Each week get to know one of our amazing staff members as they talk about their writing heroes, advice to writers, and what book is currently sitting on their nightstand.
This week, meet Dara Beevas!
Wise Ink: Describe your role at Wise Ink in two sentences or less.
Dara Beevas: I manage authors and guide our marketing team. I’m also in charge of our events, product development, and author impact initiative.
WI: What is your day at Wise Ink normally look like?
DB: I’m coaching my authors through the writing, editing, revising, and design processes. I’m also working on initiatives to make our authors and their books more visible. I love networking, meeting writers at events, and working on project that share what we’ve learned with the publishing community at-large.
WI: What types of books are your favorites to publish, and why?
DB: I love almost every genre, but authors who publish inspirational and self-help titles tend to be my favorites. Those authors are usually motivated to bring light, healing, and new perspective to the world. There’s nothing quite like a transformational book that you can read again and again and have it change your life each time.
WI: Who are some of your writing heroes?
DB: Beautiful question! Books saved my life. My earliest memories are with books in my hands. As a middle-grade reader, my writing heroes were Peggy Parrish (author of the Amelia Bedelia books) and Mildred Taylor, whose book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry forever changed my relationship with books. I also count Alice Walker, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and J. California Cooper as my other writing heroes. P.S. I share a birthday with Sonia Sanchez, one of the most incredible poets of our time.
WI: If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring author, what would you say?
DB: Embrace every pitfall. Believe in your work, especially when you face pitfalls. Write for the voice whose transformation depends on the story you have to tell.
WI: What are you currently reading?
DB: Untethered Soul by Michael Singer (reading this life-changing book for the third time) and I just finished reading my first graphic novel, Kindred by Octavia Butler.
