Today we’d like to introduce you to Keidra McGriff And Kaylon Williams.
Hi Keidra McGriff and Kaylon Williams, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Keidra: I was a book vendor at my friend Shardé Redmon’s event with my debut book- Adventures with Papa. Kay was also a vendor with her bookstore- KLX Online Bookstore. We introduced ourselves to each other and went about the day. When she stood up and I saw she was a tall girl, I started fan girling because I’ve never had tall friends! I’ve always been the tall one. We instantly locked in and been tall besties since. We both have our individual children’s books and now we co-authored Tallia’s Tips for Tall Girls!
Kaylon: As Keidra mention, we met at The Santa shack event thrown by our friend Shardé Redmon. When I noticed Keidra setting up and literally said to myself “wow she’s tall!” And made a mental note I had to go and speak to her and a fellow tall girl! It was even better because I saw she wrote a book and we have been besties ever since! It has been such a blessing to be able to connect with such a wonderful author and bounce ideas off of, attend events with and continue supporting one another as we continue to put out our own projects!
Keidra: Like I said before- I’ve always been the tall one. After I was comfortable being an author, I had the idea to write a “tall girls” book. Thinking of it as the book I needed growing up. I had the idea for a while before pitching it to Kay to co-author and she was immediately on board. With that, Tallia’s Tips for Tall Girls was written and in progress to being published.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Keidra: No! Whew chile! The biggest hiccup was finding the illustrator that could capture our vision. That itself was trial and error. Then the illustrator we decided on, there was much more back and forth than I anticipated. It was like the second child. The first book-child sets you up to think it’ll be smooth sailing the next go around. Then the second one has all the moments that make you pause and reset.
Working with Kay has been seamlessly fun though! We have had the same experiences being tall, so working together just naturally flowed.
Kaylon: In addition printing, as we know, things have been raising in price in our economy so having to find totally new distributor outside of the US was a bit of a pebble in the process but we were able to find an outstanding company to work with and are looking forward to working with in the future. Lastly, representation, we wrote this book to inspire tall girls and women to embrace their height and stand in their power that comes from it. However, it was disappointing to see there wasn’t a book out that encouraged girls in this way when it’s such a common experience!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Keidra: Full time, I’m a public interest attorney. I work for a firm that assists and represents low-income Texans that need legal assistance but can’t afford it. My caseload consists of mainly housing-related issues and guardianship cases.
Kaylon: Outside of writing fantastic children’s literature, I played professional basketball in Europe, which led to my retirement in 2020 at the peak of COVID. Now I work as a Customer Success Manager at a software company.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Keidra: I’m an avid leisure reader! I love escaping in a book. Specifically Black literature- romance, historical fiction, thriller, memoirs! I have not gotten into fantasy though. Blogs- I like Nedra Tawwab and recently gotten into Substack articles.
Kaylon: I have recently been heavy into audiobooks. The Libby app is one of my favorites along with Audible to dive into a good book. I’m an avid reader myself outside of writing my own stories and have been helpful in a activating my creativity
Pricing:
- Adventures with papa-$15
- Where Are We?-$12
- I See Me-$17
- Tallia’s Tips for Tall Girls-$17
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Booksbykeidra.square.site
- Instagram: @klxonlinebookstore and @adventureswithpapa_
- Other: https://www.klxpublishing.com
