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In this episode Mark interviews Nadine Williams, a storyteller, a writer, a poet, keynote speaker and entrepreneur.
Prior to the interview Mark shares some recent personal comments, a personal update, and a word from this episode’s sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.
In their conversation, Mark and Nadine talk about:
- How being a writer, speaker, and poet was something that Nadine stumbled upon after life threw her some curve balls
- The way that writing became therapy
- Nadine’s career in construction and a trade show encounter that led to her first published article
- The idea of a book being the result of the marriage between a writer and her pen
- Nadine’s use of the term “tears to ink” to describe the earliest therapeutic writing she had done
- The early reading Nadine did as a child, and the oral storytelling tradition she grew up with
- The experience of opening up for a talk that Michelle Obama did in Toronto in 2017
- The poem “Us Women” that Nadine read for the Obama event, which was originally the poem “Us Africans” that she re-adapted
- A custom line thrown in to page homage to Michelle Obama specifically
- What Nadine learned from an error made at that event
- The art of performance poetry and how all of Nadine’s writing has that element of performance
- The way that an entire poem can come from a single word
- The significant event that led Nadine into speaking at libraries and schools
- The art installations and nominations that Nadine was involved in
- Advice that Nadine would offer to beginning writers
- Some of the issues we have in Canada related to intolerance and people not being aware of their prejudices and biases
- Nadine’s 2021 Black History Month Theme – “Nurturing Hope through Allyship”
- And more…
After the interview, Mark reflects on Nadine’s ability to adapt and re-adapt both creatively and in an entrepreneurial way.
Links of Interest
- Nadine Williams Website
- Black History Organizations & Resources
- EP 175 – ScribeCount
- EP 133 – Anatomy of a Rebel with Sacha Black
- EP 155 – Rebel Reflections with Guest Host Sacha Black
- EP 163 – Getting a Creative Edge with Mickey Mikkelson
- The Indy Author Podcast – EP 063 – Wide for the Win with Mark Leslie Lefebvre
- Rebel Author Podcast EP – 71
- Findaway Voices
- Fear and Longing in Los Angeles
- Nano-Chameleon Parody Video
- Wide for the Win
- Wide Writer Survey
- Wide for the Win Submission Form
- Patreon for Stark Reflections
Nadine Williams is an avid child reader, turned wordsmith, turned working Artist. She is a storyteller, a writer, a poet, an arts educator, a Keynote Speaker and host workshop Facilitator, a visual artist, and entrepreneur.
Nadine is the author of the books The Culmination of Marriage Between Me and My Pen, Love Rocks, With This Pen I Do Tell, and Pen on Fyah.
The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0