About the Author of Spellbinding Amali

I am Imani Leonique, the author of Spellbinding Amali. If you’d like to know more about my history as a writer, read my about page. 

While credentials matter, I think it’s best you understand the heart of the creator behind this book, since I wrote it to save myself. I wrote this book while rebuilding myself from the ashes of fires I started.

So, are you ready for story time?

Here we go.

Ever since I was a young girl, my emotions were always so up and down. People described me in different ways. One day I’m bougie or stuck up. The next, I’m stubborn or blunt. Then, on other days, I’m easy to talk to or nicer than expected. 

I internalized these descriptions of myself so much that I became so detached from myself. I forced myself into what I assumed others wanted from me instead of just being myself. I held myself to such high standards that I left no room to enjoy life.

I purchased my first house in 2020 at 23, only a year after graduating college, with a 1-year-old baby. I was engaged and pregnant with my 2nd child, so I just knew life was on the up and up for me. I was hitting milestones that were yet to be achieved within my family—I was so confident in myself, or so I had thought. 

I decided to resign from my teaching position and homeschool my children during the pandemic. I had been working since I was 14, so I assumed my difficulty settling into my new role at home was simply an adjustment period. But then I got pregnant with my 3rd child and was drowning before the baby got here.

I was depressed and suicidal, and yet I still managed to show up for everyone. Marijuana became my morning, afternoon, evening, and late-night regimen to escape constantly feeling like I was being suffocated.

My husband noticed and asked questions, but I deflected and said I was okay because I was taught that I always had to be okay. This unrealistic expectation of always being good left me feeling alone.

The house I purchased at 23 was the house I lost myself in at 24. It was the house I felt safe enough to fail in at 25. It was the house I let myself exist with no goals or deadline at 26. It was the house I learned about my being neurodivergent at 27. It was the house I wanted to end it all in at 28. It was the house where I burned every bridge and rebuilt myself at 29. 

It was in the house I purchased at 23 that I created Spellbinding Amali while my world burned around me.

This book is my art. My pain and joy are interwoven into this book. I created it to make sense of my place in this world. I made it to feel okay with being on the spectrum and with the experiences that came with being an undiagnosed Black girl in the South. This book, along with my author career, has been in the making since I bought my first house at 23. The plan I laid out for myself at 23 wasn’t the one I was meant to follow, and that is life. Life is art. Art is life. Creating this book was my way of making peace with my diagnoses through art.

I studied traditional publishing guidelines and even ghostwrote within them, so my writing naturally flows in and out of those guidelines. However, if you’re here because you want to find what you usually do in traditional publishing, I may not be the author for you. I prioritize artistic vision over traditional publishing standards.

Until next time, may your everyday hold a little enchantment.

With love,

Imani Leonique