Interview with Jevon Bolden, author of the NEW book "Pray Hear Write"

Dearest blog readers,

You are in for a special treat!

Today, I'm interviewing a publishing giant named Jevon Bolden about her new book AND she's giving away not one but two copies of her book "Pray Hear Write." Details about that are found toward the end of this blog post.

Jevon is a multi-talented woman who is passionate about books and seeking God! I believe that you will be blessed by reading what she has to say today!

Enjoy your time with Jevon. Read on! 

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Interview with Jevon Bolden about her book, Pray Hear Write: 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting for Breakthrough in Your Writing

Alexis: Jevon, I LOVE your book! It’s an answer to my writer related prayers! What inspired you to write this book?

Jevon: Books should answer questions and solve problems—especially nonfiction books.

Over my career and service to authors, I’ve been asked a lot about how I generate ideas and how I have been able to produce the volume of work that I have over the course of my fifteen years as an editor and writer. Prayer is at the center of my ability. I am no saint, but I am in constant communication with God all day every day. I do not only have one set prayer time. When things get really challenging and I need ear to hear what God is saying and eyes to see what He is trying to reveal, I fast. Sometimes, I believe, it is the split difference between success and failure.

My experience in publishing has left me with the feeling that most of what editors are expected to do is almost impossible. Instead of stressing out and going to a place of cynicism, I turn inward to see what new challenge God and I are going to meet. I truly believe that with only us some things are impossible, but with God all things are possible.

And then with God, it is not only possible but the product—the outcome—is phenomenal and yields better results, better than we could have thought or imagined.

In my experience, praying, fasting, seeking, knocking, asking, being brave enough to obey, then giving Him glory for it all is the perfect formula.

Alexis: Have you always been so passionate about writing and editing books? Explain.

Jevon: Yes. I have written as long as I could write—keeping a diary and journaling mostly, at first. I couldn’t not do it.

I didn’t really start writing to be read until I was in college. I wrote for the university student newspaper. I was also so very graciously mentored by the best—and maybe only—real writer I knew at the time. He really encouraged me and told I was good at writing. I loved English, and though I had my educational path aimed toward being a neurosurgeon, I changed my major to English after concluding that it was really where all my true passions were stored. My deciding factor was that English was the only class I would not skip in high school. When I was being true to my heart, I could see myself writing on the beach in another country with little inhibition. I am getting closer to that vision every day.

Alexis: Briefly tell us about your career journey. How did you get started in the publishing industry? How did you start your own company and why did you decide to become a literary agent?

Jevon: Upon graduating from college and after starting a family, I started looking for jobs for which my degree was a fit. I applied to over thirty companies. Of those, one called me in for an interview. It was an entry-level position as a copyeditor for a Christian book publisher in Lake Mary, Florida—Charisma House.

First, Florida was a yes for me always. I love warm weather; God knows that. I moved up quickly within that company and ended my twelve years with them as a senior acquisitions editor. I immediately transitioned to the role of senior editor for Scholastic and their imprint that produces nonfiction books, activity kits, and other cool things for their more that 120,000 school book fairs. During my time there, my skills and experience in adult Christian nonfiction continued to pull on me until I have no other choice but to make a choice. This is when I knew it was time to launch out on my own and start my company Embolden Media Group.

Throughout my life, I have done my best to submit myself to the movement of the Spirit of God, listening, waiting, praying, responding, and all that. It’s an intuitive exchange that we have, and so I just knew when it was time to make the moves I made. Not any of them have been easy, but almost all of them have come as a response to some pull or demand. The same is true to my becoming a literary agent, which is my newest opportunity. The need, the pull, the open door presented itself, and I walked through. I am taking it very slowly—one proposal at a time—again, listening, waiting, moving as God leads. Like most agents, I know I am not fit to represent anyone and everyone. So even with that, I am praying and listening step by step.

Alexis: In what ways do you hope that your book, Pray Hear Write, will help ignite your readers’ passion to write?

Jevon: I hope that it will be a tool to help open portal between them and heaven to see their writing and publishing lives soar to new heights.

I don’t want them to just write a good book; I want them to write a God book—a book that catapults readers into new realms of living, one that heals, one that exposes darkness, one that brings light and welcomes unity, one the restores breaches and broken places. And then I want them to see it go farther than they ever could. It’s amazing the places books end up. They travel miles one person could never do in a lifetime. I want to see that for them, and I pray this book helps all of that become real for the writer who reads it.

Alexis: What is your advice on what writers can do to hear God better, especially when it comes to His plans concerning their call to write?

Jevon: Get alone with yourself and God, pray, be still, get quiet, and when necessary fast. A couple parts in there may be the hardest because of what we feel our culture requires of us, but for the writer there is no other way—solitude, stillness, and quiet are parts of our formula for great writing.

Alexis: Why is it important to go to God first, not people as you endeavor to get the right words to the right people? Explain.

Jevon: From my view, being able to write can only happen when a writer writes with the perspective of the One who knows their readers better than they do. A writer can only write with such power and impact if completely surrendered to the Spirit of God who reads the hearts of humans everywhere and knows where they hurt and where their deepest desires lie.

As people, we are limited in our knowledge and understanding. God isn’t. It is His desire to show us things we don’t know when we seek Him (Jer. 33:3). It also His Word that is a plumb line for everything else. When we have a word from God, we can compare everything else to it and what doesn’t corroborate doesn’t stay. It makes decision making a bit easier, I think. With Him as our guide, we get access to His unlimited resources—wisdom, discernment, resources, insight, and so on. These intangible things are greater than tangible things like money. When line up to the intangible things, other more tangible things follow—and then we have the humility, grace, and wisdom to sustain them.

Alexis: Regarding the format of your book: Why did you choose to make it a prayer guide and fasting journal?

Jevon: I trust that as God speaks, the writer will be compelled to write. I also saw this book as a keepsake of sorts that writers can return to time and again to recall what God did for them in their 21 days. They will also be able to return to the ideas He gives them as they pray. I feel that for the writer pray and writing many times goes hand in hand, but we don’t always create space for that type of exchange. I’ve learned to keep a journal with me at all times. And it has been for me that even during a church service, during worship, or a sermon, God gives me incredible ideas, and if I am not ready to capture them at that moment they’re sometimes gone forever. I’ve learned to not take God ideas for granted. This book was designed with that belief in mind.

Alexis: What do you want readers to remember the most about your book? Why?

Jevon: The time they spend with God, making their call to write the center of their prayer focus. Writing sometimes isn’t given the value it should have. I write about the power of writing in the beginning of the book, so I will not go deep here. But I want readers to remember their time with my book as a time when writing while inquiring of the Lord and beholding His beauty was their one thing.

Alexis: Thanks for the interview, Jevon! Would you like to share closing thoughts?

Jevon: I love books. I love my authors. I love what I get to do, and I pray that love is contagious.

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Author Bio: 

Jevon Bolden is a book editor, writer, literary agent, and CEO of Embolden Media Group, a boutique publishing consulting firm in sunny Florida.

The books she has written as other people have appeared on ECPA and CBA best-sellers’ lists and have sold hundreds of thousands of copies around the world.

As a conference speaker, workshop facilitator, writing coach, and mentor, Jevon shares the best of what she knows with passionate, creative, and influential individuals and groups who desire to publish great books that make a difference.

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Book Blurb for Pray Hear Write:

Ignite your passion to write!

You know what God has spoken. But where do you start? What should you write? Who will read it? And how do you get it to them?

Pray Hear Write is designed for you to hear God speak His specific plans concerning your call to write, develop a writing plan and practice, and be positioned to connect with a receptive audience. In her more than fifteen years editing and writing best-selling books, Jevon Bolden has found no substitute for getting the right words to the right people than first going to God.

This prayer guide and fasting journal will help you:

- Overcome writer's block and feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt

- Cultivate heightened spiritual awareness about what to write, whom to write to, and when to write it

- Develop a strategy for starting, completing, and publishing your work

- Flesh out God ideas and track divine connections

- Take action toward your dreams and stay encouraged throughout the journey

You are God's scribe. You have been called to write words that bring life and light to those who read them. Now set yourself to seek Him for all you need to get it written and published. Your most life-arresting book may be just a prayer away.

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Buy Jevon's book on Amazon, BAM!, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo

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Connect with Jevon:
Instagram - Instagram.com/jevonbolden
Facebook - Facebook.com/jevonbolden.editor
Twitter - Twitter.com/jevonbolden
LinkedIn - LinkedIn.com/in/jevonbolden

Website - https://www.jevonbolden.com

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Enter this book giveaway contest for your chance to WIN a copy of this book by filling out the entry form on the Rafflecopter widget below: 

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