Story Seeds | Tonya Abari
"I am unapologetic about writing for Black children. I see us. I am us. I love us."
Tonya Abari (she/her) is a Nashville-based independent journalist, author, essayist, and reviewer for both children and adult books. With a wide range of interests including parenting, Black maternal health, food, travel, lifestyle, environment, personal wellness, and culture, her words have been published in the Nashville Scene, Essence, AllRecipes, The Kitchn, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Parents, Romper, Good Housekeeping, PBS Kids, and many more. When she’s not writing, Tonya is discovering new places, dancing to an early 2000s playlist, homeschooling two children, and enjoying food pop-ups with her family, all whose names also begin with “T.”
Connect: @iamtabari on Instagram
Author Tonya Abari is a multigenre writer who squeezes spurts of writing in between the joys and tasks of motherhood. Living and writing in Nashville, Abari is a member and teaching artist at PorchTN, where she leads the Nashville Black Storytellers, helping to cultivate the craft of fellow writers. Abari also lends her storytelling skills to those brimming with ideas as a ghostwriter.
Abari passionately writes for and about Black children, sowing seeds of confidence, appreciation of history, and unbridled joy. Abari’s books include My Hair, My Crown and Let’s Celebrate Juneteenth, which are both board books built for little hands and hearts. Her picture book, Locs, Not Dreads, honors and affirms the beauty of loc’d hair. Her upcoming projects include The Six Triple Eight (2025), A Santa Like Me (2025), and The Shape of Water (2026).
With an enthusiasm for storytelling, Abari shares her writing process, what projects and happenings are currently keeping her excited, and honest advice for fellow writers.
Can you share your writing process?
I typically follow the five-step writing process for all of my writing projects. This includes brainstorming/prewriting, research, drafting, radical revision, and editing. This process looks different from my work in children’s vs. adult (in adult, I tend to incorporate heavy reverse outlining and many of these steps happen out of order). For children’s books, I write board books, picture books, and then jump up to YA. For the youngest readers, the drafting section includes writing the drafts in paginated form and including extensive art notes. As I am writing, I am also imagining what the illustrations look like. I’m no artist – stick figures are as far as I go, ha – but, as a well read author, I usually have a firm idea of what I want the illustrations to look like. I leave plenty of room for the illustrator to do their thing, but I draft “in pictures,” so to speak.
How does parenthood influence your work?
Parenthood heavily influences my work. It inspires and informs the topics that I write about (my art often imitates life) as well as informing the actual process of writing. For instance, parents are usually doing a billion things at once. Thus, the whole “butt in seat” writing doesn’t work for me. I have to write “in the corners of the day.” Five minutes here, 25 minutes there, in the Target parking lot or hiding in the bathroom for 20 minutes with a pen and pad.
What project(s) are you most excited about?
I’m really geeked out about all of my work to be honest. As an author, it’s important for me to focus on creating passion projects. These are works that are from the heart. No knocking anyone who does this, but I do not write to the current publishing trends. I am also intuitive, so many of my projects have deep meaning. I am totally in love with the YA nonfiction that I am writing for Penguin entitled The Shape of Water. My daughter is learning how to scuba dive, and writing alongside her growth as a diver has been transformative. I’m also very excited about forthcoming author collaboration/ghostwriting projects. I live for helping others tell their stories!
What advice would you give to other writers?
Just write the darn thing! Seriously, I get a lot of people in my DM’s asking for advice about starting a writing career. You are a writer because you write. All of the other steps in becoming a career writer don’t mean anything if you don’t have any words on the page. Everything is hard, too. I think a lot of people are seeking the easiest route possible but being a writer is definitely a long game. Through craft study, industry knowledge, and more craft, you will get better. But you have to put in the hours first. What’s the saying, it takes 10,000 hours before you are an expert at something. Well, start with the first word.
My second piece of advice would be to find your voice and stick to it. There’s only one you! And while readers are your audience, they appreciate authenticity on the page. I have a lot of interests. At first, I was in denial about being a deep generalist, but the further I got into my career, I realized that I enjoy writing in multiple areas and now I own it. Granted, I do have verticals/topics/styles that I prefer (i.e. I am a nonfiction bae in YA/Adult). I am really anti-niche. That works for ME.
How do you approach writing for young readers?
I have the added benefit of being an educator. I have a degree in education, was a classroom teacher for several years, a traveling set teacher in entertainment, and now I homeschool both of my own children. I’ve also been working in education, aftercare, and daycares since I was 18 years old. I care about what young people are interested in. Their voices matter and I always try to keep that at top of mind when writing for young readers. What kinds of books and pieces would I have wanted when I was their age?
How do you come up with the ideas for your stories?
Again, I write intuitively and with spirit guiding me. Most of my work centers on my own (and my family’s) lived experience. Additionally, I do get spiritual downloads often through dreams. I’ve had several subjects pop up in dreamland. And when it does happen, I follow it all the way through.
Is your goal to resonate with a broad audience of children or are you writing to a specific group?
Citing the work of the magnificent Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, of course I would like for my work to serve as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. However, my work is real heavy on the mirrors part. I am unapologetic about writing for Black children. I see us. I am us. I love us.
More books by Tonya Abari:
My Hair, My Crown
Let’s Celebrate Juneteenth
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