Today, we continue spotlighting the winners of our 2024 poetry contest! Next up is my good brother, Dondi Springer!
D.A. Springer walks between worlds as a poet-philosopher and visionary, weaving introspective verse and transformative wisdom into a tapestry of awakening. As a creator, D.A. Springer crafts portals of possibility where personal revelation meets universal truth.
His works—from the raw thunder of “Virus Verses” to the soul-stirring Poetic Paradigm—speak to seekers and dreamers, Gen X warriors, and old souls dancing on the edge of becoming. Through poetry that pulses with both shadow and light, D A. Springer guides readers to reclaim their power and voice their own declarations of change.
His winning poem, Echoes of Joy, came in at number three and will be recited during his live interview this afternoon!
Find his illuminated words across these digital platforms:
Introducing Our 2024 Poetry Contest Finalists and Prize Package Winners!
I am so incredibly proud of this year’s winners! Please help me congratulate these fantastic poets, who are now winners of Yecheilyah’s Annual Poetry Contest, Season 7!
Her Journey to Joy by Trevita Johnson
Hope Moon, Joyful Skies by Arsenio M. Sorrell, aka Deep Thought the Lyricist
Echoes of Joy by D.A. Springer
Winners, please look out for an email in the next 24-48 hours with details on how to secure your prized package and the next steps for your interviews.
Each of these poets will receive an individual spotlight on the blog and an interview feature. We are eager for you to hear their winning poems and the inspiration behind their pieces.
Please head over to Instagram and show them some love. The post will go live on my page shortly. View and follow @yecheilyah.
Cool Fun Fact: When we announced the semi-finalists, I didn’t know who the three winners would be. At least not consciously. It wasn’t until we went over the poems with a fine-toothed comb and arranged them that I realized I had placed the winning poets in almost the exact order of the poems we loved most!
There was not a single poem I did not personally enjoy.
Everyone contributed something distinct while also teaching us something.
The variety and ingenuity, from visual to audio, were incredible. I appreciate how everyone put their best foot forward. I thank you for participating and sharing your heart with us!
Without further delay, the poets who have made it into the semi-finals and will go on for a chance to win the cash prizes are as follows (in no particular order):
Her Journey to Joy by Trevita Johnson
Hope Moon, Joyful Skies by Arsenio M. Sorrell, aka Deep Thought the Lyricist
Joy in the Morning by Lilanie, aka Kerece Williams
Echoes of Joy by D.A. Springer
Parable of the Daughter by Chérie J. Grant
Only three of these five will advance to the finals! That’s right. You are looking at your winners and don’t know it. And nope, they are not in order of placement for all you smart people, tee hee.
The ultimate announcement will be made on Thursday, January 2, 2025! Which of these dope poets made it to the top 3? Stick around and find out!
We pushed it back a day in case some of you return from travel.
As with each year, you can read the winning poems on this blog. We are also interviewing them live, so you don’t want to miss that!
In the meantime, please show these poets some love when you see the post, which goes live on my page shortly. View and follow @yecheilyah.
Social media is a necessary tool for connecting in today’s world and it is a must for all businesses to have a social media presence in some capacity.
There are people whose entire livelihoods are built into their social media accounts. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and now Threads have become creator economies where high performing content gets you paid.
But what happens if you are hacked, the app malfunctions, or in the case of TikTok, the app is banned? Now all that work you’ve done and all those people you connected with are gone in an instant.
That’s why I believe authors should focus as much energy into building their own communities.
Community Membership Website
Outside of meeting up with people in person, community membership platforms are the next best thing. I am a member of a few, and I love that the person has their own social app, which they control. There are paid membership sites like Mighty Networks and Skool, and free ones like Discord. The only reason I don’t have one of my own is because I am already managing so many websites, including this blog. Otherwise, I would definitely consider it.
Blogging
This blog has helped me tremendously in my work, and Imma stick beside her.
Email List
By email list, I do not necessarily mean an author newsletter that reads like an ad. These newsletters usually have updates on the author’s latest books and events and usually go out once a month or so. (Pretty much whenever the author has a new book out.)
However, most author newsletters are boring, long, and cluttered with too many images.
The emails I am talking about are where the author speaks to their readers like friends. They might share thoughts on what’s happening in the world lately, how they feel, or offer an inspiring story. They might also throw in an update, but not so many that it becomes a billboard for their books. These emails might come out several times a month, and readers are okay with them because they are fun and inviting.
These emails are usually simple and sent using third-party providers like Mailerlite or Mailchimp. They give people the option to unsubscribe if they want, which is kinda legal. If you are sending out mass spammy marketing emails with no way for people to unsubscribe, you are breaking privacy laws.
Text List
By text list, I mean a professional text line for your business, not your personal number. This can be used to offer short, quick updates, alerts for sales, or an inspiring quote. Personally, I don’t have a text line, nor do I want one, but it is an option. Many businesses use them and do well.
In-Person Meet-Ups
This one is pretty self-explanatory. In person meetings, workshops, and events will always provide a special kind of value you won’t find online and I don’t think we should neglect them. Zoom meetings can also be a great way for meeting up to see people face to face.
As for socials, remember to back up your content, download your data, and save viral moments like videos you might want to repurpose later!
Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest this year. We will announce the semi-finalists on Friday, December 20, 2024.
In the meantime, the contest hoodies and t-shirts are now available on the website! Your support helps us keep this contest going year after year and keep it free to enter!
They are comfy, like a warm hug, and come in black and dark chocolate colors, with more to come. Sizes go up to 3XL.
The website also has a donation page if you are not interested in the gear but want to help.
As mentioned, I am reviving the Stella series with a fourth book! For those who have not read the first three books, I’ll share excerpts, nuggets, and tidbits as we prepare for the fourth installment. Today, we are refamiliarizing ourselves with some of the family. Enjoy!
Stella May
Born in 1845, Stella is the daughter of a Black woman named Deborah on Paul Saddler’s Plantation in Shreveport, Louisiana. From a young age, she can remember running through cotton fields and being loved by her family. To young Stella, life is simple and fun. She eats sweet cakes, plays with her friend Carla, and helps the grownups by carrying buckets of water to the field. Stella discovers she is a slave for the first time after Deborah’s unexplained death. Now, she learns the hard way the difference between slavery and freedom.
Solomon Curtis May
Solomon has no speaking roles, but his existence is essential for the family timeline. Solomon Curtis May is Stella’s only son, born in the fall of 1870 after she was sexually assaulted by the husband of her mistress. Solomon falls in love with a white woman and marries her after inheriting land outside Chicago. They have four girls: Deborah, named for his grandmother, Judith, Rebecca, and Sara.
Judith May
Solomon’s daughter Judith married a Black man and gave birth to a baby girl she named Stella after her grandmother. However, after enduring much teasing and discrimination for her mixed features, Judith’s daughter copes with this trauma by denying part of her ancestry. She changes her name from Stella to Sidney McNair and passes for white. After marrying a white man and having his children, Sidney lives her life on the other side of the color line.
Sidney McNair
Her aunt Sara influenced Sidney to pass for white and learn to enjoy her privileges. Sidney marries a wealthy white man named Clarence McNair, and they have four children: Edward, Karen, Joseph, and Glenda, whom they raise as white.
However, when she finally reveals the truth to her adult children in 1979, the shock of their real identity is a betrayal that stretches across generations.
Karen and Noah
Sidney’s daughter Karen McNair falls in love with a young Black man named Noah Daniels. He is a leading member of the Black Panther Party and thinks he’s dating a white girl. At this time, Karen also does not know that she is mixed race, although she has many more African American features than her siblings. The couple endures many trials because of their perceived interracial union. Together, they have a son, Noah Jr, who has a much more significant role as an adult in book four.
Edward McNair
Of all Sidney’s children, her sons are the most conflicted by their mother’s betrayal. Carrying many characteristics of his father, Clarence, Edward has not only lived his life as a white man but has also enjoyed the privileges of doing so and cannot come to grips with his new reality. In brief, Edward does not want to be Black, and his daughter, Cynthia, does not yet know about her true identity because of her father’s secrets.
However, although he appears to reject his heritage, something in Edward’s subconscious won’t allow him to completely forget it. We see this when he names his youngest son after his great-grandfather, Solomon.
Joseph McNair
Joseph is also conflicted about his mother’s decisions, but goes in another direction. Still under the illusion that he is just a white boy, he nevertheless feels sympathy for the plight of Blacks and fights for their freedom with his friends during the 1960s.
Unlike Edward, Joseph wishes he were Black. He grew up to marry a Black woman named Fae, and together, they have two children, a boy named Michael and a girl named Tanya.
Introducing Tanya and Michael…
Born in the early 90s, Tanya and Michael are the children of Joseph and Fae and are young adults in the early 2000s. They face the challenge of defining themselves in a society shaped by their father’s choices and haunted by the truths Stella once fought to conceal.
In book three, they are small children, but in book four, they are young adults. In his part, we weave together the struggles of a new generation to find their voice, identity, and place in a world still wrestling with its past. The echoes of Stella’s decisions resound, reminding us that even as times change, the threads of heritage and truth remain unbroken.
Disclaimer: I do not think blogging is for everyone. These articles are here to help guide and encourage you to discover your own systems and practices, as each person’s journey is and will be different.
Let me be clear: I did not start this blog to write these books.
I started this blog for some other reason, and in the process of being creative, I wrote about these topics until they culminated into whole books.
After three years of writing poetry dedicated to Black people and Black womanhood, I compiled those poems into a book called I am Soul.
After sharing excerpts from an exciting short story out of my wheelhouse but fun to write, it eventually culminated into an urban fantasy novel.
After writing Black History articles every Friday for Black History Month that went beyond February, the project culminated in a full-length volume people can now enjoy anytime they pick up the book instead of waiting for Friday.
I hope you see where I am going with this.
In the same way that journaling can help us to organize our thoughts, writing about your area of expertise on a blog can be good practice for book publishing.
Posting content on social media and a blog is a form of publishing. Whenever you hit that post button on a blog article or a Facebook post, you are publishing content. Here are two powerful ways it helps to prepare you to write a book.
It Helps You to Get Used to Writing Publicly
When writers publish books, they open themselves to be judged, not just praised. When you post content online, you engage in a similar vulnerability. Your thoughts are now live for everyone to see, critique, or admire. This is similar to what happens each time an author publishes a book. Writing on a blog or posting to social media helps you to get used to hearing feedback about your writing.
It Helps You to Build an Audience / Readership
One of the significant issues new self-published authors face is publishing books with no readership. While established authors like Ashley Antoinette can pop out with a new book and surprise readers, new authors may have a hard time doing the same because they don’t have the audience for it to be successful. They can publish books on a whim, but they also run the risk of people not buying them. Blogging can help with that.
While practicing how to write publicly, you also build up a tribe of readers who like what you write! You attract people who enjoy the same things you do, not just with writing but with life. You might all like to travel, garden, or camp. You might all be married, single, or divorced. You might all be business owners, work a job you love, or retired.
These genuine connections help build bridges of commonality that eventually lead to mutual support systems. You also get instant feedback that will help you test-drive your story idea.
The PBS Blog 