Today we’d like to introduce you to Ella Shawn.
Hi Ella; we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
After earning my BA in English, Literature, and Language from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, I was torn between what I wanted to do. I was planning my wedding and contemplating if I wanted to stay with the bank to become a corporate trainer or try my hand at becoming a writer. The decision was snatched from my hands when I got fired from my job because I took days off for my honeymoon that I didn’t have available to take. After several odd jobs, I decided to be practical and become a teacher. I taught for over 13 years, mainly with Richland District 2 in the NE Columbia area. While teaching, my husband and I had three daughters, earned four additional degrees between us, and succumbed to the trap that we affectionately call suburbia hell. By this time, I was overteaching. I felt I had done all I could in that field but didn’t know what I wanted to do next, so I stayed the course. Again, the decision to leave was taken from y hands when I was diagnosed with lupus, narcolepsy with cataplexy, and a host of other opportunistic autoimmune diseases in February 2013. Determined to continue living the way I had, I returned for the next school year but barely reached the end.
In June 2014, I retired disabled from my teaching career and started focusing on becoming as healthy as possible. I was taking upwards of 35 pills a day to manage my symptoms; a good chunk of those were narcotics. I hated taking Tylenol for headaches, so I knew I had to focus on healing and becoming the most informed patient my team of twelve doctors had ever seen. It took almost four years to get to a place where my body wasn’t in a constant state of attacking itself and leaving damage to once-healthy organs and tissues. I lost roughly 100 pounds, became a plant-based vegetarian, gave up gluten, and got back into yoga. There are no cures for my diseases, but with proper management, reduced stress, and my spirituality, my bad days no longer outweigh my amazing ones. And if they do, I’m too busy writing the forbidden stories of Southern Black women who find healing in the practice of sacred sensuality to give in to them.
Since 2018, I’ve published a 4-book series entitled, The Broken Souls series, two novellas, three short stories, and more blog articles than I can count. I’ve written for Columbia Moms Emagazine, my blog, and will be featured in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association’s(WFWA) Write On E-magazine in Fall 2023. My writing career has been a long time coming, and I’m not quite where I desire to be, but I’m not where I started, either. In the five years since becoming a professional self-published author, I’ve joined several writing organizations where I actively participate and volunteer my time and services as needed. I am an active member of WFWA, the South Carolina Writers Association (SCWA), and the Author’s Guild. All of these organizations have contributed to helping me become a stronger, better, more confident writer and creative. I’m excited to usher in another aspect of my writing life with the Black Writer Therapy podcast launch on June 8, 2023. This podcast is designed to uplift and amplify the voices of Black women writers and challenge the publishing industry to move away from the white default and the discriminatory practices that keep marginalized writers from gaining access to opportunities as easily as our white counterparts. I’m not sure what’s next for me, but I know whatever it is, I’m more than ready to avail myself or create any opportunity that comes my way.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There are no smooth roads. As a disabled person living with invisible diseases that are unpredictable at the best of times and debilitating at the worse, it’s been challenging to create and sustain connections within the writing community. Like in any other field, relationships and networking are everything. Outside of my health concerns, I’m a householder of a large-ish family, which comes with its own struggles and complications. I may not see my family for days when I’m in the writing zone. It can be hard to explain to your teenage daughters why you can’t attend their school function or don’t have the patience or time to hear every little detail of their meltdown.
Writing is a solitary endeavor. It is also expensive when self-publishing is chosen to get one’s writing out into the marketplace. I’m not from a wealthy family with unlimited resources and support systems to make my writing career a fully funded experience. Most self-published writers, and even those published traditionally, continue to work their “day jobs” because writing doesn’t always pay the bills.
My biggest struggle as a writer is defining myself and figuring out who my audience is. I would love to be known as Ella Shawn, author of the Broken Souls series, but I will always be known as Ella Shawn, Black author of I struggled with that, being called a Black writer. Yes, I write stories about Black women and their healing journey to connecting with their higher selves, but that doesn’t mean white, Asian, Jewish, etc., wouldn’t enjoy reading my books. Reconciling myself with being called a Black writer is still something I struggle with. In a perfect world, I’d just be called a writer. I don’t care what color “Verity” is; I will read anything Colleen Hoover writes. I’ve never seen her name with the qualifier, ‘Colleen Hoover, white writer.’ This struggle is part of the reason I started the Black Writer Therapy podcast. Black women writers are the only people who know what it feels like to be a writer who is also a Black woman. Each session, I learn a little more about myself and grow in my respect for my fellow writer sista-friends because I know that no other group of writers could endure what we do and continue to thrive despite it.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a Southern women’s fiction writer. My writing focuses on Black women, their interior lives, and their healing journeys. I’m fascinated by the complexity found in the intersectionality of Blackness and womanhood. It is something truly liberating about our lack of proximity to the patriarchal model upheld in society, and I endeavor to shine a light on how free Black women have the potential to be. Some would say I write erotica, and I do. However, what sets me apart from other erotica writers is my understanding of erotic energy. Others may focus on writing titillating scenes that burn the pages down. I readily admit those can also be found in my writing, but my characters must earn the right to experience eroticism in my stories.
I am most proud of how spiritually grounded my writing is. It’s gritty, noir, and explicit, and it is also a walk from the root chakra to the crown chakra. It is filled with beautifully lyrical language and phraseology and so many plot twists readers return to the beginning to reassure themselves that they didn’t skip pages. I’m proud to write well-rounded, fully developed, 3-dimensional characters that refuse to stay in the pages of my novels. Readers have told me that my characters burrow into their brains, hearts, bones, and blood. I am keeping them hostage until they pick the book or the next book up again.
I’m not afraid to tell the difficult and disturbing stories. Exactly how my characters give it to me is how I give it to the readers. If my character couldn’t catch their breath, my reader won’t be able to catch theirs either. My stories will never be pretty or sunshine and rainbows because Southern Black women don’t get to live that kind of life until she’s worked and sacrificed and broken for it–so, her story won’t ever start in a happy place. My writing isn’t for everyone, and neither am I. I fully accept that which sets me apart from other writers.
What are your plans for the future?
My immediate future is busy. My podcast, Black Writer Therapy, launches on June 8, 2023. I’m excited to be a vendor at the Juneteenth Freedom Festival at Segra Park on June 17, where I’ll sell my books and greet readers. I have a short story in a “Ride or Die” anthology in July. I will be a presenter at the 10th Anniversary WFWA Writing Conference in Chicago, IL, in September. I also have a shared world novel that’s up for pre-order on Amazon and will drop in October. Many of these opportunities were made possible partly by a grant from the SC Arts Commission in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts. Their grant allowed me to purchase copies of my books, meet my readers where they are and grow my readership. In the future, I plan to apply for more grants to support the establishment of Southern Momentum Publishing House, LLC, my independent publishing company, into a solid option for underrepresented writers who want to be traditionally published without jumping through all the hoops.
Pricing:
- Signed copies of my books are available on my website for $15
- Handmade bookmarks, stickers, magnets, and affirmation cards range in price from $7.50 to $38.89
- Diversity Sensitivity Reading and Writing Coaching services are available; price depends on needs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ellashawn.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorellashawn/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorellashawn/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ella-shawn-971987111/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/EllaShawn0215
- Youtube: https://buff.ly/3MJ6W1K
