Meet Andra Watkins

We were lucky to catch up with Andra Watkins recently and have shared our conversation below.

Andra, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I found my well’s bottom of resilience in 2016. I had been on a recommended 6-week course of chemotherapy for almost 5 months; yet my parasitic disease refused to succumb to remission. Every day, I watched my visual world shrink as a parasite choked more blood flow to my retina.

That November, my second novel “Hard to Die” had launched, a book I spent 5 figures preparing for publication. In July, I had hired a highly recommended team of publicists, and I set about my course of chemo believing my investment would ensure a strong outcome.

I was wrong. My book launched with a couple of advance reviews. I was too addled by chemo and steroids to know how to rescue my book, but I believed people would buy and support it. Again, I was wrong. Everyone was understandably distracted by the recent national election. My book was dead-on-arrival. I was physically incapable of doing public appearances to resurrect it. I couldn’t even read my calendar, let alone compute distances and dates and time differences.

I fired the publicists. In retaliation, they trolled my novel.

A few days after the launch, I was on my bathroom floor clutching the toilet, and I thought, “This is it. This is failure. I will never, ever recover my money, my reputation, my career.” Drugs scrambled my brain. I couldn’t write as I once did. My thoughts wouldn’t gel. Reading comprehension and organization abandoned me.

I curled into a ball on that cold floor, and I gave up.

I wish I could say this trial ended in a major success readers might recognize, but I recovered my words. I reordered my brain. I onboarded new tools to help me cope with my new reality. I’ve since published another novel. I’ve written internationally recognized essays. I am a New York Times bestselling author, something few writers can claim.

I made a choice to try again.

Resilience is a choice. Sometimes, my resilience waxes and wanes minute-by-minute. I think I can’t go on. I even give into failure, wallow for a bit. But I don’t allow myself to stay there. I put those feelings in a compartment; I get up; and I keep going.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
My New York Times bestselling memoir “Not Without My Father” is about making memories before it’s too late. I never had a great relationship with my dad. He was THAT person, the one a person avoids because he gets on her last nerve.

He ended up being the only person who could help me walk the 444-mile Natchez Trace to launch my debut novel. I undertook the walk as a publicity stunt to sell books, but I ended up having a life-changing adventure with my 80-year-old father.

While I’m grateful for the connection we made, I’m even more excited about how readers turn our story into their stories. I’ve heard about reader adventures as far away as South Korea and Australia, memories people made because they read my memoir.

We share our personal stories because it makes others brave enough to change, to believe, to try. With that in mind, I launched a Substack on Project 2025, a fascist manifesto for a new conservative US government. I use my experience with Christian nationalism to inform Americans about this odious document and what it means for their personal freedoms.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I joke that I’m a bulldog. I grab onto something I want, and I don’t let go. Stubbornness can be an asset when used with strategic intelligence.

But I’m also able to take a step back and evaluate what works and what doesn’t. I’m not afraid to try new things, to consider another approach to a problem.

I’ve learned the value of surrounding myself with fellow creators who understand this journey. Friends and family seldom get why people create. They aren’t supportive or even interested. Too often, they say soul-killing things. I often wonder how many amazing creations don’t happen because some family member or friend made a cutting remark, and the creator took it to heart and didn’t try. I learned to keep my creative self separate from my friends and family. It helps me avoid frustration and heartbreak, and it keeps me believing in my creations.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
American society is too slotted. We are bombarded with thousands of bits of information daily, and we make internal decisions about where each bit belongs. So many people in business and in life say, “This is where you fit, and you will not change my mind.” It is very difficult to find those people who are willing to say, “You know what? I see your potential to be in a different slot, and I’m going to help you get there.” It requires a constant willingness to see myself where I know I belong, even if gatekeepers constantly say I can’t enter.

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