How Your Work Shapes Your Personal Brand with Deesha Philyaw
Episodes You Might Also Like
Featured
Description
What comes to mind when people hear your name? For award-winning author Deesha Philyaw, it’s stories about Black women seeking freedom, told with humor, desire, and honesty. It’s also the way she supports other writers. Deesha sees her personal brand in both the work she chooses to create and how she shows up in her community, while recognizing that she cannot control how everyone receives it.
In this episode of Branding Room Only, Deesha shares how the women who raised her in Jacksonville shaped The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and her commitment to writing Black women as complex, fully human people. She also traces the winding path from teaching and freelance work to her award-winning fiction and her debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, a project she has worked on for 20 years.
Paula and Deesha talk about rejection, revision, community, and building an online presence through genuine conversation. Deesha’s advice for writers draws on her own experience: do the work, find your people, and stay clear about what you are willing to put your name on.
Chapters
1:36 – Deesha’s relationship with personal branding, rejection, and how she describes herself
5:16 – How growing up in Jacksonville shaped Deesha’s writing
11:42 – Deesha’s path from college and early careers to becoming a writer
18:22 – The "ancestral honesty" of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and the church community’s response
24:52 – What rejection and persistence taught Deesha about how she wants to show up
29:48 – Deesha’s experience expanding her work into television
33:37 – How social media helped Deesha build her platform and brand
39:14 – Why The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman took 20 years to write
46:03 – Deesha’s advice for authors building an authentic brand
49:22 – What Deesha does for fun
50:50 – What Deesha will never compromise on in her writing and brand
Connect With Deesha Philyaw
Deesha Philyaw is an award-winning author and a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, and United States Artist Fellow. Her debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Story Prize, the LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. Her debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, was released in September 2026 and is published by Mariner Books (an imprint of HarperCollins).
Deesha also co-hosts two podcasts: Ursa Short Fiction with Dawnie Walton and Reckon True Stories with Kiese Laymon. She’s currently working on developing TV shows based on her short fiction.
The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman and Other Books by Deesha Philyaw
Follow Deesha on Threads | Instagram | Bluesky | X/Twitter | Facebook
Mentioned In How Your Work Shapes Your Personal Brand with Deesha Philyaw
Deesha’s short story “Fuckboy Museum” in the anthology Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women (also available on Amazon)
Curated Resources from Paula
Sign Up for Paula’s Upcoming Events
Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer
Subscribe to The Branding Room Only podcast on YouTube
Call to Action
Follow & Review: Help others find the podcast. Subscribe and leave a quick review.
Want more branding insights? Join Paula’s newsletter for expert tips and exclusive content! Subscribe Here
Conferences are an investment—make sure you maximize yours. My Engage Your Hustle™ Conference Playbook gives you the strategies to prepare, stand out, and follow up with impact. Get your copy today.
Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.
Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula T. Edgar: Welcome to Branding Room Only, the podcast where your personal brand gets a front row seat. I'm Paula T. Edgar and if you're here, it's because you know your brand isn't just about what you do. It's about how people experience you. In each episode, you'll hear stories, strategies and lessons from leaders and influencers, who built their brands and made their mark. And I'll share the tools you need to do the same.
Let's go. Hi, everybody, it's Paula T. Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only and I'm very excited about my conversation today with my guest, Deesha Philyaw. Let me tell you about her. Deesha Philyaw's debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 Penn Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020-2021 Story Prize and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize, the Art Steenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. Okay. Deesha is a Combilio Fiction Fellow, a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a United States Artist Fellow and co-host of two podcasts, Ursa Short Fiction with Dawnie Walton and Wrecking True Stories with KSA Lehman. Deesha's debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, is forthcoming from Mariner Books, an imprint of Harper Collins in September 2026. Deesha, welcome to the Branding Room. I'm so excited to have you here.
Deesha Philyaw: Paula, thank you so much for having me. And I'm just thrilled to be here chatting it up with you today.
Paula T. Edgar: Same. So let's jump into these questions. OK, what does personal branding mean to you? How would you define it?
Deesha Philyaw: OK, so first I had to get to a place where I didn't chafe at the idea of personal branding, right? As something like inauthentic or manufactured. Now I see it as a question, like what do people associate with me?
Paula T. Edgar: OK.
Deesha Philyaw: And so that means that the brand is somewhat in my control and somewhat not in my control. But what I hope to convey is that it's about my writing, but also how I show up in my professional community. So as far as my writing, I want my brand to be that I'm a literary citizen who lifts as I climb and whose writing is focused on freedom-seeking Black women and the writing is sometimes sexy, sometimes humorous, but always straight, no chaser.
Paula T. Edgar: I love that. Well, you kind of dipped in, but let me just ask the question to make sure. How would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases?
Deesha Philyaw: OK, different, that's different from my brand.
Paula T. Edgar: That's what I was going to say. I'm like, I want to know.
Deesha Philyaw: OK, good. Curious, because I think curiosity drives my writing practice, but also how I try to be in my relationships. Healing, I'm a work in progress. And I'm a Virgo. I think that, you know.
Paula T. Edgar: What I love about that, so the people who bring out their, what their sign is, way to get go, it always says a lot, because they're always Virgos.
Deesha Philyaw: Oh, really?
Paula T. Edgar: I have to laugh because some of my favorite people in the world are Virgos and y'all are very Virgo.
Deesha Philyaw: We are a lot, yes.
Paula T. Edgar: Yes, and in all the best ways, in all the best ways.
Deesha Philyaw: Thank you.
Paula T. Edgar: So asking this question to any author is an interesting thing, but I'm going to ask you because I want to know and I've always gotten some really good ones from the authors in my cohort. What is your favorite quote and why?
Deesha Philyaw: What's for me will be for me. And it's my favorite, because it gives me a lot of peace that I really, I mean, I work hard and I'm diligent and I try to be, you know, tenacious. I'm resilient about things, but I don't have to chase things. You know what I mean? Like there's a difference between, you know, working hard for something and then like chasing something that's really not meant for you. And it also helps me deal with rejection. You know, there's a lot of rejection in publishing. And as well, I'm sure we'll talk about, you know, make the little foray into Hollywood. There's a lot of rejection and uncertainty there. And so the way I can move forward, because people say, oh, you get a rejection, you know, how do you keep writing and write something else? I'm always working on multiple things, that's one. But I always can chalk it up to, well, that wasn't for me.
Paula T. Edgar: I love that and I also know that I needed to hear that. As I foray into this writing world, I needed to hear that ahead of time, because I'm from East New York, Brooklyn and we have rejection issues.
Deesha Philyaw: Brooklyn is like Virgo.
Paula T. Edgar: It is. It says a whole bunch. That is true. So what about this? When they're going to get full Deesha coming to them, what song is playing in your head? What is your hype song?
Deesha Philyaw: My hype song is Free by Denise Williams.
Paula T. Edgar: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes.
Paula T. Edgar: Yes. Come on. I can hear the hit in the range right now. Oh, it's such a good one. That's such a good one. I love that. I will listen to this after that. Okay. So tell me this, where did you grow up, and how do you think that shaped you?
Deesha Philyaw: So I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, born and raised. Duval, you know, everybody says Duval. Duval is like Virgo. It's like Brooklyn. When you say you're from Duval, it comes with a certain description. You know, I grew up in the 70s and 80s there. I left in 89, when I went to college. So Jacksonville is a very different place then, you know, now than it was then. But some people don't think of Florida as the South. I live in Miami right now and it's different. Florida is like three or four different Souths, depending on, you know, where you are.
Paula T. Edgar: That’s true.
Deesha Philyaw: But Jacksonville is North Florida and, you know, right there with Southern Georgia. And so it was very much a Black Southern upbringing. And those and the women, in particular, are the women, you know, that raised me, the women inside and outside of the church. Those are the women that just, you know, live rent free in my head. You know, their voices, things they put up with and didn't put up with. You know, it's my grandmother's voice I hear a lot. So when I'm writing stories, I'm often taken back to those women. And then, of course, I am those women. I just am no longer in that particular setting. But I return to that setting often, in terms of our foodways, the relationships between mothers and daughters and those sorts of dynamics, the heat, the physical location. When I write stories, if there's a kitchen, it's one of my grandmother's kitchens. If it's the backyard, it's the backyard I grew up in. And church was a part of that, even though I was raised by my mother and my grandmother, who didn't go to church…
Paula T. Edgar: Interesting.
Deesha Philyaw: … but they just stayed in the church.
Paula T. Edgar: That's interesting.
Deesha Philyaw: Right. And so it was and I didn't puzzle it out until my book came out. And of course, people were asking me a similar question, you know, about my upbringing. And I had to really think about it, because I only asked my grandmother once when, I was eight, well, you know, how come y'all don't go to church? And she said, I'll go to church when I get myself together. And the way she said it was like and don't ask me again. So I just, you know… But that's part of what I mean by being curious. It was my curiosity about women like my mother, women like my grandmother, as well as the women inside the church that drives a lot of the stories that I write about. Even if they're set in the present, this idea of the role that the church plays, even if you don't step foot in the building. So my mother and my grandmother were both single mothers. My grandfather was, his family, he and his family were literally the pillars of the church. They were the brick masons that laid the bricks. And they were the leaders inside the church. Now, my grandmother did not have her babies by herself. He was still in the church and he went on to marry one of the church mothers, but my grandmother never felt welcome there. My mother didn't feel welcome. But they sent me, so they weren't rejecting sort of that hypocrisy. They weren't rejecting the theology. They sent me like, I'm putting words in their mouths now, because I'm imagining, like I could be salvaged, like I could be saved. So I was going to church for as long as I could remember. I was sent with other people, neighborhood kids when I got older and we could, you know, kind of just go by ourselves. So I was curious about that. I was curious about sex and all the rules, because the church, you know, people are like, why are you writing so much about sex? Why are you like, because the church is obsessed.
Paula T. Edgar: Yes.
Deesha Philyaw: So much of what we're taught is what not to do sexually, how not to be sexually. And so… But you're becoming this sexual being. So I remember as a girl and as a teenager, like, wondering, well, what do you do with all these feelings? As your body is changing, what do these women do? If you're not married and you're not supposed to have sex, well, like, do they masturbate? Or do they have sex with each other? I was just curious about, you know, these women. And that stayed with me. So when I started writing, those were the women who were just running through my head and my imagination.
Paula T. Edgar: And definitely came out in the book, which y'all have to definitely go out and read, because I was like, what is happening here? It is fascinating. I love the short story, because you see a through line, but it's not the same story, right? It's different stories. And I loved it. It was really worthy of every single description that I made, in terms of all the awards. And of course, I read it, because all the people in my network who I know, I'm like, yep, I'm buying your book.
Deesha Philyaw: Thank you so much.
Paula T. Edgar: That part, that part. So I want to go back for a second, because I think the fascinating piece about your mother and grandmother sending you to church, even though they didn't go, speaks to me about something I talk about when it comes to branding all the time, too, which is judgment.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes. Ooh.
Paula T. Edgar: Right? It is the fear of people looking and seeing and attributing things to you, based on how they perceive you. And I can imagine, you know, you said that you could be salvaged. The first thing I thought about was that you were an ambassador.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes.
Paula T. Edgar: Right? Right? That's somebody who's like, even though we're not there, she is there. And then she shouldn't get the shadow that we might have cast. She's on her own. Yeah. I love that.
Deesha Philyaw: That's so true. And you make, you know, you, my mother who, you know, graduated from high school, didn't go to college. She always said that I was her greatest achievement. You know, talking about like her, you know, that I was her brand.
Paula T. Edgar: Yeah. Yeah.
Deesha Philyaw: Which that meant, you know, my mother was very much devoted to me, but that was also a lot of pressure on me trying to be an individual, you know?
Paula T. Edgar: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Deesha Philyaw: I mean, I guess if my mother had been asked that question, she would have said I was her brand.
Paula T. Edgar: I can imagine that, the pressure piece, too. Like, when my... I say it, I empathize, but I also definitely do it. When my kids leave the house, I go, -"Remember, you're an Edgar."
Deesha Philyaw: Yes, yes.
Paula T. Edgar: Right. Correct. And don't embarrass me, which is what my family would always say to me when I was walking into the store. And here I am with a podcast, a personal branding, because I don't want anybody to embarrass themselves when they walk in.
Deesha Philyaw: Show up for your people, please.
Paula T. Edgar: The ancestors are watching you.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes. Right. You are a brand ambassador for your ancestors.
Paula T. Edgar: Oh so true, so, so true. Okay. So tell me about you being in Jacksonville, et cetera. What then was your education and career path and how did you arrive in this moment in your writing life?
Deesha Philyaw: So I went to college prep magnet school, public magnet school in Jacksonville. And so the expectation was that everybody would go to college. But I came from a family where no one on my mom's side that I'm aware of went to college. And on my dad's side, I have a younger uncle. My father's younger brother went to college, but that was it. But I was in a place from 7th through 12th grade where the expectation is you go to college. And what I knew of college is you go to college, you get a job. And even though I had always been told, oh, you're a good writer, I was a great student and I've been reading since I was three years old, it never occurred to me that I would be a writer. Like, that was not on my radar. It was a job. And to me, being a writer was like being Michael Jackson. It did not, it didn't occur to me. And so when I got to college, I didn't understand the concept of liberal arts, which is you explore and you discover and you, you know, that's white people stuff, right? You know, it's like, what am I majoring in? And what is the through line straight from that to a good job?
Paula T. Edgar: Correct.
Deesha Philyaw: Because, you know, where I grew up at 18, you either go to college, get a job or go to the military. You are out of the house. There's no, it's like people supporting you after the fact. And so the only thing that I could see that I was interested in and like, I didn't, I'm not a science girlie at all. I was like, okay, business. And Yale doesn't have an, I went to Yale undergrad, it doesn't have an undergraduate business major. So I was like, okay, economics. That's the closest thing. I have a bachelor's degree in economics.
Paula T. Edgar: That is wild.
Deesha Philyaw: I'd never leave.
Paula T. Edgar: That is wild.
Deesha Philyaw: And so my first job out of college was in management consulting, which I hated. And then after like nine months of that, I got a fellowship to get my master's in teaching, to teach elementary school. And so I taught elementary school in Greenwich, Connecticut, of all places, for two years. Because Greenwich was, Greenwich paid for my degree, because their fellowship program was to get more teachers of color in lily white Greenwich. And so the idea was that you do the fellowship and then you teach there. And then my then husband, who I had met at Yale, he was working on Wall Street at the time and he was tired of that life and decided to take a banking job in Pittsburgh. And so that's how I ended up in Pittsburgh in 1997. And we decided that we wanted to start a family and I was going to be a stay-at-home mom. So I didn't teach again. So I was at home with a toddler. And when I looked to do something that was stimulating to me, that didn't have anything to do with parenting, it was writing. I just started writing a few minutes a day and then like, oh, mom's night out to write and then a weekend and then a workshop and a conference. And so I built that career through a lot of curiosity and reaching out to writers and taking advantage of opportunities. I don't have an MFA, I wanted to write fiction. I was trying to write novels and also writing short stories at the same time and ended up writing a column on parenting for Literary Mama. So that's how I got into the nonfiction space. And I got divorced. So it's like, oh, I got to make a living at this now. We're now not playing.
Paula T. Edgar: We got to eat.
Deesha Philyaw: And so, you know, I started working in 2000. So I got divorced in 2005. In 2006, I started working on the novel that's coming out next year. So that's 20 years. But I was also writing essays and short stories. And I was freelance. I was doing everything to make a living at writing, or to generate income that allowed me to write, because sometimes it wasn't writing, sometimes I was editing, sometimes I was fact-checking for the BET Awards and the hip-hop awards for BET. That was a freelance gig I had for like four years, fact-checking and writing bios for their voting academy database. You know, you name it, I did it. So sometimes it was like writing adjacent. Three years, the three years right before Church Ladies came out, I worked in corporate communications at a bank until I walked out of that job one day with no plan, because that lady wasn't going to talk to me like crazy again. So I turned… a month later, I turned in the manuscript to Church Ladies, to the publisher, and it came out a year later. And that's how we got here in a nutshell.
Paula T. Edgar: First of all, I am so glad. Something, I know I always have to ask this question, like the origin story, but you are the one that I expected, like that, you went in all kinds of places that I expected… And I remember now why I was surprised that you lived in Miami, because I was like, I don't… I connected Pittsburgh, because we met on social media.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes, when I was in Pittsburgh and everybody thought I was in Philly, because Pittsburgh's not a real city. But, you know, so I was in Pittsburgh until 2022 when my youngest daughter graduated high school. And then I was… the first place I went when we, because we could leave, we were free to leave Pittsburgh at that point. And our whole family left. They went to… My first stop was at the John Grisham writing, writer in residence position at the University of Mississippi. So I was there for a year. And then some friends in the Bay were like, come to Oakland. So I came to Oakland. California is very expensive. But the best place I ever lived culturally, socially was the Bay. And then after maybe 10 months there, I moved to Miami literally for the weather and the fact that there's no personal state income tax here.
Paula T. Edgar: Both good reasons. Yes, as a former California resident, I remember.
Deesha Philyaw: You understand.
Paula T. Edgar: I remember, yes.
Deesha Philyaw: I'm here for the weather, truly.
Paula T. Edgar: I love that. That literary nomad thing just showed up like, yes.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes.
Paula T. Edgar: Okay. So let's talk about the breakout award-winning book. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, it talks about faith, desire and identity, with this really, like, almost, again, I'm bringing it up again, because it's coming to me, like, ancestral honesty. Like, it just feels like, I felt like it connected very much with everybody who I know who read it and with me and I don't read a lot of fiction. So, I was like, oh, how do you think some of those truths and you telling them, has shaped your personal brand, how you're perceived as a writer?
Deesha Philyaw: Being raised by my grandmother. You know, I was raised by both her and my mother, but that, you know, I think there's just something about being raised by an old person that grounds you. It also, you have a foot in multiple worlds. It was very rooted in Gen X, you know, because that's me, that's us. But also, you know, listening to my grandmother and her friends. And then she's telling stories about her grandparents. And so just a lot of listening. And so this idea of being curious, being honest, sort of the humor, is definitely, you know, the irreverence. My grandmother used to tell these, like, corny jokes. Sometimes she told, like, really sexually inappropriate jokes. I learned early on that if I just got really quiet, they would forget that I was around. And so I just took all of this in. I took it all in. And so this idea that and I'm also hearing about suffering. I'm also hearing about, you know, her experiencing multiple assaults, sexual assault as a young child, all the way, you know, throughout her childhood and her… and family members looking the other way. And so I think that when I talk about my writing being sometimes humorous, you know, it's all of these things as women, Black women are pursuing freedom, because we don't live these sort of one dimensional linear lives. There are all of these layers. And I always say that we have a laugh and a song and a scream in our throat all at the same time. All at the same time. And that's what I witnessed. And whether it was directly or the stories that were passed down. And then the women that I write about carry that literally in their bodies as well.
Paula T. Edgar: Yeah. I mean, it's so true. Well, speaking of what they carry, what was the response from the church community, various ones of them, about this book and the stories that it told? Did you hear any, that's not us, or how did you know?
Deesha Philyaw: Both, but mostly I heard positive things from church folks, but that's because I'm very carefully curating, in terms of what I receive, right? I hope I don't jinx this, but people don't tend to send me hate mail, or negative messages, or anything like that. And I learned early on, don't go looking at Goodreads or Amazon reviews or whatever. People send me like happy, positive reviews or notes or things like that. But one time I did have a friend send me an IG post where some churchy ladies were talking about all the things they didn't like about my book. And I, one, it affirmed why I don't go looking for that stuff. Because honestly, I don't see it as my business. I wrote the book I wrote. And people are going to receive it the way they receive it. And that's it. But I told my friend, don't send me anything else like that. But also, it just affirmed for me, too, the book is getting to who it's supposed to get to. This was not a book for them. And that's OK. So I'm OK with the fact that not everybody loved the book. I'm not surprised. But the people that I wanted to receive it, the people who would feel heard and seen and validated and affirmed, like that made me happy. But I didn't think I was going to hear from like church church folks at all, but I did. I heard from Black women pastors. I heard from a millennial pastor. His church is in Virginia and it's like a hundred, at this point, like a hundred and seventy-five-year-old church community, four generations of Black Baptists. And this would have been in 2020, 2021. They were celebrating a church anniversary. They read my book as a congregation. You have millennials to take you there. So they have a millennial pastor, but these four generations, he had to read the book together. And then because we were still doing everything virtually, he's like, will you kick off our church anniversary celebration by coming on Zoom and having a virtual, like he and I would be in conversation and everybody else, you know, could call in. And there were people on the Zoom, older ladies who had never been on Zoom before. It was so interesting. And they were like, we didn't know the young people felt this way. And they were so sincere and genuine. And they wanted to know, like, how can the church do better? And I felt like I'm not the person. I mean, I have an answer, but like, I think there are other answers. But that's what I was hoping to just start conversations, really critical conversations, to address the harm that the church has done. But there are people who only want to talk about the good the church has done. That was… that I read is like, you know, that I was criticizing the church, even though the church does so much good. It's like, we got whole, you know, libraries devoted to all the great things in the church, you can say the church has done, but let's talk about this over here.
Paula T. Edgar: It's the yes and of it too, right? Because there's still people who will read the book, understand that there's truth in it, even though it's fiction and still be committed to the organization, the structure. So yeah, it's definitely yes and. So you broke down your, for me, very surprising career journey and the long runway before you became award-winning. What did that season of rejection, like you mentioned before and of dogged persistence teach you about yourself and how you want to show up in the world and I guess also in the literary world? Like, what does it teach you?
Deesha Philyaw: A couple of things. One, there's literally nothing else I want to do. So I got to make this work. Like literally nothing else. That was it, I got to be resourceful. I got to keep showing up. I got to keep showing up. And along the way, you know, my mother and my grandmother both died. And they did not, I can't even say they didn't get to fulfill their dreams. I don't know what they dreamt. I don't know what they wanted. But my mom was 52 when she died. And so there was so much life left to live. And I just remember thinking, so they died the year before I started the novel that's coming out next year. And I just remember thinking, they didn't get to do what they wanted to do. They were taking care of everybody else. Their opportunities were limited, but they made sure that my opportunities weren't limited. And so if for no other reason in their honor, I can't play small. I can't give up. I can't move in fear. And if I'm going to do this and this is a lot of work for a lot of, you know, with no guarantees, I need to write what I want to write and not like, oh, what is the church going to say? Or what is this person going to say? So that long runway was my commitment to, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do what I want to do. Along the way and my journey is only possible, because people helped me, people encouraged me, people gave me money, people gave me opportunities, people published me. And so I don't know how to do any of this by myself. And so I take what Toni Morrison said to heart, which is the whole purpose of having power is to empower someone else. And so people have walked through doors, Kiese Layman, for example, Robert Jones, Bernice McFadden, people walking through doors ahead of me and they're holding the door for me. What do I look like walking through the door and then slamming it behind me? That's crazy. And so it's like, OK, I'm walking through and I'm going to stand here and I'm going to hold it as well. And then here are these other writers who are coming. And so it was to see myself as a part of a community and see other writers through the lens of community and care and not competition. Publishing benefits when we see each other as competition. We don't benefit at all.
Paula T. Edgar: You said so much just now that I connect to. I'm going to start with both of us having mothers who died early. And for the listeners know that my mother was killed on September 11th. And it literally drives me is that want to be able to fly, because she didn't have a chance to and to do it in her honor, but also in my greatness, right? To know that I'm coming with all that behind me and it's behind my back. And my mother used to say that you could be the wind or you could be the leaf. And it drives me. It literally is like, are you going to be thoughtful and strategic? Which, again, when I talk to folks about branding, about how you want to show up, who you want to be, or are you just going to let it happen? And life is a little bit of both, right? But to the extent that we can decide and have goals and intentions, then we should. And so I love that you said, I don't want to do nothing else. And so I'm going to show up in this way, because it's like, OK, well, that's the intention. I'm not going to do nothing else. I'm going to do this thing and do it well and look at what that work has brought to you. And then thinking about the last part of what you said about being a helper. I listened to a podcast of yours. I like to snoop a little bit to see what you said on other things. I listened to a podcast that you were a guest on, in September and you were talking about a resource that you had put together with a graphic designer about writing, about the process and publishing.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes.
Paula T. Edgar: And I thought to myself, what? But it's that givingness of wanting people to not have to go over the same potholes you might have had to go over. And without knowing you deeply personally, I've seen that in all of the ways you've shown up. Because, again, we've known each other via social, but you can kind of tell somebody's, you know, vibe.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes, yes.
Paula T. Edgar: And so, yeah, yeah. And that's a part of that brand piece. So, Deesha and I recently saw each other in Brooklyn. Literally, I was like, la-la-la, like, doing my Brooklyn show. And I was like, Oh my gosh, we saw each other and I judge people on this often. Number one, we were both wearing animal prints, so facts. But number two, you give the best hugs. I was like, oh my gosh. I felt so like, you know and so I wanted to share that in terms of this. Now, I want to jump into how you are going to help more people by bringing your content and your creations to another venue, the TVs, the TVs. Tell us about expanding into TV and what that process has been like for you. Tell us about it.
Deesha Philyaw: It has been so uneven, exhilarating, disappointing. It's been like I have run the gamut of human emotions, because Hollywood would do that to you. And, you know, Hollywood, there's certain things about it that's a constant. And then there's so many ways it's a different space in 2025 than it was in 2020, when my book was optioned, when The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was optioned for television. It was optioned by HBO Max. And my co-writer Tori Sampson and I began working on it. We worked on it for about four years. We wrote a pilot and we wrote and rewrote and we got the infamous notes and we, you know, and just had a great experience working with her. The executives that we worked with at Max were also great. And we survived that they got a new CEO and a lot of shows did not make it. There was the writer's strike and we survived. And then earlier this year, they were like, the powers that be said no, we weren’t getting the green light. So we're in the process now of finding a new home for the show. I'm very proud of the show that we've done. I'm proud that I've learned a new skill, in terms of screenwriting. I don't know when, where it will be on the screen, but we haven't given up. And then last year, I had a short story that I wrote, optioned, called Fuckboy Museum about a Black woman who is middle-aged who gets very disillusioned by the aggressively average men she's encountering in dating spaces.
Paula T. Edgar: Aggressively average.
Deesha Philyaw: And she started killing them. She's a Black serial killer, a Black woman serial killer. And so that was optioned with financial backing from Universal Studios. It just blew up. It just blew up. And it was not a good experience, in terms of the dynamics of what went down. I like the kind of sort of backstabbing, dishonest, like the worst things you've heard about Hollywood was my experience there. I have another co-writer, Josh Allen, who both he and Tori are veteran screenwriters. And, you know, we're dusting ourselves off with our agents and we're taking that back out. And talking to producers and looking to see if we can find another home for that. So I have not given up, but I have learned a lot. And I'm still excited, like my enthusiasm for writing for television hasn't waned. But because of what I said at the beginning about what will be for me, what for me will be for me, that means there are certain things I'm not going to compromise on. I don’t want to have a TV show just to have a, you know, I want to have a TV show that I'm proud of. And that does Black women proud. And so I'm not going to, I'm not going to waver on that.
Paula T. Edgar: Yes, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. And I think that that is a good thing, because so often when you give up that control of some of those lines and it becomes totally not the thing that you wanted it to be in the first place. And so I'm excited. I know that those are going to do what they're supposed to do. And then you'll come back on the podcast to talk about them.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes, yes, all the things.
Paula T. Edgar: So we have talked about some places where you have community, where you came up in terms of community, communities you have been involved in, in terms of the church and you kind of brought up your literary communities as well. How has online communities, how have they helped to play a role in building your platform and your brand? And what else do you want to share about that? That's where I found you.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes, I was going to say, like when we connected on social media, I'm guessing like 2009. So we're pushing, we're closer to 20.
Paula T. Edgar: Even before that.
Deesha Philyaw: Yeah.
Paula T. Edgar: Yeah, yeah, because I know, I live tweeted my son's birth. So that's why I always look at that. I'm like… he was… so it was like 2008…
Deesha Philyaw: I remember when he was born, like I remember that. And so I didn't know at the time when I'm logging on to these platforms, I'm building a brand, but you are, whether you are intentional or not, you are building a brand. I would say from that point until like 2020, I was not, as far as my… the writing that I'm doing now, I was not intentional about a brand or anything like that. But my first actual first book was a co-parenting book. And so I set up completely separate accounts for the co-parenting book, but they would just sort of bleed over into each other. And so for the longest time, I was like the co-parenting lady. And then I remembered when that brand, I knew it had taken hold when, dang, this was forever ago. Remember when Basketball Wives first came out? And Tammy Roman was on there and she and her ex-husband had a therapy session with their children on the show. And it was horrible, because they were talking about his infidelity. And these girls, like these young girls are just sitting there. And I was in a hotel room. I had a presentation on co-parenting the next day I was preparing. And I'm like watching it with, you know, one eye and going, ah, you know, feeling sick for those kids. And my Zoom starts blowing up. People are tagging me. Are you watching this? And I'm like, oh, I'm the co-parenting lady now. You know?
Paula T. Edgar: Yeah, you got to talk about it.
Deesha Philyaw: You got to talk about it. And so then fast forward to 2019, early 2020, when the Church Ladies is coming out. And I had been off and online for a while. And I was like, oh, I guess I should get back on to promote this book. So it was kind of a trial by fire, in terms of the kinds of things I wanted to… it wasn't just look at me, look at me or look at my book, but talking about freedom, because these stories are about Black women getting free of different kinds of dogma. It's about body image. It's about all of those things. And so just finding opportunities to have real conversations about those things, because one of the things I could not do was just parrot something, or just get on like, oh, yeah, it's Tuesday I should post something. I don't know anything wrong with having a schedule, but what I've found is I'm not going to post anything, if I don't have anything genuine to say, or genuine to ask. But that means you have to cultivate a kind of life and lifestyle and knowledge base and curiosity, so that you always have something worthwhile to share. And that lesson came from me freshman year in college. Toni Morrison came to Yale's campus. I'm in a room alone with her. And I walk up to her and realize, I don't know what to say. And she looked at me like, they just let anybody in. And it was like, okay, at 18, note to self, be someone who has something to say to Toni Morrison.
Paula T. Edgar: Goals. Goals. Goals. Goals.
Deesha Philyaw: And so thank you for social media, like just, you know. You can't be there to just sell at people. Nobody likes that, or at least I don't like that. But just genuinely engaging with people. And over time, it really built. And I think it might have helped that I never put pressure, nor did my publisher, in terms of numbers. And growth has just been really organic.
Paula T. Edgar: Meaning numbers of followers and people you have to engage with?
Deesha Philyaw: Yeah.
Paula T. Edgar: And now that's a part of what they ask up front. Like, what's your followership? So it's interesting. Because I was thinking as we were talking about the difference in when we were cultivating relationships on social is that there was a lot of shared experience. And that would be a pining about shared experience. So we'd be watching the BET Awards together and talking about, that doesn't happen as much, because people aren't TVing the same way. And they also are on multiple platforms where they're able to do something as opposed to the same, you know, rest in peace, Twitter.
Deesha Philyaw: Yeah.
Paula T. Edgar: Black Twitter was a thing. It was a thing. It was magical. You had to be there. You had to be there. And nothing else was quite taking the space. There's people in spaces, again, thankfully, but it's not the same as it was before. So, I'm glad we dove down that, because that really was a reflection of... Huh, how has things changed and how you do build?
Deesha Philyaw: Yeah.
Paula T. Edgar: So let's talk about the upcoming debut novel. You said it's a 20 year project.
Deesha Philyaw: 20 years. The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman is the title. The original title was Good Girl Anonymous, which I think is still a great title, but maybe for a different book. But I started writing this book and then I… around the same time I was working on the co-parenting book. And the co-parenting book is what landed my ex-husband and I, who's my co-author for that book. That's how we got an agent. And she's still my agent all these years later. And she, you know, she's not transactional, she's relational. So she really wants to know, like, well, what do you, what kind of career do you want to have? What else are you working on? And if I… you tell her, you’re working on something, she's going to check in with you. Well, where is it? You know?
Paula T. Edgar: Accountability.
Deesha Philyaw: Right, that accountability. And so when she signed us to rep the co-parenting book, she knew I was working on a novel. And so the co-parenting book came out in 2013. She's like, how's that novel going? I'm like, you know, it's not. And she lived in Pittsburgh at the time. And so we would meet for breakfast or lunch or whatever and we would strategize and she would help me, you know, kind of problem solve around the novel and recommended books and things to solve some narrative problems. And I just kept stalling. And so I want to say around 2016, 2017, 2017, she said, you know, and I had, you know, hadn't touched the novel in forever. And it's like, you know, I like these church lady stories you're writing. Cause I had started to write some stories and, you know, either did readings in Pittsburgh, or was trying to get them published. And so she was familiar with them. And so she said, you know, what if you pivot and sort of go on a little hiatus from, you know, while you're on hiatus from the novel, she was being diplomatic, what if you built a collection of these church lady stories? And if you can get three of them published, we'll go out to market with a partial manuscript. So she wanted to do two things that conventional wisdom in publishing says you cannot do, that you can't sell a short story collection first without a novel and you cannot sell a manuscript on a partial. And we did both. And then with this second book, because of the success of Church Ladies, I sold this novel as a partial with another short story collection as part… it’s a two book deal as also a partial. I wasn't done with that either. And it sold at auction.
Paula T. Edgar: I love it.
Deesha Philyaw: So like, yeah, that usually doesn't happen. But, you know, but she, you know, she has good instincts. I'll say that.
Paula T. Edgar: I mean, your story is literally like the writer's path is whatever I say it is.
Deesha Philyaw: Yeah, right. And it's the only thing you do, you try something else. But yeah, so, you know, this character, her name used to be Rebecca. Now it's Cherise. She used to be a lot like me. Now she's not like me. But I, you know, I had to learn how to write. I had to learn how to write a novel. I had to learn, like, what made for a good story. I had to allow this character to be herself. The story, when I was first writing it and one of the reasons it took me so many years, there were no stakes in the story. There was nothing at stake for this character. I was protecting her. Her values were my values. The things she would do were things I would do. So that meant she was pretty dull. And it was my agent who was like, you know, when we were talking for the millionth time about why I was stalled on this story, you know, she was like, there was a little scandal in the story, tiny scandal compared to what's in the book now. And oh, is she going to get divorced and not, is her husband going to divorce her and she's not going to be a first lady at church, a pastor's wife, which she hated being a pastor's wife. Right. And so my agent, who is so wise and insightful, she was like, OK, let's just think of being a first lady as her job. And right now in the story, she might lose her job. Who cares? She hates her job. If a character is about to lose a job they hate, who cares? Because they'll just get another job. But what if they're about to lose a job they love? Now something's at stake. And I was like, she snarks and rolls her eyes at being a first lady, because I would hate being a first lady. You mean I got to have her love being… But once I did that, the story just opened all the way up.
Paula T. Edgar: Wow. Because again, everything… Even without knowing it. I can just imagine, you know, a lot of, again, bringing it back to branding, a lot of who you are and how you show up has to do with what your title, your role is. And so to leave it, whether consciously or not, can shift a lot. I can't wait to read it.
Deesha Philyaw: So she's all in with that title and all the trappings of it. And it just gave me so much to play with. And I could make hard things happen to her, which makes you want to keep reading. But I'm just remembering now, before my agent helped me with that, that part, getting over that hump, what really turned the novel in the beginning of about a year or so, into me writing it, was Carolyn Edgar. And I always think of you two together with the same last name. Yeah. And so Carolyn was one of the early readers. And so she read, you know, maybe the first chapter or so. And she's like, you know, this is interesting. The character at the time, she had already divorced her husband who was a pastor. And so now she's dating and trying to co-parent like I was, right? Much like me. But Carolyn was like, I want to see that marriage. Game changer. Because I rolled her back five years to where she is in the marriage and she's unhappy. That, game changer.
Paula T. Edgar: So you can see the breakdown.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes, that dynamic was interesting. But at that time, she still hated being a first lady. But then later, once I made it where she actually loves it and then something happens where she could lose it all, then I had a novel.
Paula T. Edgar: And it sounds like, even the way you're telling it, it sounds like being able to play with the character became fun for you too, like to be able to imagine outside of the lines that you had set for yourself. So tell me this, what advice do you have for folks who either want to be authors, or who are already authors, about how they navigate having this meaningful, authentic brand at the time where we have, like, visibility matters, but also AI is out here in these streets. And so that authenticity piece, a lot of people, there's a convergence that's happening right now in writing, like, what are some of the thoughts that you have that you can share with the people who maybe think about it now?
Deesha Philyaw: Write the best story that you can write, whether that's fiction or nonfiction. And that means workshopping your story. It means getting critical feedback. It means if you need to, you know, if you want to hire an editor or a book coach, but really work through your story. Because so often, because it's so much work, people write it and like, I'm done, here it is. Like when we were in school, like I'm turning it in and it's like finishing a draft. Good job. You're just getting started. So putting in the work to polish and polish and polish and polish, embrace revision. And as far as, you know, the brand piece and even when we talk numbers, you said earlier, only so much of that is in our control. And I think people should know that there are publishers who look at that. And then there are others who, depending on the story, depending on the writer, it doesn't matter. Like I've never had big numbers, you know and so I've never had the experience of someone saying, well, we want to do this, but your numbers aren't big enough, or you're getting this deal, because your numbers are great. It was never really a factor. The expectation, though, is because I do have a presence that I'm going to use it to, you know, to support and market the book. But, you know, for you do hear from writers who are like, oh, my platforms. I was told by an agent, OK, query another agent.
Paula T. Edgar: Right. Talk to somebody else.
Deesha Philyaw: Talk to somebody else until you know, find your people, because that's not true across publishing that you've got to have this size audience or this particular brand. I say write a good story, a true story. Again, fiction or nonfiction, it has to have truths in it. Be good to people, create that community and the rest will flow through. Now, it may not flow through overnight. I know no overnight sensations. I know none. So it's a long game. It's a long game, but find something about this that you love about it. Even if you're writing about a serious topic and it's not fun, the process of discovery or getting the structure right, or writing a beautiful sentence, something that delights you and edifies you for the long haul of this, because the accolades, the success, none of that's guaranteed.
Paula T. Edgar: Right.
Deesha Philyaw: That sounds discouraging, but it's the most honest thing I know.
Paula T. Edgar: It sounds real. It doesn't sound discouraging. It sounds real. And I think that people will appreciate hearing that because it sets some expectations and, you know, magic can happen whenever magic is going to happen. What's for whom will be from whom, right?
Deesha Philyaw: Yes.
Paula T. Edgar: Right. That’s… bringing it back to that. So that's, I thought it was very good advice, which I take for myself. So thank you. Now tell me this, Deesha, what do you do for fun?
Deesha Philyaw: Oh my gosh, I love watching Beyond the Gates. That's my stories. We have a little community on Threads where we do watch. either at two o'clock when it comes on, two o'clock Eastern, or second shift. People are watching it after it comes back on after six o'clock. But I'm on Threads, you know, reading the other people's thoughts. But it's like with our grandparents, our grandparents when they used to watch the stories. So I love doing that. I'm a reader. I'm a nerd. So reading is fun for me. I love to cook. I love to travel. I love logic puzzles.
Paula T. Edgar: Yes. You had me until you got to logic puzzles.
Deesha Philyaw: I like going to the beach. I like going for walks. I'm a foodie, so going to new restaurants and things like that. I haven't done this in a while, but I love playing board games, trivia games. That's fun to me.
Paula T. Edgar: That's a good, strong list, except for the logic puzzles, because I'm still traumatized from that, from taking the LSAT. Like, hello? I haven't done anything logical in the practice of law ever.
Deesha Philyaw: Is that really on the LSAT?
Paula T. Edgar: They are on the LSAT. That's a major part of the LSAT.
Deesha Philyaw: Oh, my God.
Paula T. Edgar: You should just do it for fun. You should just take the LSAT, just see what happens.
Deesha Philyaw: I would totally do that for fun.
Paula T. Edgar: Look, look at us. We just found you a new career.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes.
Paula T. Edgar: Okay. So the final two questions are questions that I ask all of my guests. One is this, which you've kind of already answered, but maybe you have another answer being asked directly. What is something about you, about your brand, how you show up that you will never compromise on?
Deesha Philyaw: Ooh. I will not write, or be a part of any kind of representation of Black women that's rooted in stereotypes. And that includes the one that says that we're here to serve and take care of other people. And so my women characters will always be considered flawed. They'll always be, you know, they're going to be mothers, but maybe they're a little ambivalent about motherhood. They're going to be women that some people call selfish, or loose, or whatever. But they have to be real. They have to be real. They cannot be avatars for the white supremacist imagination or the patriarchal imagination. They have to be as real as you and me.
Paula T. Edgar: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yep. Shout out to the loose girls. Anyway… So my final question is this. So the podcast is called Branding Room Only, which is a play on the term standing room only, because I am clever. So my question for you is, what is that magic about you that will have a room full of people with only standing room to experience about you?
Deesha Philyaw: I always get them with the irreverence. I'll say some slick, funny shit and they don't see it coming. It's like they got the glasses full of them. They really need it. But I can pivot from something like super serious to, you know, to something irreverent and funny in a heartbeat. You know, the novel is satirical. It's funny, but it tackles the HIV AIDS crisis of the 80s. It tackles, you know, serious topics, but it's satire as well.
Paula T. Edgar: I love that. That sounds very magical, in terms of we don't get a lot of people who can hold both those places. Not well, at least. So there's that. Okay. So tell the people how they can find out more about you, please.
Deesha Philyaw: I'm at Desha Philyaw everywhere, but these days I'm on Threads and I'm on Instagram mostly. I know I got to get back on Facebook.
Paula T. Edgar: And Blue Sky.
Deesha Philyaw: Well, I was going to say, with the aunties. I am the auntie, but you know what I mean. And then I have a website, DeeshaPhilyaw.com.
Paula T. Edgar: Fabulous. Everybody, go and tell everybody to listen to this. People who are thinking about writing, people who went to church and know they want to hear some of these stories, people who just need the Lord, all of the people, tell them to listen to this podcast. Deesha, thank you so much for joining me.
Deesha Philyaw: Thank you.
Paula T. Edgar: And I can't wait to have you back again when the TV show comes out.
Deesha Philyaw: Yes, thank you Paula.
Paula T. Edgar: You're welcome.
That's it for this episode. I appreciate you hanging out with me on Branding Room Only. Now, please do me a quick favor. Head over to ratethispodcast.com/branding, so more people can join this conversation. And make sure to stop by paulaedgar.com/events to see what's next. Whether I'm live, online or in person, I'd love to see you there. See you next time in the branding room.
And until then, stand tall, shine bright, and always stand by your brand.
