“Take time to celebrate every achievement, because it’s huge. And your creativity is a gift. You’ve got to keep stewarding that gift.”
Ronda Taylor is a poet, writer, storyteller, and program director of Youth Empowerment Services, a non-profit organization in Charleston. Taylor earned a B.A. in English with a minor in creative writing, as well as a Master of Arts in Writing, both from Coastal Carolina University. She published a children’s book titled Radiant Girl: Daughter of the King (2024), and her work appears in two poetry anthologies: This is the Honey (2023), edited by Kwame Alexander, and Ukweli: Searching for Healing Truth (2022) Taylor is the founder of Seen Heard Loved Publishing, LLC.
About
Ronda Taylor said she’d always wanted to write, and her education at Coastal Carolina University was the foundation for her career. Her work at The Athenaeum Press, the student-driven publishing lab at the university, was an important ingredient of that experience, as it allowed her refine her interests, “to become involved in the area, getting immersed in its community and its culture, as we pursued creative storytelling with a purpose.”
Networking has been essential to Taylor’s career. She performed spoken poetry at the Dream Girls Conference in Charleston, S.C., which drew more than 1,200 girls from around the state. “That was a big turning point,” said Taylor. “The creativity I’d been looking for was there, the energy was there. That conference solidified my passion. It all aligned with what I was looking for.”
As a creative, Taylor said she faces challenges regularly in her career. “You never know what the road is going to bring,” Taylor said. “You have to take disappointments and rejection and just redirect. That is what I had to learn: to persevere, endure, try a different way if the first path doesn’t work out. I’m still in a beautiful place even though it took me a different route to get here.”
Taylor encourages students interested in a creative career to attend events, meet people, and make connections. “Networking has been really important, finding those spaces where there’s opportunity for community,” said Taylor. “Sometimes it looks like membership, and sometimes it’s social media groups; there are many places you can find opportunities for community and mentorship.” Taylor mentioned the South Carolina Arts Commission, from which she was awarded an artist business initiative grant, which allowed her to launch her publishing company. She also noted that local bookstores and libraries can be important places to connect with people.
“Don’t get discouraged,” Taylor advises students. “Keep going. Surround yourself with a community that will support you. Keep moving forward, because it will happen even if it doesn’t happen in a certain way.”
