Meet Lashawnda Jones

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lashawnda Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with LaShawnda below.

Hi LaShawnda , so excited to have you with us today, particularly to get your insight on a topic that comes up constantly in the community – overcoming creativity blocks. Any thoughts you can share with us?

When I first began my self-publishing journey, I was frantic about running out of things to write about. Creativity blocks, writing blocks, losing inspiration…. Doubt instilled by others had me questioning myself.
I wanted to write happy things. I wanted to be inspired by happy things.

I took Creative Writing in high school and thought I would become a romance writer because those were the books I read voraciously – historic romance novels. So, I thought when I sat down to write my first book, the story would be some type of romance. Something with a happy ending. But what kept coming out was all my angst. All my frustration. All my hurt and pain. Everything the body remembered and I tried to forget. At some point, I realized most of what I wrote about was my trauma or things produced from trauma.

There were long periods of time where I just didn’t want to write. I was like, well, if I can’t write about the things I want to write about, and only the painful things I don’t want to share with the world are coming through, then I won’t write anything.

My first self-published book was a small volume of poetry called, Clichés: A Life in Verse. About one hundred and fifty pages.

It’s a best seller for me at book events. That’s not saying much because it’s the least expensive book on my table at $5.00. I used a small press on my first few projects which had print minimums. So, I’m still selling from my original run nearly 20 years later.

Anyway, I refer to Clichés as the book I had to get out the way in order for the other books to come through. It holds all my anger, angst, and frustration up to that point in my life. It was impossible for me to write about soft happy things while dark rage was seeping through every crevice of my life.

A couple of years later, my second book of poetry was all the fantasies I floated through life with. A couple years later, my first full length book, an autobiographical collection of personal essays, My God and Me: Listening, Learning and Growing on My Journey covered everything about me. It wasn’t one-dimensional. It wasn’t just focused on anger, hurt or pain or overcoming violence committed against me. It was about the relationships that caused those things or led to situations where abuse was excused. It explored my navigation through and from away from those relationships and tracked my growth.

After developing and publishing My God and Me, I finally understood I can’t hide from what wants to come out.

What I considered to be a writing block was actually something very focused and very necessary for me to go through – to process. When I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, the words that flowed, needed to come out whether I felt comfortable sharing them with others or not. Realizing this has helped me remain creative and appreciate the need for my creativity to ebb and flow.

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?

I quit my corporate job in 2018 to embark on a life of grand entrepreneurial adventure! I gave myself five years to get to a point of my work providing a livable income for me. I had hoped to become a working photographer with local and national clients. Real estate, portraits, special events – I thought I would stay booked with photography.

Within that five-year frame, I planned to market, promote and actively sell my books, while creating and hosting workshops and conferences.

Fast forward to year six (this year), I haven’t approached the “live off my creative work” portion of the exercise. Occasionally. I consider returning to corporate in New York because I miss having money for my bills, creative projects, and travel. But something in me is still resisting returning to what I struggled so hard to get out of – the unending fast pace of city life.

Life being what it is, I continue to produce. My most recent book, Alone | All In One: A Solitary Journey, released on August 17, 2024, which was also my 49th birthday.

Alone is my third book of poetry and explores leaning into my solitude and coming to terms with aging as a single woman on her own in a world with a limited view and value of women in general. It’s going to be a very special volume for a very long time to me.

I’m also embarking on a new project about manhood. It will be a companion photo essay book to I AM WOMAN: Expressions of Black Womanhood in America, which I published in 2021. For I AM WOMAN, I had open calls for women who wanted to be photographed for the book and women who wanted to contribute literary content. I photographed about 50 women across the country and six contributed their words.

I love the portraits in that book. I asked the women to provide one word they use to describe themselves and attempt to embody it in the portrait session. The impetus for the project was to share what woman say about themselves, in an effort to confront and contradict what women, especially African American women, are normally told they are or aren’t. The women did not disappoint! The book is very poignant for me. Women chose to describe themselves with loving and empowering words.

Three and half years ago, I returned to Milwaukee, WI where I went to high school and college, and I purchased a house as an investment property with the intention of flipping it within three months. I’m still renovating it three years later and have long since moved into it. The house is on a street full of aging men. My three nearest neighbors are the inspiration for the I AM MAN companion to I AM WOMAN.

It’s the first time in my life, I’ve been surrounded by so many men. It’s taken time to get used to interacting with them because they say and do some really unnecessary things. Getting past my unease with them in some cases has been educational, enlightening and empowering. To mark this season of my life, I decided to photograph them in a similar format as the women.

I’m looking forward to this next project. In the meantime, please support me by purchasing and reviewing my new book, Alone | All In One: A Solitary Journey! I would appreciate your feedback.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Observation, self-awareness and empathy are my most enlightening and helpful traits.

They also flow and work well together.

I’m very content to be able to access my full range of emotions and understand what they are, why I’m feeling them, where they’re coming from, and what I can do with them. There were times when I either had no understanding of my emotions or suppressed them. For most of my early life, I was told how to engage with people despite my feelings. That was very damaging.

It took many years and separation from people (relatives), to learn to see, hear, accept and process myself. Now, I show up as I am.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

Often, I tell a story about my mom that’s foundational to how I see and comport myself. She died around my 21st birthday. I’ve spent more years living without her physical presence than I had with her. I don’t remember many conversations with her, but what I remember is so profound. Her words enrich and empower me every time I recall them.

The wife of my dad’s brother was incredibly cruel to me. She told me I was too black, too skinny, my hair was too short and nappy and I was “ret@rded.” I think my kindergarten and first grade classes were delayed. I do remember having a speech therapist at school in the 4th and 5th grades. So, her words had some weight.

Her verbal assaults are some of my earliest memories. We lived in close proximity to her for the first six years of my life. Her family moved across the country; our family followed a few years later.
Around the age of 10, I remember going to my mom in frustration. I told her what that relative was telling me. I was angry my mom wasn’t speaking up in my defense. Mind you, my dad had moved his five-member family across the country to move into his brother’s spare room in a two-bedroom apartment his three-member family occupied. We were effectively homeless and far away from my mother’s family. She had larger concerns than a disrespectful relative belittling her daughter. Quite honestly, I have never thought of it this way.

I don’t remember what I demanded of my mother that day, but I do know my unspoken questions were, “Why don’t you say something? Why don’t you defend me? Why don’t you stop her?”
I’m so outspoken now, people are shocked when I shut them down. My ability to defend myself is probably to the most powerful result from this exchange.

I told on the relative hoping my mom would confront her. Instead, Mom just sort of glanced over her shoulder towards me, she was cooking and I was ranting at her back, and said, “Well, are you?”
Stunned, I glared at her and said, “No!”

“Then what does it matter what she says?”

I swear, in that moment I understood exactly what she was saying. I couldn’t articulate how life-altering her simplicity was. But no one has been able to tell me anything about myself since that day without being corrected. I suffered through many years of people then telling me I was “too defensive.”
In hindsight, I understand Mom’s words to mean, there’s no need to worry about what people say about you when you know who you are.

From my teens into my thirties, grown and older women often asked me where my confidence came from. Each time I responded with this story about my mom.

The repeating blessing is understanding only I have the power to say who I am and live in those words. Both my agreement and disagreement are powerful. Someone else’s opinion of me is not my truth.
That one question asked of me nearly forty years ago not only define how I see myself in the world, but it has informed much of my creative work. Everything I’ve published is heavily rooted identity. My work is proof my Mom is ever present in my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://harvest-life.org
• Instagram: @harvestbooks1 ; @harvestphoto1
• Youtube: @ldjonsey (LaShawnda Jones)
• Other: Podcasters/Spotify: @HarvestLifer

Image Credits

Mom and me: unknown/photo booth
Festival shot: festival attendee (unknown)
Book cover banner compiled by me (covers designed by various people)
All others selfies or designed by me.