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

Bemsi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

I hope that when people think of me and the life I lived, they’ll think of someone who sought the Lord. Someone who fought, not merely for success but for life. Someone who endured and happily met the prize of her enduring in Christ. I hope that a thread would be seen, running through my life a story embedded and nestled in a larger story of the Creator’s design. I hope that a thought of me would lead to hopefulness.

Bemsi, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

It’s hard for me to characterize myself as just one thing or to identify myself with what I do or have done. So, I’ll say it this way: my name is Bemsi (bum-sah) Wallang and I am a Cameroonian-American child of God. I have been writing since I was 8 years old, but when I was a child, I wanted to be everything. Now that I am older, I see myself as more of a surveyor of all things, but still a lover and curator of written words. I have always had a sense of wonder and curiosity to myself, and this has anchored me in the way I see and interact with the world and its people.

Writing first found me when I was in the third grade. My family and I had just moved to Georgia from Wisconsin. My teacher was my only friend in the class, and what I loved the most about her was that she understood and promoted the value of storytelling. In retrospect, I remember spending more time writing in her class than doing anything else. That’s probably just the kid in me talking, though. Anyway, I wish I could remember which prompt she had given us in particular, but we were having our writing time and I vividly remember being the one student who kept going up to the supply table for more paper. No one was really coming up after their second or third sheet. No one but me. We were probably only writing for 45 minutes, but to me, it had been hours of me and my imagination having the time of our lives. I didn’t think much of this until I realized I had collected several 5+ page stories about the world I wished I lived in. The dreams I had and the girl I wanted to be felt so far-removed from my reality, considering that I had not only moved states, but demographics at large. I came from a predominately-white community in Madison, WI and was rather quickly introduced to blackness in a new way in metro-Atlanta, Georgia. I could go on and on about that, but I’ll just say that this robust and sharply new world met me with a new hobby, just for me. I learned for the very first time that I had a voice and I could use it to comfort me. If only I knew then how it would carry me.

I’ve had the privilege of living through many special moments throughout my journey as a writer that have reinforced how drawn I am to words. When I was in the fourth grade, around Thanksgiving our teacher had our class write a statement on what we were thankful for. I don’t even remember what I wrote, but I saw my teacher and her assistant make copies of it for other teachers in the hall. I was so confused by this, but I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. Writing felt natural to me, it was the attention that didn’t. As a child, I didn’t realize that my consistent As on spelling tests or premature understanding of literary devices were actually speaking to me and those around me. I didn’t start listening until the 6th grade when my relationship with poetry began. The poetry unit in my literature class shook my world even further than the supply table did when I was 8. It was my introduction to one of the purest and most beautiful art forms there is. I was taught by an outstanding teacher and I had the honor of being taught by her for three additional years. Through those years, my affinity for words only widened and I began to believe that the voice I had discovered long ago could be used for more than me and my comfort, but for the comfort, pleasure, intrigue, and solace of any and everyone. I had potential, and so I listened. I began carrying my journal with me EVERYWHERE. I wrote poems, stories, songs, and yes, even fanfiction. I couldn’t explain my inclination to write but I knew that I needed to. I didn’t try to quell my desire; I was dedicated to its flourishing. I entered contests at school. I joined the newspaper. I had a poem of mine published in our yearbook and even performed and delivered speeches at school on several occasions. I was an active member of a Cameroonian youth empowerment organization called CAMELA, the Cameroonian Emerging Leaders Association, which gave me the space to freely be myself as a living, breathing fusion of cultures in a way that I have never experienced since. I often shared my writing in the CAMELA space and my passion for it concurrently deepened. My world with words had a beautiful beginning.

I would be remiss to talk about my love for words without mentioning just why I found (and still find) them so comforting. At a young age, I had to befriend the inevitability and immensity of change. I had to accept that there were matters in my life beyond the scope of my capacity or control. Thus, I ran to make words my refuge. I learned to live in the feelings they evoked. I found this world to be far more stable and constant than the reality I lived in. I deeply needed words because of who they allowed me to be. I could curate, conjure, coalesce–all with words. My imagination was the one place where I could thrive, which made surviving and sojourning through my reality all the more worth it.

Ten years into my journey with writing, I made a promise to myself. I was a senior at the third high school I attended in my adolescence. As the new girl for what felt like the millionth time, my mind was set on graduating and finding my way to the rest of my life. I already knew at this point that writing would be my means of doing so. I dreamed of the cover design before I even realized that I was writing a book. God confirmed it to me while journaling one day that year, and the first volume of “The Retrospective Collective” was underway. I promised myself that I would publish it by my sophomore year of college. Though I ultimately published it two years behind schedule, I successfully published my first-ever manuscript in my sophomore year and submitted it for my university’s poetry prize. Though I lost the prize, I won my own favor and was so proud of myself for committing to my end of the promise to the best of my ability.

Presently, I stand 18 years removed from the moment I knew words were part of me. I view this truth as God’s precious grace to me. I have had the sheer privilege of sharing this earth with truly wonderful and wonder-filled people. One of them is my dear, late grandfather. He was a writer himself, among many other things, and he encouraged me to never stop writing. He kept a daily journal even to his 80s which never ceases to amaze me whenever I think of it or him. He had such an unassuming posture toward life. Don’t mistake it for imbalanced meekness or frailty. My grandfather was a fortress of a man with reverence and curiosity for all things. Part of my life’s work is carrying his spirit as delicately as I can, not only through my writing but in the way that I live.

I published TRC 1 in October 2019 while in graduate school. The majority of its poems are from my college years, but there are a few pieces in it that go as far back as 2011. College was certainly a renaissance period for me as a writer. My “refuge in words” motif was so purely revitalized throughout these years. I became a staff writer for my school’s premier black-led publication, Elite. Though I wasn’t an English or a Journalism major in college, writing for Elite made me feel validated as a writer. It reminded me that no matter what I study or end up following career-wise, my nature as a writer will never change. I also explored blogging (WordPress) during this period and used my Twitter and Instagram platforms to consistently share thinkpieces, poetry, mini-essays, and other pieces.

From 2019 to today, I’ve continued sharing my writing through my social media platforms. I heavily utilize the “story” feature on Instagram as an efficient, yet effectual means of spreading my long-form content in suitable pieces. When posting, I typically use either my own images or those I’ve sourced online to formulate posts and pair them with original poetry or prose pieces as captions. I am unyieldingly faithful to my personal Tumblr; it’s been a reliable extension of my journals for over 12 years now. Additionally, I launched a freelance editing business in 2020 called “The Write Way” where I provide coaching, revising, and editing services to individuals seeking to intentionally accelerate their writing. Since the pandemic, I’ve had to reconsider what being a writer looks like for me. My world and my plans were completely altered, as were everyone’s, but I faced this shift in ways that significantly disrupted not only what I had in the works, but what I hoped for as well. I still wrote, but I felt ashamed. I knew that people expected more of me. I was trying, but I felt as if I had nothing to show for it. My hyper-awareness of this inevitably led me to a place of dread and self-loathing. I would either write to soothe my pain or utterly avoid it and the introspection it involves. At this point, writing was only a reminder of how cyclical things became, but so was not writing. There was no escape, and somehow the words that first won me over found a way with me again. I recounted: encouraging words from strangers and loved ones alike, the healing power of the word of God, even some of my own writing. I knew that my relationship with words wasn’t over; it was only reforming. With a new year upon me, I am eager to see where words will take me. I am hopeful for the chance to see some of my long-held and dear dreams through. Without divulging any further, just be sure to look out for me! You’ll know once you see it.

I believe my authenticity sets me apart from others. I strongly believe in the preservation and upkeep of one’s individuality. “Coolness” is a vain pursuit but an internal honor. The understanding I have of the sovereignty of God simply has no room for me to conform to another person’s more palatable, shrunken idea of me. I was raised to embody humility and virtue, not out of cowardice, but with poise.

I’m 26 now yet I feel like I have a 14-year-old inside of me at moments. Sometimes I am unsure just how determined I am to face not only the world but myself as well. I can’t say that I dreamed so extensively about my future when I was young. I grew up very quickly and simply didn’t have the time to consider who I’d be when I’d get older. My dreams were more episodic and spatial than specific. I knew I wanted to be happy. I knew I wanted to live in New York one day. Maybe have a dog. Maybe loc my hair. Someday experience love. I knew those things but nothing further. With that being said, I am most proud of the fact that I still look at this world with wonder. I absolutely adore the concept of possibility. Believing that things can somehow be for me truly blows my mind. I love that God offers me sunrises each day and sunsets at night as reminders of not only His foresight but His mercy unto me to keep going. There is pure beauty in this world that is more than worthy of my thoughts and admiration. Life can sometimes be too ultimate for my liking, so I deeply cherish moments when I am wholly lost in wonder.

I hope that my readers and potential clients will see that I am just a young woman sojourning through life just like them, but with a unique proposal that words possess much more power than we often realize. And this power can be bent for good. It’s this very power that has brought so much wonder and joy to my life. I am a proponent of it and I hope to change the way that many people not only view writing or words but life at large.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I’m still not sure where this came from. I told my mom that she made me this way and she scolded me for it. You’ve probably heard of the Anne Hathaway film, “Ella Enchanted.” Lovely film. For years I would ask myself why I felt so much like her. If you haven’t seen it, Ella was essentially *cursed* with perpetual obedience, even to her demise. Sometimes I would even dare voice this comparison to others, inviting them to join in on my own self-deprecation. I am unlearning how to be an instinctual people-pleaser. I believe it will only take practice and the Holy Spirit for me to learn how to love God, myself, and others just as I should. The prevalence of boundaries in our culture arose right on time for me, as did turning 25. I can’t explain it to you but my literal energy for the unnecessary has been actively diminishing since that day. We thank God. The work is ongoing–at the heart of me I am someone that loves very deeply and is recovering from a poor tendency of wistful thinking and overcompensating when things don’t go my way. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that simply not opening the door for myself to get hurt to begin with is so freeing. But I’ve found that sacrificially loving others doesn’t come with a hurt-free guarantee. Now you see my dilemma! All that aside, resting in God’s power to preside over all things and thoroughly take care of me no matter who is or isn’t in my life is carrying me, perfectly.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative person is knowing that no matter how things look, I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. And I can rest in that. My Creator endowed me with my gifts, but they were never meant to be just mine. My gifts are to be shared and multiplied. A simple “thank you for sharing” in response to a post or a dm from someone expressing that I could put to words a feeling that was once obscure for them means the world to me. Knowing that I am part of God’s work in reaching His people through art is beyond rewarding to and for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.instagram.com/bemsspeaks/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/b.emsimbom/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/beingbemsi