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

Alright, Xiomarra thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. 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?

Growing up in a working-class family, there was a lot of emphasis on being “successful,” and by that I mean getting educated in a field that would allow me to get a secure job that would make money. Obviously, the idea of being an artist was in direct contradiction to the hopes and expectations of my upbringing. I have always had a creative spirit and I was allowed to dip my toes in artistic extracurriculars, but it was never seen as something that I should dedicate too much of my time to because I didn’t have the financial safety net required to be a bohemian. My parents surely didn’t want me to fall into the starving artist trope, so despite the creative spirit inside me begging to be unleashed, I focused very hard on taking a more pragmatic, academic path. I remember constantly being told by the adults around me that I was “smart” and not “creative” and not to waste my time on the arts because they don’t pay, even though those were the things that most fulfilled me. When I think about it, it’s no wonder I was full of so much teenage angst! Imagine constantly denying your authentic self because your economic situation has forced you into constant survival mode. It’s terrible.
Even now after about 6 years of serious work and commitment to my artistic practice, I still deal with misguided assumptions and opinions about my art simply being a “hobby,” something frivolous to pass the time. Often, my full-time profession seems to overshadow my creative career and I truly dislike being characterized in a capitalistic sense by the facet of my life that brings in the most money. I also dislike the assumption that because I have a full-time career that isn’t directly linked to my art that I am not serious and passionate about my creative endeavors.
I think Western society is so obsessed with the idea of professionalism and income to the point that it creates this rigid dichotomies within society and within ourselves. I always say that I am an educator by profession, but an artist by passion and those two aspects of myself can exist at equal levels of value and importance to me. It doesn’t have to be this either or thing.
I’m a very big proponent of the idea that multiple things can be true at once. I can be passionate about my art while also being passionate about the work I do with my 9-to-5. I can be both a professional educator and a professional artist even if I can’t commit the 40 hours a week to my art every week. I can be successful as both an educator and an artist, even if I am not making a consistent salary off of my creative work.
I think it all comes down to personal fulfilment and I don’t think that should all fall to any one thing or one area in anybody’s life.

Xiomarra, 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?

My favorite line of my author’s bio is that I am a jack of all trades who hates to admit that I am a master of none. I like to wear a lot of hats and that’s why I dabble in so many different creative mediums and community work. I think it honestly stems from me never feeling like I fully fit in anywhere, so I decided to just try to be everywhere instead of forcing myself back inside myself. About 2 years ago I learned that I was an Aquarius rising, so those feelings finally made sense!

As for my work, I think I’ve always been a natural storyteller. When I was in elementary school, I participated in this Storytelling competition event and won even though I told a completely random story to the judges that was nothing like the one that was read to us. I’ve just been chasing that high of being able to tell people a story they want to pay attention to my whole life, whether it be through art, song, poetry, whatever.

I really pride, and surprise, myself on the level of giving I’m able to do with my work. I don’t necessarily consider myself a private person, but in face-to-face interactions, it’s very hard for me to muster the level of vulnerability that I’m able to display in my art. It’s like this free-for-all process where everything is fair game; there isn’t a topic or “truth” of mine that I’m not willing to poke at and prod and display for all to see, no matter how weird or sad or upsetting it may be. A central tenet of my work is that the truth needs to be told and I feel guilty not giving that to my audience.

Currently, I’m working on a writing project that dabbles very deeply in the mother wound. Every time I have a new piece, I make this joke that it’s another “I’m sad about my mom” poem. But the entirety of the collection is dealing with the effects of generational trauma, with myself as a culprit included, as both a daughter and mother, and as simply a woman, who used to be a girl, existing in the world today. It’s a very somber take on my reality of what it is to exist as a woman in all these roles I have to play and how I can exacerbate and create my own suffering at times, but I do try to include elements of hope and perseverance, and above all love. I think that’s the at the heart of everything I do: love. If I don’t love it, I can’t create it or create about it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I have to say finding my people within the creative community has been the best takeaway from becoming an artist. Yeah, it’s cool to get paid, win awards, and get published, but the support you get and the support you give is so invaluable. When I first started my journey as an artist, I’m not going to lie I was very lonely. There was no one to talk to about my projects, no one to collaborate with, no one to brainstorm and develop ideas with, no one to learn from! I was a weird kid who grew into a weird adult and I’m just so grateful now to have my community of misfits to find ourselves in and grow alongside each other with. It’s a very rare thing to find people who don’t want to compete with you and tear you down, but love you and your work and want to develop their own craft hand-in-hand alongside you
Now, I can go almost anywhere and run into someone I know or someone I want to know. I feel like a sponge. I just want to take it all in and learn about everyone’s inspiration and processes, and it’s always such a refreshing thing to talk with someone who is as invested in your work as you are in theirs. Before I put on my artist hat, it was so hard to find people who just “got” it.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I feel really phony answering this question because I only have 1.7K followers, which in the grand scheme of things is not a lot, and I’m also not really a big social media person, but the friends I do have, I’ve built and maintained these relationships by being genuinely interested and invested in our connections. Personally, as someone who’s deeply committed to preservation of humanity, I don’t like to think of my friends as “followers.” It’s one thing to build a following on content and virality and it’s another to build community and provide mutual support, which is my ultimate goal as an artist. Everywhere I go, whether it be an event for me or for my friends, I make sure to engage with people. I learn about them; I listen to them; I want to make them feel like their presence and their existence matters, because it does, especially to me.
Of course, I always plug my social media to keep in touch, but I am genuine on that. I love sending messages of support or congratulations and sharing my friends’ successes for all to see on my social media, I think that act of genuine care is what builds a real following and not just garners a high number of “followers.”
This also really helps me in return because I’m constantly receiving messages encouraging me to submit my work to places I hadn’t heard of before and having my name shared in rooms of opportunity. It’s a mutually symbiotic relationship that I’m extremely grateful for.
Granted, this is obviously a slower and more time and effort consuming model of engagement, but I think it’s worth it because it ensures that they will still be around even when the 15-minutes of fame has passed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://xiomilann.substack.com/
• Instagram: @90strashpop

Image Credits
Carrie photo: Jessica Rodriguez Photography