Meet Mia Wenjen | Children’s Book Author, Mom Blogger, Entrepreneur, and Non Profit Co-Founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mia Wenjen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mia, do you have any habits that you feel contribute to your effectiveness?
When I was in business school, we had a speaker, David H. Murdock, who told us the secret to his success. David had to leave school when he was in middle school but he built a billion dollar real estate empire over the course of his long life.

His secret to success was pretty simple. He said that when people make a “to do” list, they do the things on the list in the order of their preference. He does it in the order of importance.

It’s such a simple thing, but it’s true. The things that are important tend to get put off.

I have tried to follow David Murdock’s advice by assigning myself one or two things that HAVE to get done every day, even if I have things on my list that I prefer to do.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
When I was in elementary school, I read every single book in the library — an endeavor that took me more than two years — but I never saw myself reflected in the pages of a book.

When I had children (I have 3), I was happy to see Asian American characters in books but then I learned that the number of diverse children’s books that were published had not increased in 14 years. I decided to focus my blog on highlighting the great diverse children’s books out there.

Little by little over the past 15 years since I started my blog, the publishing industry changed. Diverse stories became more mainstream and there was recognition that those in the minority should be telling their own stories.

I had never wanted to be a writer, but I realized that I an inadvertently built an author platform with my blog and social media. And, having made hundreds of book lists, I knew where the holes were. I decided to take the leap and try to write stories of my own.

My first opportunity came from blogging when I was asked to recommend diverse authors. When this person asked for an Asian American, I raised my hand. I ended up writing Asian Pacific American Heroes for Lary Rosenblatt of 22MediaWorks. It was a project for Scholastic. He ended up becoming my literary agent, and he has sold 11 books thus far.

I would want the world to know that opportunity is everywhere. You just need to get into the thick of it to find it and for it to find you. I think the most important thing for everyone, especially children, is to find what you are passionate about and pursue that. Every decision you make in your lifetime takes you down a certain path that forks and the culmination becomes your life including your career. Take the path that speaks to your heart.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I would take them to Boston’s Chinatown! We would eat dinner at Peach Farm for the freshest seafood and might even run into a famous chef as this is where they like to hang out in their downtime. TeaDo is also our favorite spot for boba so we’d make a run there as it’s a few doors away upstairs.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Read Your World is the nonprofit that my friend and I created more than thirteen years ago to put diverse children’s books into the hands of readers such as children, parents, teachers, librarians, and book lovers. You can sign up to get free diverse children’s and young adult books by being book reviewer at ReadYourWorld.org through the end of the year.

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