks out in my mind the most, I was in like second or third grade, probably third.
[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote something and I hadn't really gotten the grasp of, you know, finding other words to emphasize things.
[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I would write a lot of varies in my sentences to get my point across that this, whatever I was talking about, needed to be emphasized.
[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And my teacher liked the essay or story I wrote and gave it to the principal.
[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And they hung it up outside of the principal's office as like something a good student did.
[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, that was one of the first times I saw that my writing was praised.
[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And it just kind of went on from there.
[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I knew no matter what I did, cheerleading, dancing, all that stuff, I always wanted to combine writing.
[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So, by the time I got into high school and they started asking you the questions, you know,
[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: what are you going to do with your future?
[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you want to do with your life?
[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you want to, you know, make money?
[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to combine my two loves of dancing and writing.
[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, you know, I want to write and choreograph musicals.
[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_01]: That was the goal.
[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's still kind of my goal.
[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I would still love to really do that.
[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_01]: How? I have no idea.
[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But I would still like to get to that point.
[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I went to college and I didn't get into any of the dance programs I really wanted to go to.
[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And some of the ones that I did get into, I didn't go to.
[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Just, I don't know.
[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Decisions that I have to question later in life.
[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But I ended up going to Florida State University in Tallahassee
[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: because one of my dance teachers knew another lady who worked in the dance department at FSU.
[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I ended up going to audition.
[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Even though I didn't get into the program, I still really loved the campus.
[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, that's where I went.
[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: That's where I was going.
[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up doing a double major in English creative writing, similar to Dante Almoniz, who we had recently on the show.
[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But I also majored in communications mass media studies, which gave me that good journalism background.
[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And after four years, I graduated with a degree in journalism, knowing how to produce and broadcast and do all of that stuff.
[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And this, like, novella that I had finished in my undergraduate creative writing program, because I was in the honors program.
[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And to graduate with honors, you had to write a thesis.
[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_01]: That thesis was called From Pillar to Post.
[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was the formulation of what has become my fifth novel, Beyond Bourbon Street, which was released in 2020.
[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: But we'll get there.
[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But, yeah, I graduated.
[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I had this degree and this license to work.
[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I applied to grad schools for MFA programs.
[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Didn't get in.
[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I think you're seeing a theme here.
[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of rejection going on in this story.
[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I was just trying to do everything that I could.
[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But if the MFA thing wasn't going to work, if grad school wasn't going to work, then I need to go find me a job.
[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had interned in London one summer at NBC.
[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I had that nice little internship on my resume.
[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had another internship out of Tallahassee with, it was like an independent news bureau that did all of the capital news.
[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had a nice little resume tape.
[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, and nice looking transcripts.
[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I ended up getting my first job in Amarillo, Texas.
[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: A market like 131 out of 207.
[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Basically the place that you go to make mistakes.
[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, it was there that I began my journalism career and my news producing career.
[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, I was still writing.
[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I had all these poems from high school and undergrad that I would write.
[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And then, I also had this idea after the election of our first Black president in 2008.
[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_01]: That, you know, working in news kind of opens your eyes to the world.
[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I was young.
[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I was bright-eyed.
[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I was single.
[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know half the things I was covering.
[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, you know, who better to have this conversation with than the president?
[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_01]: The first Black president.
[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, a year after his election in 2008, November 2009, I began this project of writing letters to the president.
[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote a letter to the president every day from 2009 to 2010 for an entire year.
[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And that kind of, you know, kept my writing top sharp.
[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote about whatever I wanted to.
[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Just things that were on my mind as a young Black woman who was culturally and politically engaged,
[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: even in just this small podunk town in Texas.
[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And after that, between the time I started writing the letters and the time I finished writing the letters,
[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I had met my now husband.
[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_01]: We were dating.
[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: He was from Florida.
[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So, we ended up coming back to Florida.
[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_01]: He was in Jacksonville.
[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I got a job five hours away in Fort Myers.
[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I continued the letters.
[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Once the letters were done, I launched a blog called Change Comes Slow.
[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: This is about 2010.
[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I launched a blog and I would do the same thing that I did in my letters.
[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But instead of now just writing to the president, I would write to whatever audience found me.
[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't really publicize it.
[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't tell a lot of people about it.
[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I just started writing this blog and it just popped up on Facebook with things that I had written.
[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And people would read it.
[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And I did that for about two years.
[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Moved again from Fort Myers, finally to Jacksonville to be with my now fiance.
[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Got a job at the NBC-ABC affiliate in Jacksonville.
[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And I continued writing on my blog and working all the different shows that I was supposed to work and all of that until about 2012 when it was election season again.
[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was asked to produce the election coverage for the station, which was no small task.
[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_01]: One, it's Florida.
[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So, Florida is a swing state.
[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So, it's always big.
[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, Jacksonville is an area where it's more Republican, but the demographics are slowly beginning to change over time.
[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I produced the coverage.
[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And after the November election, the re-election of Obama, I was just like, I'm tired.
[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to continue producing news and then coming home to write news on the side because that's when all the, you know, when blogging was popular and everybody had the hot takes and the fresh perspectives.
[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I cover this all day long at work.
[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to come home and do more work.
[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I stopped the blog.
[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, I'm skipping a part of the story.
[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: In 2010-ish, when I was in Fort Myers anyway, I was bored one day in my apartment.
[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote this short story called Ceiling Fan.
[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And it came out of nowhere.
[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I was totally bored.
[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to do anything.
[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't leaving the apartment for whatever reason.
[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just chilling in the house.
[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had this idea for a story.
[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I started writing a story that I called Ceiling Fan.
[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And when I finished it, I sent it to my best friend.
[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, hey, I wrote this.
[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Let me know what you think.
[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, I don't know where your head is, but I want to see where it goes.
[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So, just keep that in your back pocket.
[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So, when I finally decided I didn't want to do the blog anymore, I saw this contest online for screenwriters or submitted treatment.
[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it was for Bill Cosby or Will Smith.
[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And I know that's a horrible confusion to make in light of recent events over the last few years.
[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But it was for one of them.
[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: They were doing something where they were letting people send in a treatment or a pilot for a show.
[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, they would get feedback.
[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_01]: It was probably for a workshop or a fellowship.
[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I sent it to my brother because he works in the film industry.
[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, hey, you should do this.
[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And my brother was like, well, you should do it with me.
[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay, whatever, fine.
[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I came up with this idea for a show called Dawn in the Evening because Dawn was the character's name and she did her show at night.
[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just thought it was like a cute little play on words or whatever.
[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I had the whole idea, never wrote it down, and didn't submit for the contest, didn't really do anything with it.
[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I had this idea for Dawn in the Evening.
[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I had this idea in the short story called Ceiling Fan.
[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just let them be dormant in my mind.
[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I continued on with my life, with producing.
[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I stopped blogging.
[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I shut everything down.
[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the producing at that one station in Jacksonville took a turn where I just didn't want to be there anymore.
[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: My contract was coming up.
[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to renew.
[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I was passed over for a promotion.
[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just like, yeah, you know what?
[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.
[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I kid you not.
[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I submitted my resignation on a Thursday.
[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And then, I think, the next week on a Tuesday, the special projects manager and the web internet team manager,
[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_01]: they came in early, early in the morning.
[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, right when the morning show was ending, which is the shift that I worked.
[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, hey, can we talk to you?
[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, yeah, sure.
[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, yeah, well, we're not going to let you finish out your contract.
[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just started laughing because I was like, I've already submitted my resignation.
[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to pay out the rest of my contract anyway.
[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's funny that the news director isn't here to do this herself.
[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I was like, okay, well, here's my badge.
[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's my headset.
[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Here are my things.
[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to grab my coat and my purse.
[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm out.
[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I left.
[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I went to breakfast with a co-worker.
[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when I went home, I sent them an email saying, hey, I know you don't, I'm not finishing my contract, but you're still obligated to pay out my contract.
[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Here are the dates that are left.
[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Here are the vacation dates that I've accrued that are owed to me.
[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I had all of my paperwork and my documentation.
[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I attached it to the email.
[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I said that if they didn't, then they would be in breach of contract and they'd be hearing from my attorney.
[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even have an attorney.
[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I was just saying all the stuff that you're supposed to say.
[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And I sent the email off and they were like, yes, we'll get this taken care of.
[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: No problem.
[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, bet.
[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I was already looking for another job.
[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So it didn't really matter.
[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But in that time that I left the one station and before I got the job at my next station and my very last station before leaving the industry, I saw this contest called Critique My Novel.
[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was send us your, the first 10,000 words of your manuscript and we'll give you professional feedback on your book.
[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I don't have no job.
[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't had any interviews yet.
[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I can write 10,000 words of a book and send it in by this deadline.
[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I did.
[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And that short story that I had written in 2010, Ceiling Fan, I dug that up.
[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the idea that I had for another character, Dawn Anthony from Dawn in the Evening.
[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I never forgot that character or her storyline and dug that up out of my mind, out of the recesses of my mind.
[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And I started on a blank Word document working on my laptop, what eventually would become my debut novel for women.
[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that is how I got to my first book.
[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Just always writing on the side and always having ideas.
[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_01]: But it wasn't until I was between jobs that I really committed my ideas to paper and began to write them out.
[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was working on it.
[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I got an interview at my soon-to-be-last station, the Action News Jacksonville, Florida, which is a CBS Fox affiliate.
[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember being in my interview, and the news director at the time asked me, and I guess it was supposed to be like some cute question or whatever.
[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But he was like, what do you want to do when you grow up?
[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I want to write books.
[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't hesitate.
[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't flushed or nervous about answering, not to say that, oh, I want to be an executive producer and I want to be a news director and I want to stay in news forever.
[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, no, I want to write books.
[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was very, very honest about it.
[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that was the first time I really acknowledged that, okay, yeah, this is something that I want to do for a living.
[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be beholden to anyone else for the rest of my life.
[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had an inkling of that in college because I always liked the semesters when I didn't have to take tests for finals.
[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I just had to like write final papers.
[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_01]: One, because I got out a week earlier.
[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have to stay for finals week.
[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But two, I was just better at it.
[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I was never a good test taker, even from the time that I was a child.
[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're asking me to write a paper, oh, bet, automatic A.
[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I got this.
[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I got you.
[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So I knew from then that, you know, I wanted to have a kind of life where I wake up in the morning, I go in my office and I write.
[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And so then that coming full circle in that interview was where he asked, what do you want to be when you grow up?
[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's saying, I want to write books.
[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had already started working on my first book.
[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_01]: It just, it was, I guess what Oprah would call an aha moment, even though I was on this interview for this new job at this new place.
[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up getting it.
[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And that entire time that I worked at the station, I also worked on my first book.
[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think when I was working there, I first worked, worked like the noon show.
[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So I had a pretty normal schedule, worked like 5 a.m. to 2 p.m.
[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But then I started working mornings and working a morning show means that you're there at 1 a.m.
[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And you're off by like 9, 10 in the morning.
[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_01]: But even in doing all that, I would still be working on for women.
[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And I worked on it and I worked on it and I worked on it and I worked on it.
[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And a year later, March of 2014, I'm sitting in my dining room.
[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, my husband and I are now, we're officially married.
[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_01]: We have our new house.
[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sitting in my dining room on a Sunday.
[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I'm typing.
[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm on like chapter 31.
[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm typing.
[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I go to save.
[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't save.
[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I get the spinning wheel of death.
[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So I do a hard shutdown on the computer.
[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Reboot it.
[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Open the document back up.
[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01]: See that I've lost that page and a half that I was typing.
[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But you know, no biggie.
[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I can rewrite that page and a half.
[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I rewrite that page and a half.
[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I go to save.
[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't save.
[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Spitting wheel of death.
[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Hard shutdown.
[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I reboot the computer.
[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I go to open my flash drive where the document was saved.
[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And nothing.
[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_01]: There was absolutely nothing.
[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It didn't open.
[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_01]: There weren't any files in it.
[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Flash drive died.
[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I freaked out.
[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I just gathered all of my things.
[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_01]: The computer, the flash drive.
[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Drove to Best Buy.
[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Waited in line at Geek Squad.
[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I don't care how much it costs.
[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I just need you to find my file and get it back.
[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, ma'am, what file?
[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_01]: What happened?
[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm explaining the story of how the flash drive died.
[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_01]: How I was writing on this book.
[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And now nothing is there.
[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were basically like, we don't do that.
[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_01]: We can't help you.
[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And there was a white man in line, either in front of me or behind me.
[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And he said, first of all, you should never tell anybody that you don't care how much something costs.
[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Because they will take advantage of you.
[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't normally do this, but I run a computer repair shop.
[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I can help you if you just follow me.
[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay, let's go.
[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know this white man from Adam.
[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_01]: He could have been any number of bad and dangerous things.
[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But I trusted him.
[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I was desperate.
[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Very, very, very, very desperate.
[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_01]: There are those verys again.
[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And I got in my car.
[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I followed him out of the parking lot of Best Buy.
[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Followed him to his shop, which was, if you're familiar with the Jacksonville area,
[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_01]: was on Beach Boulevard somewhere.
[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Like between two old, like used car dealers.
[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And he opened up his shop.
[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: He had like a little dog inside.
[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And he got my computer and my flash drive.
[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And he started trying to do the data recovery process on it.
[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_01]: He found every file on that flash drive, except my manuscript for four women.
[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, okay, I can't find it.
[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But I know some data recovery folks up in Seattle.
[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to send your flash drive to them.
[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_01]: See if they can find it.
[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And they'll send it back to you.
[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And he didn't charge me for any of this.
[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I didn't pay him anything.
[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And while I was there, he's like, and I'm also going to set you up a Dropbox account
[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_01]: so that you can always save your stuff, have a backup.
[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, he set up the Dropbox account, sent off the flash drive to data recovery specialist
[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_01]: in Seattle.
[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And I went home and I waited.
[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And I waited.
[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And I waited.
[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I waited.
[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, around May, the data recovery people, maybe it was late April, they get back
[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_01]: to me and say, yeah, we found all of these files.
[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, did you find anything called four women?
[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, no, we didn't find that file.
[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_01]: They found everything I had ever written in college, every letter to the president, every
[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_01]: poem that I had tried to coalesce into a manuscript years before, but never did anything
[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_01]: with.
[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_01]: They found all of that.
[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Four women?
[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Gone.
[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It was as if it never existed.
[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So I had to wrap my mind around the fact that what I had been working on for a year was
[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_01]: gone.
[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And honestly, what I had been conceiving of over the course of several years, because I
[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_01]: had that short story I started in 2010 that became the basis of four women, was just gone.
[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was never going to get it back.
[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And as I was wrapping my mind around this concept and this idea and this thought and, you know,
[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_01]: really preparing, asking myself, are you going to do it again?
[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to dedicate the time to write it again?
[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And my husband said to me, because he's not one for a pity party.
[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the Marine in him.
[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01]: He said to me, hey, either you're going to rewrite it or you're not.
[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what you want me to say to you.
[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't cry for you.
[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_01]: You're either going to do it again or you're not.
[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And even though I was really upset and kind of pissed with him for saying that to me,
[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I knew he had a point.
[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: If I wanted to be a writer and wanted to write books for a living, I was either going to rewrite
[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_01]: the book because it wasn't like I didn't know the story.
[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I was either going to rewrite the book or I was going to give up and go on about my life
[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_01]: as a television news producer.
[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So I decided I was going to rewrite the book.
[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So now we're in May of 2014.
[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the same time that we found out that we were pregnant with my first child.
[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_01]: My husband has three sons from a previous marriage.
[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm pregnant.
[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm pissed.
[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I have to rewrite.
[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just, I'm just angry.
[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm angry because I have to start over.
[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But I knew I had to start over.
[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So luckily, I was able to find those first 10,000 words from that contest and an email
[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I had sent to friends a year prior.
[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I take out those 10,000 words, which is like the first eight or nine chapters of
[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Four Women.
[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's the first nine chapters.
[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And I start over in chapter 10.
[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01]: This chapter I started over in is a Johnny chapter for anyone who's read Four Women.
[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the second or third Johnny chapter, something like that.
[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, I'm out of breath because I'm pregnant again.
[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm 37 weeks and some change.
[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So baby is pressing on everything.
[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So this episode sounds really out of breath.
[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I apologize for that.
[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_01]: That is why.
[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've mentioned it in the previous couple episodes that I'm pregnant.
[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah.
[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Let me catch my breath.
[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I found out I'm pregnant with our first child, my son, Mylon, who's six now.
[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And I have to rewrite this book.
[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And that summer, my step sons came for the summer as they usually do.
[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were younger then, like still young kids and they wanted to do stuff.
[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So what I would do during the summer when I got off of work, because I was still working
[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_01]: mornings, I would get off.
[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd come home.
[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd take a nap for like a couple of hours.
[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I'd take them to the park.
[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And we all had bikes.
[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So I had my bike.
[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_01]: They had their bikes.
[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And I would pack a lunch, snacks, a big thing of ice water because, you know, Florida gets
[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_01]: hot in the summer.
[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And we'd ride our bikes from our house to the park that was just not too far from us.
[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'd have their snacks and I'd have my laptop in my bag.
[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay, I got two hours on this laptop battery.
[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_01]: There's your snacks.
[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's your water.
[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_01]: There's the park.
[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_01]: You've got each other.
[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And what other friends are out here?
[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Have at it.
[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I did that for the majority of that summer.
[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote all through that summer.
[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote through my entire pregnancy.
[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I delivered my son January 17th, 2015.
[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when we came home, I never changed my schedule as if I wasn't working.
[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So that whole, you know, midnight feeding, 3 a.m.
[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Feeding every three hours.
[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I was so used to being up at those hours from my job that from midnight to about 6 a.m., I just
[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_01]: didn't sleep.
[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I treated it like it was a job.
[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So I would do the midnight feeding.
[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd go in my office.
[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd write.
[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_01]: 3 a.m.
[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_01]: He woke up.
[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd go feed him.
[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd go back in my office.
[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'd write because I had to finish.
[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I had never finished the book.
[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd gotten really close.
[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I was seven chapters from the end when I lost it.
[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But I had to finish the book.
[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I did that until I finished.
[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think I finished March 25th or 26, 2015.
[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And when I finished, it was like mid-afternoon.
[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I think my son had just woken up from his nap.
[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_01]: He was about eight weeks old.
[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote the last sentence of the last chapter.
[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I looked at him and I said, Mommy's done.
[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a Facebook status from there where I was like, I finally did it.
[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I finally finished the book.
[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But that really was just the beginning of the story.
[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So as any fiction writer probably wants, I wanted all the things.
[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted an agent.
[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted a major publishing house.
[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted a big advance.
[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted a book deal.
[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted all of the things that you hear about and that you see about everywhere.
[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But didn't know how to go about doing any of that.
[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I knew I needed to query.
[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So I Googled how to write a query letter.
[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Found one.
[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Wrote one based on that.
[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And then began looking for agents on Twitter, Googling.
[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Any way I could find to find an agent that I thought would be, you know, right for me.
[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I got to this list of about 100 different agents.
[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe.
[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it was 60.
[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_01]: 60 to 100.
[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever.
[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a big ballpark.
[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, whatever.
[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a while.
[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_01]: But I compiled this list.
[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And so then every month for several months, I queried agents.
[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And some agents got back to me with direct feedback.
[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Some agents got back to me with form letters.
[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Most of it was, all of it was really rejections.
[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_01]: No, this is not right.
[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever the case may have been.
[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I saw this article online about you never know who you might know who can help you.
[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, huh, one of my friends at the television station, her boyfriend has a talent agent.
[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder if he knows any literary agents.
[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So I asked her to ask him.
[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And her boyfriend was like, yeah, he knows literary agents.
[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll put her in contact.
[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And so he did.
[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So I spoke to his talent agent.
[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_01]: His talent agent put me in contact with the literary agent.
[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I spoke to the literary agents.
[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I sent them my query.
[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I sent them the manuscript.
[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, yeah, we think this has some potential.
[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But you're going to have to do some revisions.
[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay, that's fine.
[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And so at that time, because I was so frustrated and kind of feeling away about all of the rejection
[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_01]: that had been coming in from all of the agents that I was querying and was saying no,
[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I had begun to look into self-publishing.
[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I saw an article from Essence magazine that said, you know, why self-publishing may not be so bad.
[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_01]: This is still in 2015.
[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, okay, I'll look into it.
[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So I had learned, knew about CreateSpace.
[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I was in the bookstore one day at Books A Million.
[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And the cashier told me about their platform.
[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, okay, I can probably do this.
[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_01]: But when I signed with my agents in like October, November of 2015,
[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_01]: when I was getting ready to actually release the book because I had a designer do my cover.
[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I had her build my website.
[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I was ready to go.
[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, well, if agents don't want me, I'll just do it myself.
[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01]: That real stubborn, childish, petulant attitude.
[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_01]: But they were like, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Take everything down.
[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So I had never told anybody about the website.
[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Had never publicized anything about the cover.
[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Or didn't say anything about it online, really.
[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Other than that I had finished the book.
[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I took everything down.
[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I signed with my agents.
[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I did one major revision in form.
[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I had some chapters that were written in first person.
[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And some chapters that were written in third person.
[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Just being all types of extra.
[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, you need to pick one.
[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So I chose third person and then revised that way.
[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And then after I did that revision,
[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01]: they asked me to add maybe a couple chapters.
[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I think for context.
[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_01]: One of them was, if you've read Four Women,
[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_01]: one of the additions and chapters was the Ayanna flashback.
[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Where Ebony and Ayanna are in the car.
[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And the other was the cross-examination of Ebony toward the end of the book.
[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So I added those chapters.
[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I think there was some other revision that I had to do before they decided it was ready.
[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: By that time, it's June, July 2016.
[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And they began to put together my proposal.
[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_01]: The query that I initially had written.
[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_01]: My cops.
[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_01]: My positioning statement.
[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And began to acquire a list of publishers they were going to send it out to.
[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I think we heard back from a couple right away.
[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_01]: That was like, send me the manuscript.
[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And then everything else was crickets.
[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And crickets.
[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And crickets.
[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Until we had another talk maybe around November, December of 2016.
[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was right before.
[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Not right before.
[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Jacksonville Public Library had announced they were launching the inaugural Jacksonville Book Festival.
[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, hey, they're launching this book festival.
[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I should be there to go.
[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, well, you shouldn't be there with a book.
[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_01]: But we can get you some galleys and some samplers printed.
[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can just go and meet people.
[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, see who's there.
[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_01]: See who's around.
[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Get people interested in your book.
[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay.
[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, I want to make a trailer for the book as well.
[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Me being TV producer.
[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I always think video.
[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So I did.
[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I made a trailer for the book.
[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_01]: As I was making the trailer for the book, I was like, well, most trailers have release dates.
[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So I put a release date in that.
[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It was like November 23rd, 2017.
[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_01]: That's when this book is going to come out.
[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Come hell or high water.
[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And my agents were like, are you set on that date?
[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, if you can't sell it by then, it's been two years now.
[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to self-publish it.
[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I made the trailer.
[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I got the galleys.
[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I got the samplers.
[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I went to the book festival.
[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Walked around.
[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Met a lot of people.
[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_01]: That's actually where I ended up meeting my editing team.
[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And my agents had the trailer.
[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And they re-sent the book out with the trailer to editors.
[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And we were waiting on one to get back to us.
[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_01]: They eventually got back to us with a no.
[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay, I'm on my own.
[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_01]: You say all it needs is a copy edit.
[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's I found a copy editor at the book festival.
[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to do it.
[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I already have the cover.
[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to do it on my own.
[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I began to do.
[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I worked with my copy editor to fix anything that was wrong grammatically in the book.
[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And I know it's still not perfect.
[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, she got it.
[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_01]: She cleaned it up some or a lot, whatever.
[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had my cover.
[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I had my designer do the full spread for the cover.
[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I had the website.
[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I had my headshots.
[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And so then I just began doing promotion on my own, using my contacts in news to try to get the word out, try to get interviews, try to get press, try to get coverage.
[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It helped that I worked in television because then people knew me.
[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just worked on it that way.
[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And November 23rd, the book came out.
[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Prior to that, maybe a month ahead of that, in October of 2017,
[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I decided I was going to form my own publishing company because I didn't want Amazon's name on my work as like, this is a CreateSpace book or anything like that.
[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, if I'm doing all the work, my name's going to be on it.
[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I filed with the IRS and filed with the state and paid my little money.
[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's how New Reads Publications was born.
[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I always say it was born out of vanity because I didn't want someone else's name on my work.
[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_01]: But it has become much, much, much, much more than that.
[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I started the publishing company in October of 2017.
[00:33:51] [SPEAKER_01]: My book came out November 23rd, 2017, which I believe was Thanksgiving that year.
[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And the reason it came out on that date is because the book is set around the death of Jordan Davis,
[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_01]: who was a 17-year-old boy who was killed over loud music in Jacksonville.
[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And working in news, that case really shook me.
[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And the premise of Four Women is looking at those police shootings and those encounters with vigilantes, racist vigilantes,
[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_01]: but not seeing victims that were Black women.
[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Not really until Sandra Bland.
[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, we didn't know their names.
[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, there have got to be women in these stories.
[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's where Four Women really and truly comes from.
[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why it was released on that date.
[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't do a book release until, like, December 2nd of that year.
[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And Jordan Davis' father was with me.
[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And he had read the book because I had spoken to him prior.
[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And that day was, honestly, it was really just magical.
[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Did the book release.
[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_01]: It was finally here after all of this work.
[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And then that was the same night that I won my first Emmy.
[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Didn't go to the Emmys.
[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And broadcast television news wins Emmys as well.
[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But they're regional Emmys, technically.
[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_01]: So they're a little smaller than the real big ones that you see for, like, movies and stuff and TV shows.
[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_01]: But either way, an Emmy is an Emmy.
[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I got it.
[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But, yeah.
[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So, like, that night I did the book release.
[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I get, I check my phone.
[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_01]: It's blowing up.
[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_01]: All my co-workers were like, you won, you won, you won, you won, you won, you won.
[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So that was great.
[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was really the start of my, I guess, my literary career.
[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Because Four Women ends on a cliffhanger.
[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So I knew I had to write a sequel.
[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_01]: After much hemming and hog about whether or not I was going to do it,
[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_01]: one of my editors said to me,
[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, if your readers ask you for a sequel, you write one.
[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Because that's who you're writing.
[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01]: They are your audience.
[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, all right, bet.
[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll write the sequel.
[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So, and then I had these other ideas in my head for stories.
[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So 2018, I became a crazy person.
[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote the sequel, which was The Appeal of Ebony Jones.
[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I wrote two other novels with the intention of having 2019 as just a year to promote and market
[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_01]: and increase my profile in a way.
[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't have a Twitter following.
[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a Facebook following.
[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I was barely on Instagram.
[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I worked in television news.
[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was trying to stay low key on purpose to have that air of like, I guess, not conflict.
[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a better way to say that than I'm saying it.
[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_01]: But whatever.
[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't really have a big social media following.
[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So my goal for 2019 was to increase my profile.
[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And to do that, I needed to not be writing in 2019.
[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So I wrote three books in 2018.
[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Jesus, I'm out of breath.
[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Woo!
[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so yeah, I wrote The Appeal of Ebony Jones.
[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_01]: That was the first book.
[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote that started January 2018, finished in March.
[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And got that together really quick because I released it in August.
[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I had begun selling copies of Four Women.
[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And so the biggest question I would get from readers who would get to the end is,
[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_01]: what the fuck?
[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_01]: What happens next?
[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you read Four Women and you haven't read The Appeal, then you know it's like,
[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_01]: where's the damn verdict, Nikesha?
[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it ends on that cliffhanger.
[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't know the verdict in the case because I didn't want to assign guilt or innocence
[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_01]: to what I was talking about.
[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_01]: But eventually, I kind of did in the sequel.
[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So Four Women was out.
[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote The Appeal.
[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I ended up writing two other novels, which became Love Never Fails and Adulting.
[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote all of that between in the year of 2018.
[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_01]: It's because I knew I would have Love Never Fails comes out on Valentine's Day 2019.
[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's my like attempt at romance and a love story, but not really because the first line is,
[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_01]: if I were honest, I would be divorced right now.
[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And then adulting was just something I had an idea for and put it out.
[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I did that in 2018, 2019.
[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I focused on increasing my profile and trying to go different places and do different things
[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and calling in friends to see if I could be on their TV show or their news program because,
[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was still a producer.
[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So why not leverage those connections?
[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And my husband and I had talked about it for a couple of years.
[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And so in August of 2019, I left the television industry to focus on writing full time.
[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So 2019 was really my first transitional year into life as a full time writer.
[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That's when I really started freelancing and just going balls to the wall with books,
[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_01]: knowing that I didn't have a choice.
[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I had to make this work.
[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_01]: If this is the dream and my husband's giving me this gift of go ahead, do it.
[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I got us.
[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I have to make this work.
[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I did.
[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And in between all that, I also had another manuscript that I had not, that I had finished,
[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_01]: but I had not come back to.
[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't ready for release.
[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was the first draft of my fifth novel, Beyond Bourbon Street.
[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So I know I'm telling the story all out of order.
[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But like in 2016, while my agents were sending out four women for editors, I had downtime.
[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had been writing on the side all the time since 2009 when I started the letters to the president.
[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So I had all this free time.
[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, there needs to be another story.
[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And after having my son, the story of my novella from undergrad came back to me
[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_01]: because that was just two people meeting in the lower ninth ward in New Orleans, post-Katrina,
[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_01]: trying to rebuild.
[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I kept thinking, what do their lives look like now?
[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_01]: What happened to them?
[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_01]: What's going on?
[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I began to draft their story.
[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I finished it sometime in 2017, like August of 2017, before Four Women came out.
[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I finished it.
[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I printed it.
[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And I put it on top of my printer because I'm like, this book isn't going to come out until 2020.
[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And I sat on it because Four Women came out in November.
[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_01]: The Appeal of Ebony Jones came out in 2018.
[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Love Never Fails and Adulting both came out in 2019.
[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I left my job.
[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I was freelancing.
[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And in doing all of that, I also had poetry that I was becoming known for in my community.
[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And I began to put together this poetry collection.
[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And so come 2020, I have a poetry collection.
[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing a one-woman show.
[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm skipping lots of parts of the story.
[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But I do a lot of things.
[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And this episode would be super, super long if I tried to explain all of those things.
[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But I had this poetry collection.
[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I teamed up with this lady in my community who has a small black box theater.
[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Did a one-woman show based on a poetry collection.
[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And then coronavirus.
[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_01]: That happened.
[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_01]: My show opened March 5th, 2020.
[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_01]: The last show was March 8th, 2020.
[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I had another poetry event based upon the show on March 11th, 2020.
[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Which is the same day that the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.
[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I didn't leave my house for anything.
[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_01]: The speaking engagements, the things that I had booked, all of that was canceled.
[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_01]: But I still had another book coming out.
[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Because after lessons we were never taught was going to be beyond Bourbon Street for the 15-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 15-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just worked on it.
[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I worked with my copy editor.
[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I worked with my developmental editor.
[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I worked with my graphic designer to get the cover ready.
[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I kept freelancing.
[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But in that time where I can't go out and actually like sell books because that had made up a bulk of my income.
[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_01]: In 2019, after I left the television station, I ended up signing my first two clients to my publishing company.
[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I had published Jessica Lynn's book in 2019.
[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But because we had known each other so long and I didn't know if I could do it, I didn't.
[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I won't say I didn't treat her like a real client.
[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But it was experimental.
[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_01]: It was different.
[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But by the time I finished that process and her book came out and she was happy with it and she was pleased and she was excited about it.
[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, okay, I can do this.
[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Let me start to really organize this business like a business and have contracts and all these things.
[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_01]: All the things that, you know, you have to have as a small business owner, especially as a creative.
[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, even though all of my stuff was canceled in 2020 after the pandemic was called,
[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I signed two authors and began working on their books while also working to release Beyond Bourbon Street.
[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I sustained through 2020.
[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: That is how I got through.
[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I actually ended up signing a third author in that time, but his book is not ready yet.
[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It's soon come whenever he is ready to get back to it.
[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So and that's how I got through.
[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And then Beyond Bourbon Street came out in August of 2020.
[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I did a couple virtual events.
[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I got pregnant.
[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't a surprise, baby.
[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a planned pregnancy because my son is six and my husband and I were like, if we don't do it now, it's going to be a never.
[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm getting old.
[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And so Beyond Bourbon Street came out August 29th, 2020.
[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I confirmed my pregnancy October 3rd.
[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I knew like late September.
[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I had a feeling.
[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But I confirmed it October 3rd.
[00:44:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And ever since then, I've just been writing freelance, minding my business, promoting the books, working with my authors because Ben Gooney's book came out in January of 2021.
[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_01]: My next office book will come out June 8th.
[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So it'll be out by the time that you hear this episode because today is May 23rd.
[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_01]: No, today is May 24th, 2021.
[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_01]: That's when I'm recording this in my little closet studio.
[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've just been going.
[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I found out I was pregnant.
[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I had this nagging idea for a podcast, the podcast that you're now listening to sometime mid-2020.
[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I kept running away from it, kept not wanting to do it.
[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, all right, God, you keep bringing this idea back to me.
[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_01]: If I'm going to do this, you need to provide the funding.
[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Jehovah, let's go.
[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord came through.
[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_01]: He provided the funding.
[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I had the equipment that I had already bought because I had started trying to do audiobooks.
[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_01]: The only one that's out is for women.
[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not a super far advanced process because everything that I'm paying for, I'm paying for out of pocket.
[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I started working on a podcast.
[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of writers that I had been tangentially connected to through various groups on social media said yes and gave us the season that we had on Black and Published.
[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I thank them.
[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm grateful to them.
[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm grateful to you all who are listening and still listening to me ramble thus far.
[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we'll see what happens next.
[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Baby girl, I'm having a girl.
[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_01]: She's due June 10th.
[00:46:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So again, she'll be here by the time that you hear this bonus episode.
[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_01]: This bonus episode is actually going to air August 3rd, which is my birthday.
[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I do lots of things around my birthday.
[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_01]: But it always seems to come back to be work related.
[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, you'll hear this episode August 3rd.
[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_01]: My baby girl will be here.
[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Some of you may know I'm in the NPR Story Lab workshop working to make this podcast better for you for season two, which is why season two has to be banging.
[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't want to end season one without, you know, telling you all my story and sharing with you more of who I am and what I do and all that good stuff.
[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you enjoyed this week's Black and Publish Rewind with me, your host, Nikisha Elise Williams.
[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a part two to this story that I recorded in October of 2022 called Writing Past Impostor Syndrome that you can listen to now wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:47:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Just scroll back in your feet a little bit.
[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And on that episode, I talk about my latest book that had come out at the time, Mardi Gras Indians from LSU Press, that is all about the resilient spirit of the Black masking Indians of New Orleans.
[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_01]: You can get Mardi Gras Indians and all of my books from Mahogany Books, where you can find a wide range of titles by Black authors like me and those featured on this podcast and support a Black-owned business.
[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Plus, listeners of Black and Publish can save 10% on regular price books and merchandise when you use the coupon code BLACKPUB at checkout.
[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That's B-L-K-P-U-B.
[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Head over to mahoganybooks.com and grab your next great read today.
[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll holler at y'all next year in 2025 for Black and Publish Season 5.
[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_01]: With more of the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds.
[00:48:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Peace.