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Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing


Feb 5, 2021

In this episode Mark interviews Nadine Williams, a storyteller, a writer, a poet, keynote speaker and entrepreneur.

Prior to the interview Mark shares some recent personal comments, a personal update, and a word from this episode's sponsor.You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mark and Nadine talk about:

  • How being a writer, speaker, and poet was something that Nadine stumbled upon after life threw her some curve balls
  • The way that writing became therapy
  • Nadine's career in construction and a trade show encounter that led to her first published article
  • The idea of a book being the result of the marriage between a writer and her pen
  • Nadine's use of the term "tears to ink" to describe the earliest therapeutic writing she had done
  • The early reading Nadine did as a child, and the oral storytelling tradition she grew up with
  • The experience of opening up for a talk that Michelle Obama did in Toronto in 2017
  • The poem "Us Women" that Nadine read for the Obama event, which was originally the poem "Us Africans" that she re-adapted
  • A custom line thrown in to page homage to Michelle Obama specifically
  • What Nadine learned from an error made at that event
  • The art of performance poetry and how all of Nadine's writing has that element of performance
  • The way that an entire poem can come from a single word
  • The significant event that led Nadine into speaking at libraries and schools
  • The art installations and nominations that Nadine was involved in
  • Advice that Nadine would offer to beginning writers
  • Some of the issues we have in Canada related to intolerance and people not being aware of their prejudices and biases
  • Nadine's 2021 Black History Month Theme - "Nurturing Hope through Allyship"
  • And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on Nadine's ability to adapt and re-adapt both creatively and in an entrepreneurial way.

Links of Interest

 


Nadine Williams is an avid child reader, turned wordsmith, turned working Artist. She is a storyteller, a writer, a poet, an arts educator, a Keynote Speaker and host workshop Facilitator, a visual artist, and entrepreneur.

Nadine is the author of the books The Culmination of Marriage Between Me and My Pen, Love Rocks, With This Pen I Do Tell, and Pen on Fyah.