Rising Stars: Meet Emily Akins of KANSAS CITY

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Akins

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m an editorial director and have been working at Hallmark for 22 years. In 2018 I created a podcast called The Beginning of Your Life Book Club. As a long time reader and book lover – and as a parent of two kids – I wanted to explore more deeply the world of children’s literature. So I created The Beginning of Your Life Book Club when I was applying for an award through my job. Each year, Hallmark awards one member of the creative community a sabbatical to work on a personal passion project. My project was an exploration of the transformative power of children’s literature and the magic of picture books. I wanted to explore the unique format of picture books – imagery married perfectly with words, not unlike greeting cards – and the unique way that shared reading builds relationships between kids and caregivers. My project pitch won and I was able to spend 6 months researching my premise: “When words and pictures come together to tell a story and a child and an adult come together to read a story … there’s magic.” Out of my sabbatical I created a 12-episode podcast that follows that “magic” of reading picture books together. Since then I have been continuing to explore that same powerful magic of reading together and sharing stories with kids through my Instagram account, through my website and now through my Substack.

(And a quick note about the name of my project – I was inspired by Will Schwalbe’s memoir The End of Your Life Book Club – and I had the opportunity to interview him for my podcast which was a great treat.)

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Well, I had a very generous 6-month sabbatical which was an incredible opportunity – the ability to step away from my day to day job to focus just on my passion project was really critical to get this project going. It’s been much harder to keep going at that same level once my sabbatical was over. So I’ve just had to readjust my goals to manage pursuing this passion as well as keeping my full time job and full time family afloat.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m an editorial director at Hallmark – I’ve been working with words my whole career. In my job I work very closely with artists, designers, and writers to capture emotion and relationships and one of my favorite parts of the job is how universal a lot of these emotions are … but how people express them changes over time or within certain relationships. The work of figuring out how to help people express themselves and connect with the people that mean the most them is both fascinating and gratifying.

I’ve worked on a lot of different product lines in my time with Hallmark. Of course the project I’m most proud is my sabbatical project and The Beginning of Your Life Book Club podcast. But I’m also proud of a couple of projects at Hallmark where I had the chance the launch a new line of greeting cards. Both were opportunities to create new voices and new looks to meet changing consumer needs and since we got to build them from scratch it was a really fun opportunity.

Being part of the creative community at Hallmark – and being a parent – have taught me so much about the power of creativity to really transform our world. Both in my job (which is a unique combination of creative and corporate) and in my role at home raising two daughters (now a tween and teen, one of whom has ADHD) I pride myself on my ability to problem solve creatively.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
One of my favorite things about the “kidlit” space is how much it has taught me about being an adult, which I wasn’t really expecting when I started this work. One of the first ideas I discovered in my research for The Beginning of Your Life Book Club was the concept of “Mirrors and Windows” – originated by Dr Rudine Sims Bishop, a scholar of children’s literature, who stated that kids books need to be mirrors, so kids can see themselves reflected in the stories they read and feel validated, and windows, so they can look in on other kids experiences and understand and empathize with others. This is an important was for kids to build self esteem and empathy. But I’ve learned it’s also a powerful tool for how adults view the world. The same needs an opportunities exist for adults – not just kids. We also need to see our experiences reflected in the media we consume (whether it’s books, movies, TV, etc.) but it’s just as critical that we use our modern methods of storytelling to explore the experiences of others so that we can learn to imagine what it’s like to be someone else and we can learn to empathize.

I’m really passionate about diversifying bookshelves – for kids and adults – and using diverse stories to broaden perspectives. Having an open mind is important for all ages but is especially critical for kids. Unfortunately book bans have increased drastically in the last few years and the diversity of public libraries and school libraries is being threatened. So I’ve been looking for ways in the new year to have more impact in that fight against book bans.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thebeginningofyourlifebookclub.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebeginningofyourlifebookclub/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebeginningofyourlifebookclub
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-akins-40b2926/
• Twitter: https://x.com/TheBYLBookClub
• Youtube: https://vimeo.com/344245015
• Other: https://thebeginningofyourlifebookclub.substack.com/