Today we’d like to introduce you to Alicia Jenkins.
Hi Alicia, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m born and raised in Detroit, and if there’s one thing my journey has taught me, it’s that where we start isn’t always an indication of where we’ll end up.
After graduating from Cass Technical High School, I attended Jackson State University, an HBCU, where I earned my bachelor’s degree studying biology and chemistry. At the time, I thought my career would follow a path connected to becoming a specialty pediatrician, but life had other plans. After graduating, my career took an unexpected turn, and I found myself entering corporate America. What I thought might be a detour turned into nearly 10 years of experience across operations, project and portfolio management, and leadership. That experience ultimately opened another door for me academically, and I went on to earn my MBA from the University of Massachusetts Global.
And then life shifted again.
In 2020, my oldest son, Isaac, passed away a little after birth. Losing him changed everything about my life and ultimately became the beginning of something I never could have planned for myself.
Writing became a way for me to keep Isaac’s name, personality, and legacy alive while creating something meaningful for my other sons and children like them. Before the books were books, many of them started as poems I wrote in journals. I would write an affirmation at the top of a blank page—sometimes for myself and sometimes with a specific person in mind—and then just write. Those same pages eventually became the foundation for my stories, which is why creating my own line of affirmation journals felt like such a natural extension of the books. I wanted to give other people that same blank space to start with an encouraging word and then make the rest of the page completely their own.
Those writings eventually became “Isaac Can Do It,” my first children’s book centered on confidence and independence, followed by “Isaac Breathes Through It”, “Isaac and Friends Choose Kindness,” and most recently, “Isaac Thinks Through It.” Together, the books and journals encourage confidence, emotional awareness, kindness, problem-solving, self-expression, and learning to trust yourself.
One book eventually grew into Alicia L Jenkins Books, which now includes children’s books, affirmation journals, author visits, youth programming, and English Language Arts (ELA)-aligned “Become an Author” workshops. I’ve been able to take these messages beyond the pages and into schools, libraries, bookstores, and community spaces throughout Detroit and beyond.
As the business grew, I realized there was another part of my story I wanted to tell. I had gone from studying biology and chemistry to corporate professional to stay-at-home mom to entrepreneur—all while being a wife, raising my boys, navigating grief, and trying to figure out how motherhood could coexist with still having dreams and goals of my own.
That’s what birthed the podcast “Mompreneur Unmuted: Breaking Molds, Building Legacies.”
The podcast gives me room to have the conversations that don’t always fit within the children’s book side of my brand—motherhood, careers, entrepreneurship, marriage, grief, purpose, and the very real balancing act that comes with all of it. It also gives other women a place to tell their stories, because there are so many of us raising families, building businesses, changing careers, starting over, and figuring things out as we go.
And now I’m beginning to think even bigger about what serving my city can look like. I’ve started developing Root & Rise Detroit, a nonprofit that is still very much in its beginning stages. The long-term vision is to create a Detroit-rooted space where young people, families, creatives, and entrepreneurs can access programming, resources, mentorship, and opportunities right within their own community.
When I look back now, I can see that even the parts of my journey that seemed completely unrelated were preparing me for what I’m doing today. My education taught me discipline and gave me a foundation. Corporate America taught me how to lead, manage projects, build systems, and execute ideas. Motherhood changed my priorities. Losing Isaac changed my purpose. And entrepreneurship gave me a way to bring all of those pieces together.
The common thread through everything I’m building now is legacy. The books pour into children. The podcast creates space for women and mothers. Root & Rise Detroit represents what I hope will eventually pour into entire families and communities.
I never imagined that one of the most painful chapters of my life would lead me here. But I’m building something my children can look back on and know that their brother’s life mattered, his story continued, and what began as a way to keep Isaac’s legacy alive grew into something that could create a legacy for our family while pouring back into the city that raised me.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. A lot of what I’ve built was created while I was still figuring things out in real time. I didn’t come from publishing or marketing, so I had to teach myself how to turn something I wrote from the heart into an actual book—and then learn everything that comes after that: publishing, pricing, websites, inventory, vendor events, school partnerships, marketing, and eventually building an actual business around it.
One of my biggest challenges has been learning how to wear all the hats without feeling like I have to master all of them at once. I’m a stay-at-home mom raising my boys, a wife, an author, and an entrepreneur, and now I’m building a podcast and developing a nonprofit vision too. There are days when business has to wait because Mom is needed, and there are nights when I’m working after everybody else is asleep. I’m still learning what balance looks like, and honestly, sometimes balance looks more like deciding what needs me most that day.
There’s also the emotional side of building a business that was born from losing my son. Isaac is the reason this started, so there’s a lot of love in this work, but grief doesn’t disappear because something beautiful grew from it. There are moments when telling our story is empowering and other moments when it’s hard.
And then there are the normal small-business challenges—hearing no, being overlooked, investing money before knowing if you’ll make it back, figuring out which opportunities are actually worth pursuing, and learning to put a price on something that started as something deeply personal.
But I think my corporate background taught me something I carry with me now: when something isn’t working, we figure out the next step. I’ve learned to pivot, ask questions, build relationships, and keep going. I’m still very much in the building stage, and I don’t pretend to have everything figured out. But every challenge has taught me something that has made both me and the business stronger.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a children’s author, entrepreneur, youth empowerment facilitator, and storyteller, but at the heart of my work is helping people—especially children and women—recognize what they already have within them.
Through Alicia L Jenkins Books, I create children’s books that take everyday childhood experiences and turn them into opportunities to build confidence, emotional awareness, kindness, independence, and problem-solving skills. My Isaac series includes Isaac Can Do It, Isaac Breathes Through It, Isaac and Friends Choose Kindness, and Isaac Thinks Through It. I also created a collection of affirmation journals that encourage people to write, reflect, and express themselves freely. The journals are especially personal to me because that’s how my own books began—with an affirmation written at the top of a blank journal page and poems underneath that eventually grew into stories.
My work has also grown beyond simply writing books. I bring the stories directly to children through author visits, literacy experiences, and hands-on “Become an Author” workshops where students get to see themselves as writers and creators. I love being able to walk into a room as an author and leave with kids thinking, ‘Wait, I could do this too.’
I’m probably most known for the story behind the Isaac series. The character Isaac was inspired by my oldest son, whom I lost in 2020. What makes these books different to me is that I’m not simply writing about a fictional character—I’m allowing pieces of my son’s life and legacy to continue teaching, encouraging, and pouring into other children. As a Black mother and Detroit native, representation is also intentional. I want Black children to see families who look like theirs in books about ordinary life, emotions, mistakes, growth, and joy—not only in stories centered around struggle.
More recently, my storytelling has expanded to women through Mompreneur Unmuted: Breaking Molds, Building Legacies. The podcast allows me to sit down with other women and talk about what happens when motherhood, careers, entrepreneurship, relationships, loss, ambition, and purpose all exist at the same time. It’s another form of storytelling, just for a different audience.
What I’m most proud of, though, isn’t any one book, event, or accomplishment. It’s watching something that began as me writing through one of the hardest periods of my life continue to grow into something that serves other people. A poem became a book. One book became a series and a business. The business opened doors into classrooms and communities. Those experiences helped inspire a podcast for women, and now I’m laying the earliest groundwork for Root & Rise Detroit, with the hope of eventually creating even more opportunities for young people and families in my city.
I think what sets my work apart is that none of these things exist in separate boxes for me. Storytelling, motherhood, education, entrepreneurship, community, and legacy all connect. I’m not interested in building something just because it looks successful. I want to build things that my children can inherit, my community can benefit from, and people can genuinely see themselves in.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
First and foremost, I give credit to God. My faith has carried me through some of the hardest moments of my life and continues to guide me as I build, create, and step into opportunities I never could have planned for myself.
My husband and my children deserve so much credit too. They experience this journey right alongside me—the ideas, late nights, events, books everywhere, recording days, and all the moments when Mom is trying to balance family and purpose. My children are a huge part of my “why,” and my husband has supported me through the many versions of what this journey has become.
I also have to credit my mom and the women in my family. I come from a family of entrepreneurs and resilient Black women who showed me what it looks like to create something of your own, work hard, adapt when life changes, and keep going. I don’t think I fully understood how much of that I was absorbing growing up, but I see it in myself now.
And then there are the family members, friends, educators, schools, organizations, customers, and people in my community who have bought a book, invited me into a room, shared my work, connected me with someone, encouraged an idea, or simply told me to keep going. Building something may have my name attached to it, but I definitely haven’t built it alone.
I truly believe every person who has supported me along the way has played some part in helping me turn what started as a very personal story into something much bigger than me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.alicialjenkinsbooks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alicialjenkinsbooks/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AliciaLJenkinsBooks/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Mrs.AliciaLJenkins/podcasts
- Soundcloud: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mompreneur-unmuted-breaking-molds-and-building-legacies/id1896859500
- Other: https://amzn.to/4zOgVuC
