What is your name?
Ms. Yolonda D. Coleman
Where are you from?
I was born and reared in Washington, D.C. and currently living in Maryland.
What is your profession and educational background?
Currently, I instruct high school sophomores, juniors and seniors in journalism. My undergraduate studies were completed at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia.
What is your mission?
To build my dreams as an author and entreprenuer and help others see the beginning of their own.
What are your long range and short range goals and objectives?
Long Range: Own and operate a summer school for the fine and performing arts while maintaining a successful writing career.
Short Term: To finish the sequel to Sugar Rush: Love's Liberation, produce a 1 hour radio broadcast and become financial secure as a full-time author and motivational speaker.
How do you plan to accomplish your goals?
Faith, prayer and patience. Only God knows how things will work out. I'm just a busy bee in the valley as I wait.
What do you see yourself doing five years from now? Ten years from now?
I hope to have 7 titles published in the next five years, married to the man God created for me who is as supportive of my ambitions, hopes and dreams as I will be of his. Ten years from now, I plan to be running the summer school with sponsorships, grants and other sources of financial backing.
How do you determine or evaluate success?
I look into the eyes of my readers who have been touched. Building wealth off my work is temporary, but changing a life lasts forever.
What inspires you?
I absorb all things living and not living. I sit under trees and personify them. I jump into the skin of an interesting man and mock his mannerisms on paper. I stare at a woman who’s less than cool in front a man she admires and write what she’s thinking. I become that sad child who no one wants to play with on the playground and script his thoughts. I absorb that church sermon and feel the pain and joy of each member who hears it. Life and people inspire me.
I am also inspired by the classics written by such authors as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Harper Lee, John H. Griffin, Dr. Maya Angelou and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
What is your opinion of the world today?
We have a big bandage holding us together. Sooner or later, it will break a part and there will be a lot of pain. We can't keep camouflaging our problems with empty rhetoric to make people feel good. Collectively, we have to stop abusing ourselves, our children and our world. The real war is right in our back yards. Yet and still, I remain hopeful that love will pull us together.
What is your contribution to society?
I like to think that my work will continue to heal the broken hearted. If I can continue that objective, I will have helped a nation.
What is your idea of happiness?
Being at peace with yourself---good, bad or indifferent. Happiness starts on the inside. People will notice the external joy just from your smile.
Are you doing what you really want to do in life?
Ask me this question in September 2007, and I will confirm with a resounding YES!
What do you consider to be your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
My greatest strength is being able to motivate others to follow their dreams. My greatest weakness is saying "no" to opportunity. I don't want to miss out on any new adventures life has to offer.
How would a good friend describe you?
Treesa says that I'm creative. Russ says that I'm motivated. Maurice, a former student, calls me a wingless angel. Others might describe me as one who never lets grass grow under her feet...I'm always busy doing something positive.
Are religious or spiritual beliefs a vital part of your life?
My spiritual connection with God is very important to me sustaining a peaceful lifestyle. I can do nothing without His Grace and Mercy. My mother once said, "God looks out for babies and fools." Since I'm not a baby, I must be a fool...for love, life and all things wrapped in it. I'm a risk taker when it comes to following my dreams and I ask God daily to keep me from the pit of poverty as I go about spreading the greatest of all things---LOVE. It was a gift he granted me. Since love can't be contained, neither can my feet and so I move forward with God's Grace.
Is there anything else that you would like readers to know about you?
Choose a side. Choose to love. Dream with limitless possibilities knowing God looks out for his children.
