SPEAKER_01 0:04

I had no idea. I mean, the ideas were there. I just didn't know how to navigate and get through those dark alleys ways of going down a neighborhood that I didn't understand. And literally, I did not understand until you helped me put it all down into roadmap.

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tines, and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing live, review books, and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journal. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. So today I have with me a very, very special guest, author and activist Karen Kendra Holmes. The reason Karen is a very special person is because I was her book coach. And uh through you know our coaching sessions, she was working on a memoir called 40 Years and Wondering No More. It's about her life being a transgender and being an activist for trans rights and LGBTQQ rights. And so after the book coaching, we uh I helped her publish her book and now she's working with my team on marketing her book. So without further ado, Karen, can you tell us a bit about yourself and the book that you just published?

The Cliff Moment And Coming Back

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Hi Natasha, and thanks for having me on your show. And I just really want to say uh what a fantastic coach you were, as well as the publisher. I tried to, you know, keep it small, but you know, it's hard not to give you the credit where credit is due. Literally, for your listeners out there, Natasha basically in certain parts of the chapter when I was talking about my memoir, it was like, tell me a little bit more about this, tell me a little more about that. And it just really stretched it out a lot further than I expected. And it was funny because when you asked me to do the book in four months and 40,000 words, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but inside my head, I'm thinking, is shit crazy. Actually, I did it in three and a half months and did 41,000 words. And so that's a great tribute to you because for years I've been thinking about, you know, writing a book and I've had the ideas and the thoughts about doing it, but I didn't have a roadmap. You were like ways for me, telling me to make this turn, make that turn, and go this way. And so that's that's literally what it was all about. So credit is due where credit is due, and that's to you, and thank you very much. And now on to the book.

unknown 3:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Thank you very much for your kind words. Makes me so happy. But you did all the work. I just, you know, I was just there guiding you. So kudos to you for doing all the work.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Oh, well, thank you. And you know, to to do the book, it it was it brought up a lot of emotional feelings and stuff like this throughout the entire book, you know, starting off with the prelude talking about the cliff when I was actually as Tony one night, actually driving down the road, and I just got really upset with what was going on inside of me, which is me, Karen. And I just stopped on the side of this this windy road and just went to the back of the car, lift up the trunk, took all the clothes out of the back and threw it over the cliff. Like I was killing what was inside of me. And that was the that was the tough part. And then going home, I felt kind of good about it, but I also felt sad about it too, as well. And a couple of months later, boom, back, and I just knew there was no way you could get rid of me at this point.

Finding Clarity At A Trans Conference

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Can you tell us a bit about the name of the book, how it's structured, and so that they and if you have a copy of it, you can also show it so that people would know exactly what your story is about.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah, I don't have it right here is over in uh my cabinet over there, but basically, well, I can do this real quick after I tell you a little bit. The title of the book, of course, is 40 Years and Wandering No More. It took me 40 years to figure this crap out from the age of 13 to 53. And it was during that time of uh 2010 when I went to a conference in the Philadelphia area called the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference. That's where I really found out deep down inside who I truly was, listening to other transgender people talk about their stories in the workshops, walking around the conference area and seeing little kids having a blast. And I'm like trying to figure that that part of it out. And their parents were there supporting them and just, you know, playing along with them. And I said, wow, if they can do it, I can do it. And so a combination of that and going to the workshops and hearing other stories and saying, wow, that's me inside, leaving Philadelphia that Sunday going down 95 to Maryland. I was like a runaway freight train. Literally, I wanted to do whatever it took on Monday to see a friend of mine at my agency who also happens to be our attorney at the agency. I couldn't wait to see her so I could see what I needed to do to transition on the job. And lo and behold, she was on travel for work, and then she took another week for vacation. So for two weeks, I was like a basket case wondering how I needed what process I needed to go through to actually transition on the job.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Wow. So what made you decide that you want to tell your story?

Why Write For Both Communities

SPEAKER_00 6:07

What was the like the trigger or the, you know, did you just wake up one morning and said, I have to tell my story, or, you know, what happened?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Uh probably about a year later, I just felt like, you know, there was a a purpose. I mean, you know, like I do a lot of volunteer work with Red Cross, CERT, which is Community Emergency Response Field, and RSVP, which is retired seniors program. And I just uh said to myself, you know, God placed it on my heart to say, look, you need to do more for the community. You know, I hear I'm doing all this stuff for Red Cross and CERT and you know, park police and stuff, but I wasn't doing anything from my heart for the transgender community. And once I felt that and heard that from God, basically, I just, you know, said, I got to do something. So I started doing a lot of speaking events for the, you know, trans conferences and stuff like that. And then I said, let me put this into a book. And for years, like I said, I've been thinking about this since 2011, doing a book. And I just said, you know, what did I want to do? Putting it into a story that I wanted to do. And and my whole idea was I wanted to help the transgender community understand and be able to come out, you know, of their authentic self. But on the flip side of that, you know, for the book, I also wanted to help the cisgender community understand who we are. That we are not what you see on the Jerry Springer show. I mean, literally, we are doing military, police, fire, judges, lawyers, politicians. I mean, the gamma just goes on. And that's what I wanted this the cisgender community to understand, that we are doing great things out there.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Hmm. And so the book is finished, published, it's it's selling well.

The Hardest Part And The Roadmap

SPEAKER_00 8:03

What was the hardest part about writing the book for you?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

The hardest part, putting all of that stuff on paper to understand. And like I said, you were the one as my coach to give me ideas and a roadmap. You know, you set up categories, and then from then I was able to fill in the blanks that I needed to fill in, which was a great help to me because, like I said, I had no idea. I mean, the ideas were there, I just didn't know how to navigate and get through those dark alleys ways of going down a neighborhood that I didn't understand. And literally I did not understand until you helped me put it all down into a roadmap. And I and I really I really look at that for what you did. You were like ways. I mean, literally telling me to make this term, go that way, give me more information, and that's what I really needed to be able to do it. And so it worked out great.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

That's great. So the book is out in the words, and what has been the reaction from the trans community and the cisgender community?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Uh,

Reader Reactions And Unexpected Ripples

SPEAKER_01 9:14

from the transgender community, a lot of them are loving the book. They've given me great compliments. They're seeing, you know, the my promoter put stuff on there, you know, as far as Facebook, Instagram, and and LinkedIn, Twitter. And from those, they're seeing, you know, they're going in and looking at the book on eBook, and they're getting you know, they've got great ideas for themselves as far as their venture, their journey into this new life. From the cisgender community, it's just been blowing me away because of the fact they're they they all of a sudden they come out to either they've got a family member that's transgender, a best friend. I just heard today, matter of fact, at the doctor's office, and they want to get the book. They want to read what's going on. I've had people in the book that I didn't mention by name, but they realized the circumstances when they read the book, they said, I remember that, you know, which is great. And then there was another one that really, really struck me hard, a good friend of mine for years, and I'm not gonna mention his his name or anything like that, but he was married to a cisgender woman for 20 plus years. And me talking to him about my life and struggles or the compliments that I've been doing, he got divorced from his wife a couple of years ago. He sent me a long text message on Facebook and said he is now dating a trans woman from the Philippines. And I'm like, oh my God, you know, I wasn't expecting my book to push them over to the trans community, but that that's what they he learned from me in reading not only my book, but also from me talking to him for years and and getting them to understand. And uh another cisgender male, he loved the book so much he wants to uh send the book down to his Hispanic country. I'm not sure what country it was, but when I heard that, he even said, Have you thought about putting this into Spanish? Like, whoa. So we need to talk about that, Natasha.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah, yeah, actually thinking of starting translation services because I'm getting a number of requests about translation, but we'll we'll talk about that later on. Uh all right, so I'm so happy to hear about all the the positive feedback you

Pushback And The Military Ban

SPEAKER_00 11:44

got. So I as you know, our country here is is divided and some people might not be that excited about the the transgender community and the activism. Did you get any pushback from people or like comments online or something like that? And how did you deal with it if that was the case?

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I haven't gotten any comment back or anything like that. I do remember, I want to say this was four years ago, maybe five, when I was up in Boston talking up to the attorneys up there, and just happening that the I guess is the Boston Post was there, they commented what I was talking about, because I also talked about my time in the military with the Maryland Defense Force, which supports the Maryland National Guards. And of all people they commented on my speaking there was President Trump. And I was blown away when I saw that it was nothing really nasty or anything mean. It just basically, I was like, oh, he responded. It was and it wasn't real long, but it was in regards to us serving in the military. So yeah, that was that. What did he say? I wish I had it in front of me what he said. I don't have it in front. It was just basically he didn't believe in in the trans people serving in the military, which is which is his stance now. And of course, we already know that you know Peach Hedgecliffe is, you know, cutting us out one by one. And I've got friends of mine who, when they're leaving their discharge, they have to go back to their prior birth name, exiting their DD 214 papers and stuff like that. And I'm like, that's not fair, especially if their paperwork is all legal. That's that's almost like saying you're in the military and a female person gets married and they take on the last name of that their new husband. Are you trying to tell me that you're gonna make them go back to their prior name because of the fact that they got married? And so that's the same way, you know, for a trans person, they legally got their name changed, and yet they're making them go back to their prior name at birth.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

So you uh you're a vet, and so thank you for your service. And for how are you helping the the transgender community, uh the vets in the transgender community, in the army and the police? How are

Bridging Police And Trans Communities

SPEAKER_00 14:22

you trying to help them not only navigate this, you know, the roadblocks, but in terms of like legality, are you being an activist? Are you going to the hill, you know, because you know now they're banned from the army. So, you know, what have you been doing about that?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

I haven't gone to the hill or anything like that, and I I feel there's people who are in or coming out of the military, and we're talking about friends of mine that are like colonels, you know, they're high up there. Yeah. And I'm leaving that really, that part of it to them to do. But I've been down to Fort Dietrich twice to speak down there. I've been to Fort Meade twice to speak there. And I've been down to the Navy Yard as well. So, you know, my going there and talking to those group of people during Pride Month, it's been absolutely great. With the police, when Police Week came up one year, I actually was asked to be a speaker for one of the transgender women who was a police officer who died there. And so that was very, very important to me because police week is big here in in Washington, D.C. every year. And to be able to speak about this this uh police officer was absolutely great. And I mean, you know, the comments, especially for the last seven years until Trump 2.0 came in, it got rid of DEI. And so what I was doing was I was going around the country for the last seven years before that, speaking to law enforcement officers around the country and talking to them and trying to build that bridge between the transgender community and law enforcement. Meet in the middle, let the police understand the transgender community, and let the transgender community understand why the police do what they do and in regards to safety. And so now all of those agencies that I've spoken to, they understand. I even had like one of the ones in San Francisco come up and he's he stopped me in the middle of my talk to tell the rest of the officers in the uh training class that this was a great training that he has ever heard. And he's been on the force for 40 years. To have a 40-year-old veteran tell that to his officers and stuff like that just blew me away. And I just felt like, you know, that was a big honor. And I know that I'm changing lives and hearts and feelings in there. Back in 2019, there were two girls that were murdered in Fairmont Heights, Maryland, a month apart from each other. And so I got a phone call from the commander from the They were transgender, they were transgender women. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

And actually they were sex workers, transgender sex workers. And so the commander asked me, is she goes, Look, I'm having problems. I'm having my officers push the girls from the Maryland side of the street to the DC side. DC comes by pushing them back to Maryland. I don't want to play this ping pong game with the girls anymore. Is there anything you can do to help them get off the street? And I said, Well, let me give it a shot and uh see what we can do. And so I started riding around with a police officer every two weeks, we'll say. And when we saw the girls out on this this strip, they would pull over. I would get out of the cruiser, go up and talk to the to the gr person, because I did meet one male

The Butterfly Project And Street Outreach

SPEAKER_01 17:58

trans person out there, but mostly they were females. And I just said, Hey, look, you know, I'm not a police officer because you see me getting out of a police car. I'm in transgender just like you. And so that opened up that little doorway so I can get in. I said, Is there anything I can do to help you get off the streets? And they just basically said, Look, I need food on my table. I need a place to lay my head at at night. And going to an interview, I don't have clothes and stuff. So I went back, told this to a group that I had started, and then also speaking at a reef land for the two girls, and Prince George's County Memorial Library system were there, two of their staff people, and they said, Wow, this is a great story. That what I wanted to do was help them do resume building and role play across the table with them on how to do a job interview. And let's see if we could do something about dress for success, you know, get them some clothes. And so I started working with that, and we started my group, co-sponsored by uh Rebecca Oxley from the uh Prince George County Memorial Library System, who now is with DC library system called the Butterfly Project. And what we wanted to do was do all of those things, and with the library, we could go to expand, help them with GED, how to, you know, go through courses and get their DED classes and stuff. And what happened to them? Have you followed up with them? I'm gonna revamp it back up this November. We it it's so weird. We had stuff set up once a month for these girls to come by and get a free lunch. We had nobody that showed up. And we did it in the area where the two girls were murdered at. We did a big event at Bus Boy and Poet. I had a place that I rented out for 70 people. Only two trans people showed up. I had more people over that were my friends or or neighbors from my neighborhood come and support me on this. And I was a little bummed out. My uh director and and CEO of the Women's Veterans United Committee Incorporated come up to me and say, you know, look, even if you get one person, it's a success. Even though that's true, I really didn't feel it. So um, and I talked to uh uh Rebecca about it, and I said, Look, I think if we do this ramping back up uh of feeding them, let's do it in the evening for a dinner rather than a lunch because they're probably sleeping during the day because they've been out all night. And so if we do anything, we'll do that. And I have another target area that we probably will do it in, and that's the way we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Okay, I want to pivot a bit and talk about marketing your book.

Book Marketing That Actually Works

SPEAKER_00 21:38

So some people say like writing the book is the easiest part, selling the book is the hardest part. Do you agree with that? Or I mean you already have a platform and audience. So I want to hear about your marketing efforts, you know, your events, you know. I saw you did Pride Month, you were invited to talk. So what kind of marketing tactics that you applied that worked and you advise other authors to do?

SPEAKER_01 22:07

What I did, one, it's so funny because I guess it's the person my personality. And I I feel my personality is is super. I used to be in sales years ago selling alarm systems, furniture, fire protection systems, and stuff like that. And really, I kind of also put myself in the opposite hand of the uh the reader. What am I want to see? And I think also you've revamped that back up into me when you asked me those questions like tell me more about this, tell me more about that. What was my with the book? You know, I had my business cards, I added on my business card, and I'm gonna try to. This is in the order I did it. I added you know writer on there on my business card. And then I did a event at Staples, and Staples basically the guy, the manager. I mean, me and him are uh good friends. We're not drinking buddies, but you know, this is how our friendship grew. And so he said, look, let's take the cover of your book and put it on a business card, and on the back side we'll put the QR code. And I'm like, oh, that's great. Because people are seeing a face with the QR code and they know to go directly to Amazon by clicking on the QR code. And we did a big poster board with my picture on it, the cover of the book. And then I just basically here expanding, I just said, look, the idea I'm giving out, you know, sometimes two business cards, one that's my regular business card, and the other one, the book cover with the QR code on the back. So what I do is this time, I did a business card again, left everything on the front side the same, but on the back side, I did put the QR code on the back of that. So now I can just give out really that card and not give out the one with the cover of my, you know, my face on it, unless, you know, I really want to do that. And sometimes I do both. And then the post poster board, I got one that's a little bit smaller. I shouldn't say little, because I got the big one that goes on an easel and stint. I'm gonna put that out at the door. But the smaller one is a table one. And I've got that book cover on a poster board that's gonna sit on the table. And then right at the bottom of the poster board that'll be sitting on the table is the QR code to the book. And so that way if somebody, let's say I'm at a book book signing and maybe I might run out of books. I'll still talk about the book and stuff to people that come up. But the QR code is right there on the poster board, which is on the table. So that's what I've done to expand things a little bit more. Contacting people on my my email contact list, people that are in my Facebook. I'm going to a lot of people in there that I know, grouping up, sending them, you know, information. Hey, the book is out, you know, the memoir. You can find it on Amazon either under my name or you can find it under 40 years and wandering no more. I wanted to give them that that option. And plus, both of them are right there on that text message that you know they can they see. So I'm doing that as well so they can associate. And I'm getting a lot of responses. I like it. Congratulations, ba-pah, you know, and so on. And so that's been good on that part there. And then I've been talking with later, I figured out I forgot about on my personal website that there's followers or shared things in there. I've got a whole contact list of people in there. And I said, I need to go there and copy them over and send them something. And then you gave me the contact list thing to do. So I need to work on that. But yeah, that's how we're doing our marketing. And I'm hoping to tell other people, like, you know, let's do book signings, you know, check with the church and find out. Because the church is my church, has been very, very supportive, Rockville United Church, and that's obviously that's where you met me from there. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Yeah. So I mean, this this is really fascinating and very helpful, Karen. And you know, I can talk to you for hours, and I'm sure they'd love to hear from you. But before I go, and I could since I have another meeting, I wanted to ask you to tell the listeners

Where To Buy The Book And Closing

SPEAKER_00 26:39

and the viewers how they can get your book, how they can get in touch with you, and you know, if they want to invite you to an event, all of that. So this is your time for the shameless plug.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Okay, well, you can get my book, go to Amazon and put my name in, Karen Holmes, and it'll pop right on up. Or you can put in 40 years and wandering no more. That'll bring it up as well. To get in touch with me, my phone number is 301-395-4214, or you can email me at kkholmes 1956 at gmail.com. Or last but not least, my personal website at kkholmes.com and go down, hit the contact button, and then you can send me a message that away. And uh, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Great. So thank you very much, Karen. This has been wonderful. And for anyone who's listening and or watching, make sure to check out Karen's book. Not because it's wonderfully written, because Karen is an amazing human being. She is making the world a better place. So please go support her, get her book, and thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha and until we meet again. Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, Natasha Time. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time. Happy reading, happy writing.