About Byrd's World Publishing
Hey! Hey! It's ya gurl, Heather 'Byrd'
House of Roberts. First of my name. Giver of giggles and hugs. Catalyst of voice, story, and badassery. Queen of quirky. Creator of legacy and possibility. Writer of inspiration & word witchery. Believer of magick and rebirth. Holder of sun and moon. High Priestess of HummingByrds. Winner of awards. Lover of tacos, bubbles, balloons, and tea. Defier of gravity and language. Spreader of wings and dreams.
About Byrd's World Publishing
This is what it looks like when women of color finally find their room.
How we Began
80% of Americans want to write a book but fewer than 3% ever do. Of those, people of color write less than 10% of what gets published. Women of color? An even smaller fraction.
Our stories are missing from libraries, classrooms, bookstores, and dinner tables. Those are your stories.
And it's not because you don't have something to say. It's because no one built a room where you could say it safely.
I know you. You are an educator, healer, coach, consultant, community leader, an entrepreneur, and an overall trailblazer. You might be 35, 55, or 72 years old and no matter how seated you may be, WE SEE YOU.
You've probably spent your entire life holding space for everyone else. You are carrying a story, an expertise, a message that has been waiting to be written.
You've probably started writing, stopped, started again, doubt crept in saying:
👉🏾 Who am I to write this?
👉🏾 Is my story good enough?
👉🏾 Who would buy my book?
You've sat in writing spaces that handed you a red pen instead of a welcome. You may have been the only one (or one of few) in the room who looked like you. You've been told, in a hundred quiet (or bold) ways, that your voice needed to be adjusted before it could be heard.
We are here to remind you that YOU ARE brilliant. YOU ARE ready. YOU just haven't found the right room yet.
So we build it
What started as a daily writing practice became a community. That community became a publishing ecosystem. That ecosystem became a movement — one morning page, one published book, one liberated woman at a time.
Our Mission and Values
Mission
To create healing-centered, liberation-focused spaces where women of color are held, inspired, and supported to write their stories, publish their books, and build movements that outlast them on their own terms, outside of perfectionism, and free from the white gaze.
Our Core Values
What We Believe
Healing First: The page cannot receive what the spirit hasn't released. We tend to the whole woman before we ever touch the craft.
Liberation Over Perfectionism: We write outside of perfectionism, outside of the white gaze, and outside of every system that told us our stories needed to be adjusted before they could be heard.
Joy as Resistance: We choose joy deliberately and unapologetically. In a world that has asked women of color to shrink, choosing joy in our writing, community, and our process is a radical act and we protect it.
Collective Liberation: We are building authors, spaces, and movements together.
The Ones Who Make It Possible
BWP is guided by a community of writers, educators, healers, and movement builders who show up every day because they believe in this work as deeply as Byrd does. This is the team.
Regina Berg
Ancestral Ambassador & North Star
Why I Write: I believe the words I write are far braver than I am. I also believe that there is a woman within me who dares me to write myself into courage, into joy, into speaking with grace, into remaining when I would rather run, into renaming myself, into acting as though I matter. I believe I become the words I write. I believe that I am a gift, both broken and magnificent, to those who will receive me and just having the audacity to put brave words on the page gives me the right, the courage, the audacity to live them. Regina’s work centers on grief, the ways it shapes us, how we shape grief, and, with intention, can become more human. Her poems have been published in Sybil, Bar Bar, The Bluebird Word, Pictura Journal, Slips Slips, Tendrils and What the House Knows: A Poetry Anthology.
Catherine Wong
Experience Ambassador
Catherine Wong, Raised in Hawai’i, Catherine draws inspiration from her ohana and their treasured ‘talk story’ traditions, which shape her work as a community- scholar activist, transformative leader, and author. As an unwavering advocate, she works to bridge the gap between K-12 and higher education, all while staying grounded in her indigeneity of aloha and lōkahi. Catherine has held faculty and director roles resulting in an increased pipeline of educators who are reflective of the lived experiences of their students and communities. As an experienced consultant and thought leader, she is committed to promoting equity and justice, guiding global and national organizations in strategic planning, leadership development, and curriculum design.
Joan Edwards
Recruitment & Invitation Ambassador
Joan is a passionate and joyful published poet. She encourages women to honor their selfhood and to tap into their personal power by exploring the gifts passed down to them by their ancestors. Joan has been writing her way through her spiritual and physical healing. Her pieces offer that same liberating process to her readers. Her forthcoming book is a collection of poems created to invite every Black woman to fully inhale and exhale her way back home to herself.
Jano Layne
Growth Ambassador
Jano Layne draws inspiration from family stories, the faces of strangers and life in America. Her insatiable curiosity drives her to build word monuments to everyday people. After retiring from an all-Black women’s MULTIGENERATIONAL softball league in her youth, she covered the sport for the Chicago Daily Defender newspaper. She believed those women deserved to be part of history and submitted hand-written articles, weekly. This memory still encourages the storyteller within her.
Jasminum McMullen
Main Comprehensive Editor
Jasminum McMullen is a poet, essayist, fiction writer and voice-centered editor. Her writing has appeared in A Gathering Together, midnight & indigo, Past Ten, Mama's Martyrs, and Jezebels, Black Joy Unbound, and Baby Teeth Journal. She is an Associate Board Director at the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame and Professor of English at Dominican University.
Kim Crosby
Social Media Manager
Kim Katrin is an internationally recognized educator, consultant, and social entrepreneur known for her work at the intersection of wellness, equity, and social impact. Named one of The Root’s Young Feminists to Watch and honored as Canada’s National Youth Role Model, she has spent more than a decade inspiring audiences through speaking, teaching, and community leadership.
A two-time Lululemon Ambassador, Kim has delivered keynote talks at institutions including Morehouse and Spelman College and has collaborated with global brands such as Lululemon, Squarespace, and Makeup Forever. Her work has also appeared across major media platforms including MTV, NBC, BuzzFeed, Bustle, and CBC.
Kim has hosted events for the United Nations, interviewed cultural icons such as Erykah Badu and Roxane Gay, and has spoken at major gatherings including Dreamforce and the 2022 Olympic & Paralympic Games. She now focuses on social media marketing and brand strategy, helping mission-driven organizations amplify their message, grow their audiences, and turn powerful ideas into movements.
Daisymie Pabillo
Virtual Assistant
Daisymie " Mimi" is a detail-driven Virtual Assistant who supports mission-led teams with clarity, care, and consistency. Working behind the scenes, she brings structure to ideas, calm to operations, and thoughtful support that allows creative and community-centered work to thrive.
If you've been waiting your whole life to write your story
This room is for you
Come write. Come heal. Come build.
Byrd's World Publishing is where women of color come to finally write, publish, and watch your words change the world. Your first step is simple.
