Today we’d like to introduce you to Maya Alisa
Hi Maya, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My career started with a comment someone made to me. I was watching a movie , Legally Blonde , and someone said “why are you always watching those white gir movies”. To go back some , growing up I was always a girly girl. I grew up around a lot of women and have always felt my comfort in spaces created for women. When it came to media , I gravitated towards chick flicks or music videos from female artist. I worked in the beauty industry for years and so most of my jobs have also been spaces designed for women. It’s just my thing. So , that comment annoyed me and my response it was “well there isn’t an equivalent to this with a black girl.” That moment was the moment that changed my career. I realized as I said it , there was a missing piece. There is a real issue in media and entertainment when it comes to representing women of color in a variety of color ways. We are usually given the sidekick part or the scraps of what’s left. That’s an issue and it’s on I personally no long want to be apart of complaining about. So I decided there must be a way to fix this but I knew I couldn’t just jump into the film industry head first. I’ve always been a great writer. I’ve written for my local news paper , I’ve written poems , and had teachers want to submit my novels as a kid. I also knew a lot of movies come from books. So it was a natural progression of thought and from there I wrote my first book Keanna. She’s a little black princess who fights to save her kingdom with her magical unicorn. It’s fun and whimsical. From there grew this entire world of books. Once I started writing I couldn’t stop. The ideas flowed to me as easy as breathing air, I started to create like my own universe of characters and then it turned into merchandise and thus created my business Girl World.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Bumpy road would be an understatement. It took me 10 years to get here. When I started this journey I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing , I just did it, I had spent so much of my life always waiting for other peoples approval of my decisions and holding myself back because I was listening to the opinions of what people thought I should or shouldn’t be doing. Every time I took someone else’s advice against my better judgement, it led me to a dead end finically mentally and emotionally. This time I knew that if I was going to be successful I had to throw away everyone else’s opinion and trust myself. Doing that changed everything for me and now I feel like there is no limit to what I can do.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am an independently published Author and my business is called Girl World. I write books with only female leads of women of color. My goal is to fill in the space for us. At the moment we are confined to a few types of representation but in my work the Samoan girl is a princess , the Black girl is a superhero and the Latina girl is a mermaid. We get to dream and see ourselves in more than just roles where we are servants and workers. I’m working through establishing books for Kids , Teens and Adults. I have just wrapped up my kids books for the summer and I am moving on to Teens with my new book Pageant Girls coming this August 2024. It’s a murder mystery that I think the girls are going to really love. My books are available worldwide on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I also have the official Girl World Store that is available online. We have t shirts , sweatshirts , hats ect. Some of the books also have their own merch section like posters for the princesses of my collection Princess Charming which are a series of Princess books of over 12 different princesses. Girl World is a safe space for women of color to dream , share and imagine. We say our motto is “Empowering Stories, Elevating Women”
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
The most important lesson for me is definitely trusting yourself. I can be an over-thinker always dreaming and never doing, I had to really admit to myself that I didn’t trust myself enough to take leaps of faith. I relied to much on what other people felt was best for me but once I started asking myself what I wanted and what I thought , things changed for the better. I have to remind myself often that I know what I am doing. My stories will resonate with who it’s meant for.
Pricing:
- All kids books are 10.99 on Amazon
- All teens books are 15.99 on Amazon
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/Girlworldofficial
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlworldstudio1
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556671090864
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@girlworldstudio1
Image Credits
Bailey Simmons
