We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tina Marie Wilken a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tina Marie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

I have often been misjudged and mischaracterized. It has affected how I view myself and has stagnated my growth. I’m ready to change that.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello, I’m Tina Marie, an entrepreneur and book lover. I recently closed my catering and bakery business after extreme burn out. I nearly put myself in the hospital twice and at a point, I barely had the energy and bandwidth to take care of my basic needs. While I was healing through this time, I realized my priorities needed to change and that I’m literally killing myself to appease others.

During this time, I’ve found my love of reading again! It was something inherently me, in a time which I lost my identity. After about 7 months, still healing through burn out, I started to regain energy mentally, emotionally, and physically. I wanted to share the books I was reading, share my journey of healing my inner child, and make new friends in the book community. So, I decided to start my bookish social media accounts.

I’ve learned two absolute truths that are me. One, I love information and stories. They make me feel safe and help me understand myself, people, and the world around me. Two, I’ve always wanted to help people and provide value to my community.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I recently learned I may have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), along with being diagnosed with ADHD. Many of my troubles in relationships, school, and jobs can be attributed to my difficulties to adjusting to social norms, picking up nuanced social etiquette, and people misjudging me or my intent.

My mission is to continue to honor myself. I want to be safe being my true self and attract the right people to understand and connect with me.

I also want to use my platform to promote shopping at local bookstores, debut and indie authors, and diverse reads.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn that my career or business projects define my purpose. For lack of better words, it defined how valuable I am to others and had to fulfill me.

I’m learning I am PURPOSE. As long as I give value into everything I do, big or small, it doesn’t matter what I’ll do. As long as I can operate this way in every day interactions, to myself, my relationships, business, or passion projects, I’ll feel fulfilled and abundance will follow.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.burnedoutbookdragon.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/burnedoutbookdragon
• Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/tinamariewilken
• Other: TikTok:
  https://tiktok.com/burnedoutbookdragon

Image Credits

Tina Marie Wilken

*Authors pictured are Nancy Jooyoun Kim and Emma Törsz at the Tucson Festival of Books.