We were lucky to catch up with Jacquitta A. Mcmanus recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jacquitta A. thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Writing and publishing my first children’s book was a learning journey. Based on my experience as a graphic designer, I knew I could put books together. I knew I could find good illustrators to work with to bring the characters and worlds to life, based on my degree in Mass Communication with an emphasis on digital animation. I also knew I wanted to write girl power adventures. And based on my experience writing, directing, and producing a short film, I knew the structure of a story. What I didn’t know was the level of story development I would need to write a series and how to market my book after publication.

I didn’t understand the level of story development required for a series until a few published books later, as I pushed myself to write more books in the series. The things I would love to go back and change in Anyia—Dream of a Warrior after writing Anyia—It Begins still cross my mind. But it’s a journey, and sometimes you have to go through the process to learn what you don’t know. I can see the growth, which makes me smile.

Now… knowing what I know now :), I tell new authors to start by developing their characters first. Really get to know the main characters. Don’t just fill out a character profile and think that’s all you need. Write a lot of character journals. Write the characters’ journals about their favorite day, worst day, what they would do if confronted with their enemy, or their biggest problem before they are ready. Write a character journal about what they would do to get themselves ready and, when they face trials during that process, what they would do to overcome them. What do they hear, smell, and see when they wake up? What do they do for food, and what do they do if they don’t have food? Where do they go when they are scared, and who do they want to talk to when they’re happy? All those things help to develop the characters, their world, and the plot of the story. By doing this exercise, authors are often amazed at how much they learn about their characters and how their initial thoughts about the story’s growth and development evolve as they gain more insight.

Only if marketing were that easy :(.

Marketing is one of the biggest skills needed for any online business, and publishing books is no exception. I’m still learning and growing in that area. So, if you have any tips on how to market fantasy adventure books focusing on girl power, please share them. You can send me a direct message on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/worldstodiscover.

Jacquitta A. , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hello, I’m Jacquitta A. McManus, a children’s book author who started WorldsToDiscover.com with a passion for creating adventure stories for children featuring Black characters. My journey began with a degree in Mass Communication, where I focused on digital animation and started developing my creative skills. Over the years, I’ve worked as a graphic designer and art director, specializing in branding and book design at educational institutions. My experiences, particularly in book layout and branding, laid the groundwork for launching my publishing company.

The idea of writing and publishing began to take shape when I noticed a lack of adventure stories for children featuring Black girls as the heroes of their own stories. Imagine having a love of reading and going into a bookstore, never finding a book with a character that looks like you as the protagonist or even a book with characters that look like you—never being able to truly relate. That was my experience, and I didn’t want that for my daughter. I wanted her to have a reading experience as a child that I never had. So, I decided to fill that gap, starting with my Anyia series, which follows a young girl defying tradition to become a warrior. My books aim to entertain, inspire, and empower young readers, celebrating diversity, resilience, and girl power.

My books are for ages 0 to 12, including a fantasy adventure picture book for ages 0 to 4, an early reader chapter book that is an adventure mystery for ages 4 to 8, and my middle-grade fantasy adventure books for ages 8 to 12. Part of what sets me apart is that I want to capture readers from birth until they start reading young adult books. I want to keep them inspired and entertained. I want to give them the power of reading. Through my stories, I strive to inspire, entertain, and help increase their imagination, reading, and cognitive skills.

One of the things that makes me proud is seeing kids excited about my books—especially Black girls. I remember being at an event where a mother stopped by to tell me that her daughter loved my book. She then turned and pointed. Her daughter, who was so shy, with an adorable smile, kept peeking at me, and as she walked by, she waved. It was cute, and that moment showed me that I had given her an experience I didn’t have as a child. And to me, that means everything. To give her some of that power of reading I didn’t get…to give her some girl power.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Grammarly has been a great tool for me. It helps me catch copy edits and other details, which saves me money when I’m ready to send a story off for a line and copy edit to an editor. But having ChatGPT has been a game changer. It wasn’t around when I started my company, WorldsToDiscover.com, but it’s a great resource for authors.

For me, the power of ChatGPT lies in its ability to help me analyze and brainstorm ideas, worlds, and characters. I downloaded the app Story Planner to help me keep all of my stories organized because the app I had been using was outdated. Story Planner has a section where you can add your character profiles. I took both of my Anyia books, uploaded them to ChatGPT, and asked it to give me a character profile of all of my characters throughout my series. It came back with insights about my characters that I hadn’t even thought of. It was a great resource. It’s also great to ask what would happen in a certain type of world and what magic or technology would be found there.

For authors who are just starting to learn story structure and worldbuilding, I might not recommend starting there, but it’s absolutely a great tool for those who have storytelling structure down and are looking to elevate it.

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

Hmmm… life is an adventure. It’s a journey in itself, filled with its own try/fail cycles, just like the adventure books I write. And in 2020, I hit my life’s biggest trial and tribulation.

In January 2020, I went into surgery to have my left thyroid, classified as a goiter by its enormous size, removed. I had the surgery after having a CT scan done on my neck. The goiter was pressing on my trachea. I woke up from that surgery with the doctor, nurses, etc., looking down at me. I felt like I was in a movie scene. Then my doctor told me I had lost my ability to speak.

Now, I understood everything she told me…she said she looked but couldn’t find my vocal nerve…or nerves. I was so drugged up; who knows which. I remember the sadness in her eyes. Now, as I said, I understood everything she told me, but when everyone was gone and the attending nurse asked me what I wanted to eat and drink, I still tried to talk. My mouth moved, but nothing came out. It was at that moment I really understood. I couldn’t speak. Not a sound. Then, I remember pointing to the choices the nurse held up. I remember my doctor walking back by, and she and the nurse gestured something to each other, and then later, the doctor, my doctor, walked back by, grabbing my foot and telling me she’d fix it.

I didn’t even cry. Honestly, it was all the drugs I was on. I was still on cloud nine.

Then I remember the nurse taking me back to my recovery room and telling me my family knew about my voice. I remember my son and husband coming into the room. I remember my son sitting down and staring at me. I don’t know why, but I tried to say something to him. Maybe it was because I didn’t want him to be afraid of the tube coming out of my neck. But something came out. It wasn’t pleasant at all, but it came out, and I remember seeing them both smile. My voice wasn’t normal, but I had one.

Two weeks later, I was called to come into the doctor’s office. I tried to get the nurse to tell me over the phone why, but she wouldn’t. I told my husband I had cancer. He told me to stop thinking like that. “You don’t have cancer,” he said. But I did. In the doctor’s office, my doctor told me I had poorly differentiated thyroid cancer. I remember crying. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. I couldn’t believe I was going to have to tell my kids I had cancer. So, I cried.

I remember the nurse telling me if I needed to cry or scream, to call the office, they would listen. I never called. As I’m telling this story, my eyes are tearing up. It was truly one of the hardest days of my life.

Poorly differentiated thyroid cancer is an aggressive cancer. But to be honest, I heard my doctor telling me the name of the cancer, but it didn’t register as that being the name. I remember her giving me statistics and telling me the next step, which meant I would have to have the right thyroid removed immediately so I could go into treatment.

So, before they let me leave the office, my second surgery was scheduled, which was exactly three weeks after the first one. And wouldn’t you know it, two weeks later, I got a call. Not to come into the office; I guess at this point, there was no real need, but the right side had cancer, too. But it wasn’t poorly differentiated thyroid cancer, which was a blessing. It was Papillary Thyroid Cancer. Stage 1. I think they’ve only spoken to me about that cancer once or twice in my whole cancer journey. It’s my footnote cancer.

So now, I have two thyroid cancer diagnoses and needed to get a radioactive iodine treatment. But COVID-19 hit, and everything shut down. What luck, huh? :( Oh, and my left vocal cord was paralyzed. So what did I do? I turned to my books. My books were my voice. They were my distraction…my lifeline.

In 2020, I published a short comic, Anyia–Warrior’s Challenge, which is free on Amazon, Talee and the Maze-a-thon Race, one of my adventure mysteries for my early readers, two journal books for our young girls to write in, and Baby Princess and the Lost Doll, my picture book adventure for our baby readers.

Now, for my diagnosis, I was able to get my treatment a few months later. There has been no evidence of disease since my second surgery. My voice took about 9-10 months to get to where it is now, which people think sounds the way it did before. To me, I sound hoarse a lot, but it’s okay.

Due to having one functioning vocal cord, I have permanent shortness of breath, but after having filler treatments, that has gotten a lot better.

I’m also no longer afraid to speak at events. During the first year of my voice journey, I turned down talking events.
And I write. I write. I write. My trials and tribulations have made me more dedicated to storytelling than ever.

Now, I’m working on several novels, including my first graphic novel, Sanjo. Take a moment to check out some of the illustrations we are working on. Visit my site, WorldsToDiscover.com, and click on Sanjo.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://WorldsToDiscover.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worldstodiscover/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquitta