Aug 10, 2021
Today’s Invisible Stories guest is Publish Your Purpose Press’s own Brandi Lai. Brandi is a contributor and the mastermind behind the creation of the anticipated The Real Lives Of Transgender and NonBinary Humans, the first anthology from PYP. Brandi also recently started her own business, Best-Laid Pens, and she specializes in ghost writing and development editing. Brandi is passionate about helping other people share their stories and making a platform for other people to amplify their voices.
In this podcast, Brandi and I discuss what it was like for her to be working on this new PYP project, and being the person spearheading this anthology. Brandi was passionate from the start about this project, and put her heart and soul into getting this book to happen. Brandi tells us a bit more about
- The emotional and cathartic experience of working with the contributors, and relating to their stories on a personal level.
- How as the collector of these contributors’ stories, she had to put herself into their story to capture their voice, and how that triggered her own emotions from her past. She had to learn how to cope with her own emotions and reflect back on her own experiences, while still making sure the contributors’ words were authentic and meaningful.
- The ultimate goal of this anthology, which is to reach those trans and nonbinary people who are struggling or going through similar experiences, and give them hope for their own future. This book may also help cisgender people learn more about the lives and experiences of transgender and nonbinary individuals, and to act as a guide for those who love trans and NB people about how to support and relate to those people in their lives.
- The ways this process of collecting these stories has empowered her to share her own story, and to become an entrepreneur herself much like the contributors to the anthology have done.