My definition of leadership is to lead by example, “Don’t talk about it, be about it.” Lead by taking accountability, going back and reaching out and lifting up others. That’s my example of leadership. Why leave someone in the blind if you can help them? If you learned lessons that have advanced you, you should be willing to share that and go back to those who could benefit from the same information or lessons. That is leadership.
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wahida Clark.
Four-time New York Times bestselling author, Wahida Clark, has become one of the most sought after urban lit authors of this generation and is one of only 4 urban lit authors to appear on the New York Times bestseller list. She is the only urban lit author on the list to have also served time.
Wahida Clark has an amazing story. Tenacity, vision and sheer determination are what helped her rise to become the successful author and business woman she is today.
Clark began writing her first novel while serving a 9 ½ year prison sentence, including 9 months in solitary confinement, at the Lexington Prison Camp in Lexington, KY. While behind bars, Clark inked publishing deals with two major publishing houses, wrote and released 7 novels, including one New York Times bestseller, and laid the groundwork for her own publishing company, Wahida Clark Presents, with the help of media queen/mentor and prison-mate MARTHA STEWART.
Released from prison in June of 2007, Clark immediately signed to and catapulted Cash Money Content, the publishing arm from iconic record label Cash Money Records, home to multi-platinum hip-hop recording artists Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne and Drake. To date she has released 14 successful novels.
Her own publishing company, Wahida Clark Presents Publishing, is one of the fastest growing independent publishing houses in the country. Her Publishing Company, Wahida Clark Presents boasts 30 authors, 75+ Novels and 10 Series.
Wahida’s latest book the Golden Hustla 2 will be released July 5, 2022.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
Born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey, I grew up in public housing, the Donnelly Homes Projects. We had a little two-story house, the second one next to the playground. It was me, my mom and my baby brother, Melvin. My childhood there was a blast! However, I was in the 4th grade, when in the dead of winter with snow on the ground, I made my way home from school, knocked on the front door, and finally realized my mom was not there. And I’m saying in my head, “Where is she? It’s cold out here.” I go around the back and find all of our belongings, everything in our house, on the ground, sitting on top of the snow in the backyard. I’m staring at our belongings as one of my classmates is coming towards me. Of course, when I went to school the next day, he’s telling everybody I got put out and he saw all my stuff on the ground. My mom pulled up with her sister’s husband, my Uncle John. They were in his old Chevy station wagon. Uncle John and Aunt Ann moved us out of North Trenton and into West Trenton, the Fashion Ward. I immediately hated it. The west was a whole new vibe. I had to make new friends at a new school and get acclimated to a new neighborhood. I got adjusted the best I could and made new friends. I now had two BFF’s in West Trenton. Elaine, my classmate from the Mellon Street Projects and Margaret, who lived a few houses down from me and was one year older. Margaret had two sisters that were a couple of years older than she who were both popular and gorgeous. I met Elaine during my 1st week of junior high in the seventh grade. She missed the first couple of days of school. And when she did finally show up, she came in late. The teacher told her to find a seat and get her paper and pen out. It was an empty desk next to me. She sat down and she tapped my shoulder and was motioning for me to move my arm so she could copy off my paper. The teacher had sprung a pop quiz on us. So that’s how we met. After class, she introduced herself, began following me around, and we started hanging out together. But that next week, I had caught the flu so I wasn’t coming to school. So, one morning, she comes by knocking on my door right before school and asked why I had been out. I told her I was sick with the flu. She said, “Alright, well, let me borrow that shirt you had on the first day I met you.” I asked her if she was serious because the class would know she was wearing my shirt. She said she didn’t care. I was attached to my clothes, and I was learning from a house full of popular girls that what you wore had to be strategic; you can’t be seen in clothes that someone else had on and expect to be cool. But I gave into peer pressure and let Elaine wear my shirt and, sure enough, when I went back to school, that shirt was the first thing I heard about. Elaine ended up arguing with and then fighting anyone who teased her for wearing my shirt. She was short, stocky and a bully who loved to get into a good fight. So, she and I ended up being best friends — even to this day. And actually, that relationship paid off because when I went to prison with that 10 ½ year sentence, she’s the one who cared for my children. She was the main reason I was able to do my time knowing that my children were in good hands. So big shout, special thanks and lots of love to Elaine, my BFF, the school yard bully. Another childhood memory that shaped me was my love of music. My mom always played music. She always had a big stereo with lots of albums. And when the 8-Track was born, she had lots of 8-Track tapes adding even more music. Not to leave out my next-door neighbor, Lamar, who was a DJ. He had these speakers that had to be about five feet tall. I had never seen anything like them in my life. And whenever he had a weekend gig, he would raise his windows and blast those monster speakers, always kickin’ his DJ set off with “Universal Sound” by Kool & the Gang. That was the coolest and exciting thing, especially in the summertime — well not cooler and more exciting than my Aunt Sis who was in the military. She would come by in her drop top Mustang and take me and my cousin, Jay, to the beach in Wildwood or Seaside Heights. Awesome childhood memories.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action to change your life?
When I was 14, I remember looking for a job, getting serious about boys, and trying to figure out my identity. It was time for me to take life seriously but honestly, I didn’t know how or where to start. Then I read a book called Uncle Yah Yah: 21st Century Man of Wisdom. It inspired me so much because it was full of wise sayings, guidance, and outlooks that I could adapt to shape my destiny. One of my favorites of the wise sayings was, “There is no man outside of God, and no God outside of man.” That quote just hit me like a freight train. I was like, “Whoa”! When we are young, we embrace ideas and act on them, have no second thoughts about it. Do you mean to say that man is God? I’m a God? Is that what this book is saying? I began trying to live by the principles of the book and taking on its ideas; it changed my life around. Took me down a path that I could not foresee. And then I got a chance to finally meet the author of the book, Uncle Yah Yah, and I eventually married him.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistakes that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or takeaway did you learn from that?
A part of our publishing business marketing plan that worked for us was to book events where lots of people were in attendance. If they weren’t Street Lit Book Readers, they would be by the time they left our booth, having received the “Wahida Clark Experience.” We would do Pop-Ups at book festivals, the Black Expos, the Harlem Book Fair, wherever there were a lot of people. We would pop up at the Circle of Sisters at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in NY. When nothing big was going on, we would frequent the most popular flea markets. We enjoyed setting up our pop-up book shop and selling books wherever there was a big audience. We would roll up with our music blaring through the boombox, the street team in matching T-shirts, showing off imposing, colorful banners with big, bold book covers, ready to hustle. This one time we got invited to the Bronner Brothers Hair Show in Georgia. We were flown from Jersey to Atlanta, given our table and set up at the biggest and most glamorous Hair Show in the country. We were hyped up because there were lots and lots of black women, our demographic who buys our books. We had invested in a new shiny point of sale system with the cash register, the scanner and all the bells and whistles. We were selling books, 3–4 at a time. My daughter Wahida Jr. kept saying, “Mom, I don’t think this set-up is working. It’s not processing the orders.” I snapped, “Be quiet, youngin’ you don’t know nothing about a POS system. It is working!” All that day we were processing orders and, at the end of the day, whoever paid with a credit card got free books. My daughter was right. The system wasn’t even working. Lesson: Be open. Listen even if it’s to someone who doesn’t have your experience or who you think doesn’t know enough to tell you something.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
I have a total of 26 titles or more including 4 series. I have the Thug Series, the Payback Series, the Golden Hustla Series and the Sleeping With the Enemy Series. The most interesting thing that happens, without it being a spoiler alert — is when characters from two of my best-selling series collide in my new book, The Golden Hustla 2.
What was the aha moment or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
My aha moment came while I was in Lexington, Federal Prison Camp in Kentucky. I was just transferred there from Arizona to begin serving my 10 ½ year sentence. I was doing my best getting situated and settling in. I had called home to my family and asked them to please send me some money. In the federal prison where I was you had to pay to wash your clothes, you had to pay for your soap powder, shampoo, soap, snacks, a haircut; everything cost. I called home, and I said to my niece, Kisha, “Send me some money. I need to go to the store.” Her reply was, “We’ll see what we can do.” I asked, “What do you mean, ‘We’ll see what we can do?’ I left businesses out there.” She said, “Well, you’re gone. No one is here to run your businesses. Your house is being foreclosed on, your vehicles have been repossessed, you have no more money. Actually, we are packing up right now, headed back up to New Jersey.” Crushed, I hung up that phone, feeling weighed down to the ground, went back to my room, and cried. And then I prayed and asked God for guidance and assistance. I needed to come up with a plan to generate some income immediately! My two teenaged daughters were out there, emotionally drained, without both of their parents who were incarcerated. So shortly after that prayer, I was at my mandatory work assignment in the prison. I had two jobs: I ran the computer lab in the evenings and during the daytime, I was the librarian. The door had to be open at 8:00 am. I was usually the only one in there that early in the morning. That was my time to do my homework, grade papers, read my magazines, books, etc. Shortly after that prayer to God, I picked up this XXL or Vibe Magazine. And there was a sidebar with a picture and the scoop on a young man named Shannon Holmes. It said that he had written a book called B-More Careful, a best-seller, and that he was in prison. So, I’m sitting there and I’m like, “Wow”, looking at the article. This inmate was a hood celebrity in the jail! Then I’m looking at the books on the bookshelves. My wheels are turning. I’m saying to myself, “Oh, my God! He’s in prison and he wrote a book. I’m in prison. I’ma write a book.” I began to visualize my name Wahida Clark on all of the spines of the books on the shelves. So, that was my aha moment. I said, “I’m going to write a book. It’s going to be a best-seller. It was going to be my means of getting through these 10 ½ years in prison, sending some money home for my kids and my husband, as well as building up a nest egg for myself when I was released.” So, I began my writing journey. That was 2001 or 2002 and now 26 books, 4 New York Times Best-Sellers and a publishing company later, here I am sharing my story in AUTHORITY. I am humbled.
How do I define leadership? Can I explain what do I mean? Or give an example?
My definition of leadership is to lead by example, “Don’t talk about it, be about it.” Lead by taking accountability, going back and reaching out and lifting up others. That’s my example of leadership. Why leave someone in the blind if you can help them? If you learned lessons that have advanced you, you should be willing to share that and go back to those who could benefit from the same information or lessons. That is leadership.
Are there three things that community/society/politics can do to help you address the root problem you are trying to solve?
1-Mental health 2-Education 3-Financial Literacy — -One of my authors in his book The Man with the Solution: From Addiction and Mental Illness to Recovery, Dr. Henry Hamilton said, “Mental illness in one culture may be the norm in another.” With that said, we as Black people here in America, have issues that stem from that 400-year-old elephant in the room- Slavery. In our communities today, the problem is “lack”. Lack of education. Lack of resources to get educated or re-educated. Lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Lack of financial literacy. Lack of parenting skills. Lack of business acumen. Lack of marriage counseling services. Lack of mental health resources. Lack of hope. How does having no or very little hope affect your mental health? Thankfully, the solution to all of this LACK is an easy one. All of these areas of Lack, especially Mental Health, can be tackled the way our other issues have been tackled. The RESOURCES have already and oftentimes been allocated to us. But we rarely receive them. The irony is there are agencies designated by the government officials and politicians who are responsible for getting resources, education, and funds to the people. But no one Is holding those officials or politicians, appointed by the government accountable for making sure the resources make it to our communities. Assistance rarely reaches the people tucked away in the bowels of society. No one is holding these agencies accountable to make sure these programs are set up and funded. Post-pandemic and with the state of the world, it is time for our communities to be accountable for self. Administer the help and resources to ourselves. There are grass roots agencies with boots on the ground who can disseminate the assistance to those communities. The grass roots agencies are in the trenches with the disenfranchised communities. The boots on the ground organizations will be that much more effective in assisting the communities they are a part of. There’s plenty of grassroots organizations with boots on the ground, who get things done, who know where the people are, who know the community. Each community needs to take responsibility. They are the ones that need to be given these funds and hold themselves accountable for uplifting a community, bringing them together.
Without sharing a specific name, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by a cause?
During my time in prison, I had no choice but to mentor. As the years went on, I noticed that the population was getting younger, and younger coming through the prison pipeline. And here were young 18-year-olds, who I looked at, and would think these young souls could be my daughters. They had street smarts but lacked basic life skills. Oftentimes no high school diploma, no basic hygiene habits, not knowing it’s a must to wash your hands after you use the bathroom, how to keep a cubicle clean, wash your sheets and blankets at least once a week and to shower at least once a day. The basics. Even though I came home in 2007, I kept in touch with my most promising mentees. One of them I hired full time less than a month ago. To me, she appeared on the verge of a meltdown. She was working so hard, operating her cleaning business by herself 7 days a week and coming home to 5 kids and a husband. It was catching up to her and it was showing. She had been attending for a few months my High-Net-Worth Thinkers Business Training, where my coaching to her was to do whatever, not to stop until she finds some new hires as well as realize you can’t be all over the place and focus on what’s priority. Just this past Monday, her first new hire is in place, and she works for me full-time. However, I still mentor a few of the ladies I was incarcerated with. I even do business with some of them. Empathy. I picked up some because I’ve served 9 ½ years in prison. I’ve taught the Prodigal Sons & Daughters Life Skills program to the youth in the detention centers, inmates at halfway houses, the mentally ill, the addicted, the illiterate, the homeless, and the hopeless. However even in that mix, there are some diamonds. I was one of them. I’ve come across many young, black, brown, hungry youth, wanting to be entrepreneurs, but they lack the resources and mentors to guide and coach them how to do the best they can in business. That was my inspiration and way to give back to form for my 501(c)3, a weekly business training called “High Net worth Thinkers”. My goal is to assist those hungry young people on how not to do business, how-to do-good business, how to identify the mistakes that don’t have to be made and share the lessons that no one gave me willingly. I’ve been to the school of hard business knocks: going from door-to-door selling car safety kits to my days of opening my own print shop back in the early 90s. And I’m still learning. So, I just like to tell people what not to do. This is how I can make a social impact. Each of us is responsible to contribute something to the greater good of our society and the world. But whatever it is, it should be done with passion, sincerity and be easy for you. That’s when you know it’s right.
Describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your books.
I have 26 plus novels and 4 Series. My most popular is the Thug Series in Thugs: Seven, I devoted it to mental health, especially in the black communities. (There is so much talk about Mental Health, but the black communities have a whole set of additional and different mental health issues. No one is talking Real Talk about what is needed in the black communities). One of the main characters in the book — the strongest, the one everyone went to for guidance, or looked to always to be fair and to do the right thing, an excellent father and family man, awesome lover, fearless and willing to roll up his sleeves and get dirty with the best of them — has a mental health meltdown. In my newest book, The Golden Hustla 2, I touch on mental health. Several characters need therapy. But from my best-selling Thug Series, Thugs: Seven one of the main characters in the book went through a mental health crisis because he witnesses his son’s get murder right before his eyes. Asking me how you could do that to him, 50% of my readers were devasted. Asking me how could you do that to him? “I don’t understand, you shouldn’t have.” The other 50% responded, “My man, my brother or my husband who he reminded me of went through . . . sharing their stories and thanking me for putting that in the book. I didn’t really understand the extent of mental health until I volunteered to mentor the homeless in Atlanta for 4 years and counting.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example.
1-How to be a book publisher 2-publishing convicted felons 3-running a business 4-that most men in business are bullies (of all races). Learning publishing, publishing convicted felons, 5-how to manage employees. Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. It is hard and daunting but rewarding and fulfilling. I had to learn everything by trial and error. I knew nothing about publishing; my publishing company was started in my prison cell. I thought that publishing inmates would be a breeze. But just like I was, inmates, especially those who have been incarcerated for a long time, most are institutionalized and are often out of touch with what is going on in the real world — especially when it comes to building relationships and doing business. In prison, you have nothing but time on your hands to think and assume the worst or the negative. That combination does not mix well. One example is one of my incarcerated authors was mad at me and wanted to end his contract so he could do his own thing. He had me hire an attorney to draw up the contract saying he’s swapping out the rights for books 1, 2, and 3 for books 5, 6 whatever. We both sign off. Many months later he comes back saying he made a mistake; he was just upset, and he didn’t mean it. Another one of my long-time incarcerated authors, put up everything to launch his book and his only responsibility, per our signed contract by both parties was to promote and buy his books. The book was catching on like a snowball rolling downhill and then he says, “Wait I need you to pay for my books. Why I gotta buy my books if I’m out here promoting?” Shaking my head. And he gets mad because I wouldn’t give in and tries to blast me on social media. Lol Just because I won’t let the guys have their way, even if it’s not fair, and they try to bully me, when I don’t give in, I’m the dirty guy! 90% of my business disagreements are with the men. Get it together, guys! Lol Lastly, someone should have told me to watch your employees very closely. They get jealous. I had one guy steal my clients, launch his own publishing company and fail miserably. Obviously because I made it look easy. The other chick I hired was stealing cases of books, selling them to the local bookstores at the time and was pocketing the money.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“If Life hands you lemons, and that’s all you have, then make lemonade.” -anonymous
That’s exactly what I did with a 10 ½ year federal prison sentence. I turned those big sour lemons into a few gallons of lemonade.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
That would be any one in the film industry who will recognize that I am the goose with the Golden Egg. I have 26 plus novels 4 series and a publishing company with 150 plus titles all ready to be made for Film. But if I have to choose from my list, I would have to say, since I am in promo mode for The Golden Hustla 2, Sir Richard Branson and it is in Audiobook format.
When I first rode Virgin Airlines, it was the first one to offer audiobooks. I loved that the passengers could listen to audiobooks during their flight and how much the people would enjoy listening to my books turned into audio on the flight. Getting my catalogue of books on the Virgin Airlines has been on my To-Do List for many years. It would be cool to be able to cross it off. Sir Richard, this is my informal invitation to lunch.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wahidaclark
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wahidaclark
Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/@wahidaclark
FB: https://www.facebook.com/wahida.clark
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Author Wahida Clark Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.