welcome to new beginnings with care and where we celebrate the creativity courage and wisdom of people creating change we highlight those who charge you promise me your life and career choices and face turning points welcome to new beginnings with karen dell and i am so pleased to have joining me today nicole bally williams author and entrepreneur welcome to new beginnings thank you so much for having me carol yes so i have been longing as you know to have you on the show you're a busy lady busy juggling a lot of e mail and but i'm just so thankful for the opportunity truly to be here yeah so  you know one question that pops in my head is how would you describe yourself so aside from the nouns like the educator the author the entrepreneur i think that i would describe myself as being a creative person i would describe myself as being maybe in inventor but just someone who likes to have fun and create and shine a light on a lot of different aspects of life yes it's food or dance are those are some of the things that i enjoy so eclectic maybe the good word yeah yeah so you are a police prolific author and you contribute to others works and you write works of your own so how many books have you authors so on my own i have authored six titles so one of them was actually under a pseudonym but so i my own i saw offered a bunch of other really phenomenal people i've been able to partner with to contributed essay or short story or poem and it has been an absolute dream yeah how did you even pursue that or how did they connect with you many moons ago i hosted a radio show in philadelphia so for nine years i was on d v d s am doing a show that i formulated called the literary review as a result of coming up with the idea of doing a book review show which i'm an interview off errands and talk about the literary world i just made different connections that way and i was really excited i think maybe the jumping off point was when i interviewed a woman by the name of jesse kearney smith who pulled together this marvelous book which is a collection called notable black american men part one and no says you know black american women and then i decided that it was such a great product project and i was so excited about it she said ok well you're a writer right well maybe you can contribute to noble black american men and i did and i got no pay but i got three by line one yeah so that was a really really good thing to have done the research on a millionaire anthony overton who was rich millionaire status in the early twentieth century when people think that that was not possible there was also an interim review or an essay that i did on jesse jackson's all rights icon and a certain that i did on a man who was an early settler of chicago named john to sob so from that everything else kind of jumped off in terms of the writing world that's great that's so tell us what your personal books are about so i prefer to write in literary fiction right so we make distinctions between commercial fiction which is kind of fast paced and things are moving along without necessarily a lot of reflection it's just kind of like watching a movie my literary fiction that i enjoy writing is something that i hope elevates people with the stuff there's a match in the the symbolism and we have to think about all of the potential nuances of freeze and so i really enjoy doing that sort of thing because it's kind of an extension of what i do in the classroom which is teach so just really trying to elevate the world in whatever little way i can that's great so some of your titles are a little piece of sky was my first book so i actually self published a little piece of sky after working on it for an entire summer i worked on it during lunch breaks my my summer job right always juggling so i worked on it then in the summer of one thousand nine hundred nine and i just kind of sat on it and i wasn't quite sure what i wanted to do with it in terms of publishing but because i was also talking to these other authors constantly many of them said listen we self published so as a way to get started so why don't you try the same thing so that's why did i self published it in the summer of two thousand  so it was kind of it was july fourth actually oh well i was my independence day or the start of something new and after maintaining a really really hectic schedule with doing like five or six book signings every weekend  and into teaching and that sort of thing i was approached by someone at a larger publishing company after about eleven months of hustling that way and they said you know we just love it you've been doing and we know that you have  thinker on the pulse of the literary world we would like to offer you a contract for a little he said sky so it was the new version which is just simply repackaged it was released in october of two thousand and two and it was just a wonderful thing to partner with random house on their new imprint harlem moon and harlem moon was dedicated to launching careers of african american writers specifically and  doing that just really led to a lot of other really cool writing opportunities and it's not look back it's been so much fun that's great so what are some of those other opportunities that you're talking about so some of the other pieces that i got to contribute to  encourage fledgling writers so when they're in high school with their college students it just tries it's a foundation that dedicated to like giving voice to these new and happy coming writers so i was able to work with elaine and merida on their literary they called a literary read party dinner with an old record yeah right so it was a literary read party so i donated the story to them and along with a bunch of other authors and we just kind of went on different tours different places around the country and any book sales were dedicated solely to the hearse to write foundation so and so that was a lot of fun to do yeah so there was that there was also other really fun opportunities came along with contributing short stories too  the line edited by donna hill who's also a professor of literature in new york people just kind of think of her just being this author you know she's actually like a force in moving literature along in students heads but you know some of the really cool things like that so i've had a good time with it yeah yeah and so now you've also ventured into children's books is that correct yes ok yes i wrote my first children's book dedicated to family my daughter shelby and my dad my older daughter shelby and my would go out looking for plumbs every time we went to visit them and their philadelphia area and they would go and pick some plums off a neighbor's tree and when they went to go to the clubs they were gone so as a result i said that's a really really cute and as i did the i worked on the illustrations with my younger daughter sydney and sydney was there she was a little teeny baby but she was able to kind of traced her hand for one part of the collages that i did to a company that children's book nice so do you see yourself kind of moving into that or you were inspired because of that one situation there are plenty of short children stories that are kind of popular around inside my head good i would love to do more with sydney you know with sydney stories because she's had some really cool brave funded ventures as well selling one i've gotten shelby taking care of and now it's on to rent my little one there that's great that's great so you know you develop these concepts how do you because you share the story about the children's book but how do you develop the adult literary fiction what how do you get those concepts i think that think you know people do really funny things so the observation really fuels the questions wow why does this happen those people look at they're not happy right now you know what is the we could be a possible reason you know so i just  stiffer and ideas and it makes for fun you know guessing as to why things are the way they are so just sitting down and then i still am a dinosaur i still literally hand write stories you know with paper and pencil whereas i know other people get it from the computers to make like a way for me that's too much pressure to kind of fill a page brain and i don't want to just fill a page with junk i want to be very thoughtful process know and and i have to be disciplined about it and writing is not necessarily something that a lot of people respect they don't respect the authors craft the authors time so a lot of my time has been spent ok now i can't go to the dry cleaners i can't go in you know and do the dishes i really need to right so that's exactly what it has it's like for me and it's a wonderful thing to see that my children have ventured into that a little bit as well to oh that's wonderful so they're bright that's great that's great you know you touched on the what we call kind of old school writing with pen and paper yes but i think it was even this week in the paper they talked about there is a scientific connection to learning material and having a stickiness to it that typing i call it typing but you know computerized digitizing what you're listening to doesn't do and i actually tell my son you've got to pick up the pen and paper and really write when you're studying because there's something that happens mentally  s it goes from your brain through your arm out your fingertips on the page yes and you do retain the material in a longer sometimes almost permanently obviously depends on what you're doing but there is scientific proof it was actually i read the article this week sure and they were saying because of that a lot of the tablets now it's an expensive process but the tablets have stylus yes that is trying to allow people to actually you know printer cursive write what they're listening to so your point is well taken that's why i'm sharing that sure it's actually in the educators where we refer to that  exam right exactly oh yeah i'm actually doing the output you know and then there's also we used to talk about multiple intelligences a long time ago so that it's also spatial learning so i remember the first time i saw the spa learning at work it was at a it was a tenth grade english class and i remember i had written something on the board about remember the subject was but teach english so i had written something on the board one day and then the next day i was reviewing something with my students and i actually had a student turn around and look at the empty board and remember where i had actually written something and i will never forget the student he looked at it he said oh the answer is this and i thought that was much learning he probably gets along the way when he when they have to mark out plays about one thing and that's how he retains information somewhere you are right on when they ask well is true and you know what happens for me is i always tell people i have a file cabinet in my head and so what happens is because i do what you do i write things out if i need to remember i kind of look up i am i looking up is yes recall so i'm pulling out the file cabinet drawer and i'm visualizing not exactly the text but the point you know the essence of the point so yeah it's the way i learned also that yes absolutely i love it you you know one of these different learning styles and i love that you know we've identified absolutely so i want to move to your other venture your other business which is a yummy one yes and rock pop yeah when did you venture into this and what led you to do this you know so i was actually it all kind of ties together for me i was teaching and i took a bit of a a weeklong break when i have a student teacher in for me and i would go and i was doing book tour for a little piece of sky and as i was doing the book tour i actually was told by my publicist be sure when you go to the midwest you try some of their popcorn i said  we can use popcorn as like a blank kind of can do this you know in order to kind of fill it with different flavors of and that's exactly what it is that i tried to do so well when i launched capital corner confections my dorm a popular company and it was really a quest to combine a lot of those great tastes just pull them all together on something is light and fun and all american really as popcorn have saloon ling absolutely so i have to ask what midwest town where you visit are towns where you're visiting because there is a favorite of mine yes in cleveland ok and in fact if you check into a downtown hotel they give you free popcorn in the room and it is carmel and buttery it melts in your mouth and i i also make lots of different sweet and savory flavors yet it is so much fun to come up with these flavors yeah so what are some of your other sweet and savory flavor one of the absolute favorites that people enjoy the cookies and cream popcorn why people love that you know because people love cookies and cream interact in fact oreo company just put out a cookies and cream oreo which i think is hilarious because you know how does that work right so cookies and cream is a favorite also so it's girly based or people really you say you went to the midwest you came up with the concept and so you came back and i mean you're talking about it like it was like oh it was putting on a shoe lot more involved here so i mean i think of things but i don't actually produce them yet you know how did you go through the process so i spent a lot of time that was two thousand and two when i first did that you know early two thousand three when i first went out i spent a lot of time just kind of sampling it and kind of experimenting with flavors and you know my kids you know god bless them they get to be a guinea pig straight so when i you know i come up with something new i'm like take this in like oh gosh not again you know they have their favorites as well but it was a question of them finding a commercial kitchen which i could produce the popcorn and getting all of the you know getting all the paperwork in order and in the licensing in order in order to to produce  and then finding a place to sell it so i started at a small farmers market on spruce street trying to and it was a trip to the lawrenceville and i started there selling it on weekends it was really really cool really fun from there progress to doing some other really nice venues might even had the opportunity recently well that two years ago to produce popcorn for a political convention we had a national political convention nearby and i did a gore may popcorn bar five labor one repub wonderful guess it was a lot of fun oh that's know fun ways you're able to taste the popcorn that is fantastic you know so now do your or your sales you know all over as a result of that because that was a major convention right right so yeah we do have sales are coming on on the website from lots of different places right but they're also it's also sold online i have a partnership with home shopping network so it's also as online arm on a just and dot com will go on the order site it's fun to see orders come in from like washington state or maria utah and places i've never visited right i say well they want popcorn to know that the great thing that's right yes but a lot of fun yeah so how do you juggle all this you talked about family your  as i said a prolific author you're an entrepreneur a popcorn you are educator yes i mean like when do you sleep i don't get eno never get enough sleep one of the things that that i have to do i have to keep things scheduled i have to keep things organized you know and sometimes something's going to fall short you know so maybe my house is the cleanest all right  and then the time when the house is clean is maybe i have been doing it in writing right know so there are there are tradeoffs everything can take center stage at the same time you know sometimes some things go to the back burner and you know but really you know teaching is five days a week for me and remember that there's grading to do teaching doesn't just end when will you know i have to go home and i have to grade and i have girls who are very very active in different activities so there are you know there is princeton girl choir there's lacrosse there you know there are all kinds of different activities that they do so sometimes when they are off you know in these activities i'm doing marketing online you know all my folder on my computer you know different posting different new flavors and cetera you know so it everything is scheduled and i understand that in the long run it's not always going to be like that but you know we have a power through you know while we're you know we're still building in order to get to that place that we really want to be yeah that's great so where is that place  beginning both than twenty eighteen twenty one thing so one thing i'm trying to make myself more of a priority right so trying to get up and get a little more fit that's you know one new beginning another new beginning is living more creatively there are so many ideas that come to mind that i'm more creative you know let me hear those you know there are different pieces i've read different piece of literature that i would love to see come to a larger screen right wing you want to write t v or move film yeah maybe a little bit of all of them white or maybe maybe specifically film you know that's one of the things that i that has been really kind of you know hopping around back your two i would like to sit down and actually you know maybe he's pound out some kind of screenplay based on some really cool things that i've read really intriguing things that i think would translate well to the screen what else is on deck for the new beginning of the call just more writing more self love more time to spend with my girls do meaningful things and i think that's that that's that's quite a bit yeah there i do have an idea that is comes from our studio there's a nassau film festival that we hold in the spring act so it just occurred and you could submit your film idea and it's shown at the garden theater it's over three days it's bloomed and it's international now excellent so that could be a start yeah here yeah so this this is been such a wonderful journey you know learning about how you develop your concepts for your book ideas and then how you also develop your you know your commercial ideas and then what you're looking forward to doing in the future yeah i get this i look forward to just exploring and learning it i hope asked so where how do people get your books do you have to separate websites for the books and then the popcorn i'm assuming yes the books are always available online at even at some of the larger market places like you know like amazon and if you for the popcorn is really quite simply trenton popcorn dot com nice people can log on there they can follow trends and popular on instagram and some of the other social media too oh that's wonderful thing yeah well listen nicole it has been wonderful to you know i've wanted to have you on for such a long time thank you for being persistent and now i understand why