Today we’d like to introduce you to Lola Mae.
Lola, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
The creation of Innovative Expressions now available on Amazon took me almost two years to complete. I started this poetry collection in 2017. At the beginning of 2018 I decided to publish a book of my poetry, as I had previously had the idea to publish an autobiography, but my poetry collection was making faster progress. I got the idea to add illustrations to my poems when I saw some sketch art of Annastocia Cardon’s, one of my illustrators, while scrolling on Facebook. I then decided “Adults need art too! Too much of our literature is just in black & white. I published multiple artists because I knew of a few talented individuals, and each one of their styles of creativity matched with the variety of my poems. I also did some networking on Facebook to find a few of my illustrator’s. I was blessed to connect with a local artist, Raquel Rhone, in Black San Diego. I published the work of two high schoolers, Annastocia C. and Carlos Marquez in an effort to encourage entrepreneurship in the arts amongst young adults. It was a fun project with a few setbacks & delays. I was grateful to have the support of author Ashley Nicole Wilkins, Ashley Nicole’s Bookshelf, the company I published with.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Writing my poetry was easy and came natural to me. Working with multiple artists was a bit of a challenge, and I ended up cutting two people from my project. I had to let them go because one of them lacked professionalism. The other was overstepping boundaries when I was simply asking him to just digitize the artwork. I faced some unexpected emotional struggles, as I had lost two very special people to me while working on this project. One was my preschool teacher, whom I stayed connected with throughout the years, & she had inspired me to write a book a few years ago. The second loss was the unexpected death of my childhood friend, whom was also the brother of my illustrator, Austin Groebner. That was definitely a hard pill for the both of us to swallow! The last challenge was having two of my illustrators redo an illustration because they didn’t quite match the emotion of the poem.
Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
My book of poetry is unique because each poem is illustrated and it showcases many different artists, as opposed to working with just one artist. I figured I could pull this off because this book doesn’t have a storyline. I’m proud of the fact that I had the idea to publish the work of two high school students. Encouraging And supporting entrepreneurship in the arts community is very important to me. Another thing that sets my business apart from others is that I’m donating the proceeds from my book to my son, college fund, Gofundme- Keys to Success for Keyonte, as he’ll be attending San Diego State University this fall.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I am very grateful for my publisher, Ashley Nicole Wilkins. She was very supportive and patient with me & my crew of illustrators as things didn’t go according to schedule because of the people I had cut from my project. Ashley was also very professional and offered her excellent public speaking skills to host my launch party for Innovative Expressions back in May. I have to give a huge shoutout to all five of my illustrators! I was especially grateful for Deshaun Sherrill, my cover designer, for flying out from Philly for my book launch. He was also awesome enough to gift me a free illustration when I was put in a bind because he didn’t want to see me fail. With out everyone’s contributions this project would not have been possible! I also had my sister Elecia and my friends June, Tammy, and Rose advise me and critique some of the work throughout the process.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: Lola Mae
- Instagram: booksbringsuccess
- Email: lolamae333@yahoo.com
- Book: https://www.amazon.com/Innovative-Expressions-Lola-Ms-Medved/dp/1095044540/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=innovative+expressions&qid=1555877001&s=gateway&sr=8-1
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