The Sun News Online | How I write

Jennifer Akunnaya (father’s wealth) Ejim was born and raised in Lagos, where she received most of her education. A 1999 graduate of law from Abia State University, she is a poet, an inspirational writer, singer and songwriter. She also writes children’s books and fiction.

In her book ‘Destiny Becomes Me’, an inspirational work of poetry published in America, the Abia State-born creative writer explores the use of poetry to bring humor, inspiration, and deep insight into emotions like love, friendship and faith, among other topics. Her style is contemporary and non-restrictive and so, is easy to understand and relate to.

Already, Akunna has written a number of articles, which have been featured, on some online magazines. She is a member of The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN) Nigeria, The International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG) as well as The Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). With her illustrated children’s book called ‘Rainbow Chicken’, due out in the near future, she is currently working on a new book. In this interview, she talks about her source of inspiration, life experiences, and vision, among others.

Inspiration
Well my book is on poetry but I don’t just write poetry, I write prose as well, I write children’s book. But poetry is something that has to do with imagery. You get inspiration from just about anywhere. I get inspiration from watching people, get inspiration from my own life and experiences.

My book of poetry, I write from my own experiences basically. But that’s not just where I get all my inspirations. Sometimes, I have just quiet moments while I just sit ad meditate on life in general or on situations like what is going on around me, and I draw inspiration from that.

Life experiences
In my book, I talk about so many things, I talk about emotions, I talk about faith, I talk about love, depression, disappointments, and I talk about happiness. Really, I talk about a whole lot of things. So, those are the kind of things I have had experiences on.

Books written
Destiny Becomes Me is my first published book. But I do have other books that are yet to be published. Now, it is a book of poetry. Like I said earlier, most of what I write comes from my own personal experiences. I believe that makes it very easy for people to kind of relate to because I’m not writing about something that is totally abstract.

This is why the word tends to flow easier than when I’m trying to write about abstract notion. Having learnt what I’ve learnt from what I have experienced, I write to encourage people by the words I choose. When you read some of the things I wrote about some certain emotions, you can relate with it in that you’ll understand that you are not the only one passing though such situation and you can always get over what you are passing through.

Audience
Like I said, I have an illustrated children’s book. Of course, that is targeted at the younger readers- the children, pre-scholars or children in kindergarten. Then, I have my fiction. Anybody can read that one and understand it. That still talks about my own experiences. Then, my book on poetry, which is Destiny Becomes Me, the word are very simple. So it’s not difficult to understand or to relate to. And so anybody also can read and understand.

Getting publishers
We all know how it is in this country; it wasn’t very easy trying to get my book published here. I didn’t write overnight. I’ve been compiling these poems over a period of three years. And at the back of my mind, I’ve always had the certainty that I was going to get this book published sometime soon. But the opportunity did not arise here. Basically if you want to have something published here, what most people do is publish the book themselves and market it themselves. And usually, it doesn’t really go very far. But I had the opportunity to publish abroad and seized it.

Vision
To me, it’s not about making so much money or being on top of New York bestseller or whatever. I write inspirational books. So the joy I get from writing is when people reads my books and it touches or influences them positively. I get emails from people who have read my book.

I have a website and I get feedback from readers and maybe they express one, two or three views or appreciate my work. For instance, there’s this reader that wrote an email asking me whether she can use one of my poems to assist her in her work.

Actually, she wrote this article on Hilary Clinton. And it seemed as if she was lost at a point, so she felt that poem was appropriate. That poem talks about something that look like a defeat in the eye and saying that I will not go down.

You know that was what happened and it seemed like she’d (Clinton) lost everything. But somehow, she was able to rise up from the ashes and resurrect her ambition. For me, that is the joy I derive from writing. So simply, I can say my vision is to reach as many people as I can with my works. That is, to inspire a great number of people positively