Today we’d like to introduce you to Jade Dee and Wilnona Marie.
Wilnona started writing and was published when she was ten years old. She continued writing books throughout her life until she married. In an effort to be a good wife she quit and focused on her home and other job offers.
Jade goaded her into writing again. The book And I Thought Divorce was Bad was from Jade’s incredible ability to persuade and motivate Wilnona. Wilnona found four other women to write with her, including Jade who refused at first. Jade was not thrilled. The poem she wrote was impressive so Wilnona asked her to write with the other authors she did and it turned into a permanent spot on the roster of And I Thought Ladies. Jade is up for poet of the year this year. To think it wouldn’t have happened unless Wilnona nagged her for about a month.
What we are known for today are three platforms (1) Our passion cause of ending emotional abuse. We feel this is the cornerstone to fighting financial and physical abuse. It isn’t understood as clearly as physical abuse. We know if someone hits us it is wrong, but when someone says I wish you weren’t born we say oh our partner is having a bad day. That may not be a bad day that person just wished you dead, erased from the lives of everyone you know and care about. The recipient of those poisoned words are now stuck with them and the memory of how it made them feel. There is a possibility those words will erode their self-confidence well after the relationship is over. Emotional abuse is the same as physical people just can’t see it. Because it’s not visible people can discount the effect and ask why the victim has changed. Alexis Rose wrote a strong poem about this in And I Thought Divorce Was Bad entitled “A Shiner” and a poet who wants to remain anonymous wrote the next poem about how emotional abuse affects the children’s perception/emotional development while growing up in the house and observing the interactions. Wilnona understood these struggles and had the good sense to lead off the book with these poems because she went through a severely emotionally abusive relationship that resulted in emotional trauma. She couldn’t remember most of her childhood after she got divorced. With family support and a grueling journey back she remembers a lot of her childhood. In this vein, The And I Thought Ladies support three charities.
(2) We are known as advocates for women within a small part of the indie author world. Wilnona and Jade do The Inspirational Women in Literature Media and Journalism Awards to acknowledge authors, literary agents, audiobook readers, Tv & Movie Producers, executives, directors, screenwriters, etc. in the film industry, and of course journalists and newspaper editors. The proceeds go to the charities Powerful Beginnings an abuse shelter in Atlanta, IVA Literacy (an alliteracy foundation in Sacramento) and Enough Abuse UK (supports child abuse victims throughout Europe). We try to support as many women as we can by giving them a leg up and securing PR for their cause. We work closely with Connie Pheiff Los Angeles Resident & radio host of Up or Out with the section of her company focused on women achieving the most they can in business, life health, whatever they want. The women we have met and the women who have help mentor us have been phenomenal. Every time we work with Connie it reminds us how we have come and how much father we have to go. We believe the road ahead is a lot longer and harder than the road behind us. We also worked closely with the creator of the virtual Women Business conference. Every year she gathers women from every continent to come speak and help other women not make the same mistakes they did. It is a blast, stressful, but still fun.
(3) We are known for being full of personality and innovative. It is funny we were just in Florida selling our books and talking on a panel at a convention when someone walked up to us and said wait you write books. We answered yes, they looked at our books and decided they wanted our magazines more than the books. With some regularity we run into fans or even our biggest supporters who have no idea we are authors because they are used to us being the fun kind of literary party starters not the sober pensive author type. This is something we should probably change because book sales are our primary income stream. There multiple other streams but that is the cartiod artery that oxygenates our business.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No Journey is smooth, no matter how fast or slow you get to a form of success there is always turbulence and potholes. Our biggest ones have been trusting the wrong people. Who we choose to surround ourselves with have bled us dry at times emotionally, time-wise, and more recently money. We don’t tend to discuss how, but it is a hard road. The consequences of trusting the wrong people are catastrophic and a huge setback. The worse part is we can only be mad at ourselves for letting them in or giving them the job that could hurt us personally or our business.
The other challenge is one every startup has, that’s money. We travel a lot we are also prone to have mishap happen to us, so it is almost a certainty that we will go over budget on travel and that impacts the whole business, especially since we are on the road about half the year.
Illness is another challenge. Wilnona has been ill for years, but she manages it well unless there is a considerable amount of stress and she is under constant stress, so what is manageable can become an emergency. Jade took ill this year and it wreaked havoc with the schedule. A month of engagements were canceled and rescheduled. This meant a huge hit to the revenue stream.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
We aren’t sure what we are known for besides being full of personality, but we can tell you what we do. We first write books(remember that is a secret, apparently) We publish two magazines 25 Hottest Indie Authors Artist And Advocates (Annually in March) And And I Thought Literary Magazine (In June and October) We have a podcast on Spreaker And I Thought (This doesn’t pay the bills) We have a Roku Channel, And a YouTube channel, for our talk show, where we interview people across the spectrum of business, Literature, advocacy, and tv/film. We have a line of flask, shot glasses, decanters, and apparel (this pays more) We had a reality show about our many comical mishaps while traveling (This is Wilnona’s Proudest Moment, seeing it air)
Then there’s the literary services we have
Thoughtful Book Festival (virtual) people can hear, interact and learn from their favorite authors and learn how to write a book from their computer in the comfort of their home. We did I this to make it accessible to anyone. Sometimes people can’t get to the large outdoor book festivals due to transportation, income, or other limitations, but this just click a link and you can be at a book festival. There are bar demonstrations, cooking demos, readings, spoken worked meet the authors, and a chance to pitch your movie idea to a producer.
Thoughtful Book Awards
Experienced Writers Retreat for two days in Vegas (We get instructors from around the country and they teach on the first day on the second day we arrange interviews for the participants and a pitch fest. Participants can pitch to a director, producer, traditional or hybrid publisher, magazine editor, and the list goes on.) It’s fun and it’s in Vegas so there’s that.
We also do book tours:
Any artist really can go with us on tour throughout the United States But most people sign up for our European tour. We take four artists a year and go to radio stations and tv stations to get interviewed in another country. We met amazing people this way and they have been game to be on our reality show these are great episodes. But our favorite tour package is just taking people’s books products or cd’s etc. with us and finding them new readers. The artist are so happy and appreciative. It makes our whole year.
Our noteworthy quality that sets us apart is being able to innovate. Every year there is something new. Like this year we are shooting a documentary about life in the road as an indie artist. We have been told it’s also because we try to take as many people with us as we can to try and reach their dream. This recently urged Wilnona to re open her publishing house AITL Publications.
We are proud of different things in our business Jade likes the 25 hottest Authors Artist And Advocates Magazine. She designs the cover herself, but Brandy the magazines editor takes care of the layout. She should be proud this is the second year we have reached readers on multiple continents with the magazine and garnered the attention of 5,039 people in our first week.
Wilnona is proud of the horribly don reality show. She learned how to edit, shoot and produce the first season, mostly from fear of spending money and going broke, in thirty days. She admits it is the worse refuse she has ever seen on her screen but it’s hers and it accomplishes a dream she never thought possible.
What were you like growing up?
Jade was amiable and friendly. She was a fighter if she was wronged. This one time some girls seven years old mistaken her for a little boy and even though they figured out she was a little girl they teased her for an hour about being a little boy. She was three years old but she wanted to fight them. Her mom came and got her. Her father still tells that tale with mirth. Nowadays, Jade is not a physical fighter but she stands up for people and against bullies. She has had a hand in assisting three women escape abusive relationships and been a supportive rock to many others. Wilnona is personally happy she kept that trait. Jade also was really smart in math when she was little. She was placed in an advanced algebra class at ten years old. Geometry was her jam. Yet she still managed to befriend everyone in high school from quintessential nerd to popular people. They still remember her and speak to her when they see her around town.
Jade has always had practical business sense. When she was six she wanted more money to spend on a trip so she went around to people she know drank soda or beer and ask to collect their cans when they were done. She paid her dad $5 for gas and turned in the cans. In the summer she would ask her friends parents if they were giving away any clothes. If they were she would collect them and do a yard sale. She had her mom ride her around town to scout out potential yards to hold the yard sale. When she found one she would ask accompanied by her mom if she could rent the yard for twenty dollars and she included a free grass cutting in her price. Needless to say Jade always had money for summer vacation
Wilnona planned out her life at four years old. She knew who she would marry, how much she wanted to be worth by 25 years old. When she learned how to read she started reading the classifieds to find the job she would want so she could accumulate her net worth of 250,000 dollars by 25. Wilnona was 21 at four years old and 40 at 19 years old. She has regressed since that age. She claimed to be 19 at her now undisclosed age. Wilnona was never focused on the now but she was always goal oriented. She says she is the opposite now and is easily distracted by the present forsaking goals. At nine, she was at church and a guest speaker talked about how his life used to be focused on money. Her only take away from that speech was that a person could make money while they slept. Armed with the knowledge that work was not the only way to make money she asked everyone how it worked.
At twelve she saved money for her first mutual fund, she didn’t want new clothes she asked her parents to put it in her savings account. At 19 she went into negotiations for her first land purchase. At 17, she finally got her CD account and her first stock portfolio. She was also a kid who like to play and had an active imagination, hence her first published poem at ten. She wanted to be a princess, like most little girls. Unlike most girls, she studied etiquette of the royal court and saved up for finishing school offered in the UK. Till this day she holds two childhood beliefs, you can’t means watch me do it. And if shoot for the stars your aim isn’t far enough. Aim for a planet or another galaxy so when you fail you’ll land somewhere amongst the luminaries.
Pricing:
- Our literary book tour for the US/UK start at $375
- Experienced writer’s retreat this year starts At $250
- Entrance fee for Thoughtful Book Festival $20/per title
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.andwethought.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: Thoughtladies
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/andi.thoughtladies.5
- Twitter: @justwritenlife @jaded2555
- Other: https://m.facebook.com/And-I-Thought-Ladies-1871832516261122/?ref=bookmarks
Image Credit:
Wilnona and Jade
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