We were lucky to catch up with Candace Smith recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Candace thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

A magazine is a community. I had to learn what it means to be a part of a community. When it comes to magazines there is always a love for something. It can be as simple as crocheting. When you announce to the world that I love to crochet and in this magazine that’s all I’m going to discuss. You make a call of action to all crochet lovers and those who have an interest and then you build a community. You then begin to communicate to that community everything about that subject and you listen to their responses, and you begin to grow and develop a world or network of likeminded people.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve always had a love and curiosity for people, and I enjoy writing my thoughts down. When I started my first magazine it was for plus size women. I started it in 2009 while in college, I gained a lot of support and was featured in the Florida Times Union Newspaper, several talk shows and I met some amazing plus size women that inspired me to live out loud. During that time my mother was organizing a pageant for plus size women, and I was asked to write about it for a local publication and that sparked the idea to write about the pageant and other plus size events in my own publication. I began to connect with men and women that modeled or catered to plus size women. I traveled to interview plus size women that wanted to speak about their experiences, and I began to write about them and publish them in my magazine. I decided that the purpose of the magazine at that time was to celebrate and uplift that plus size person because at that time there was not a lot of opportunity for that.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My resilience comes from my calling to bring together certain communities and provide them a space to develop and publish their messages. I’ve had to be resilient in times where my personal growth and development meant that my business had to grow and develop as well. Sometimes it is hard to realize that when you change in your life that your business but grow and change as well. When I realized that it was easier to accept the changes that came, and I was able to step into a flow.

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

A lesson that I had to unlearn is that you can do this alone. There was a time when I wanted everyone to be apart of my business journey-family, friends and even boyfriends. When things became complicated I took on this idea that I can do bad all by myself–in business and I found out that was not true. Even in my personal life I had to learn that yes, we need each other but wisdom is needed more. When I began to learn how to qualify people to play different roles in my life–friend, romantic partner, business partner, writer, client– or whatever role they needed to play then I became more successful in those relationships.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bit.ly/3NT7GA4
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queenconnectpub/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087139660480
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/PHATABULOUSMAG
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpwVaL4w3vO3F7pNf_ngR_g

Image Credits
Jose Pagan Photography-magazine and book cover A1Lenz Productions-book cover Style Your Curves-wardrobe