From Survival to Storytelling

I shared this image the other day on TikTok, and I wanted to give a little more context.

There’s something bittersweet about being at this point in my thirty-five years. I struggled in school growing up and dropped out the summer before my junior year. I became a mom young—my rainbow son was born three months before I turned eighteen. I’ve built a home, raised my family, and grown a virtual-assistant business that’s now eleven years old.

What I didn’t realize until recently was how much all those years—the challenges, the juggling, the late nights—gave me the foundation I needed for this career shift.

When I was twelve, after the courts removed me from my father’s home, I dreamed of being an author. I didn’t know how it would ever happen, but a seed was planted.

In seventh grade—the same grade my youngest (and only daughter) is in now—my English teacher and the school counselor called a meeting with my mom about a short story I’d written. They were concerned about how dark it was until she told them about the home I came from. After that, my teacher pushed me toward poetry.

My first poem was published at fifteen, back in 2005, around the same time I started blogging. I spent the next two decades in that corner of the internet—blogging, freelancing, building my business, working with entrepreneurs across the U.S.

From ages fifteen to twenty-five, I also worked as a freelance model while juggling motherhood. For most of that time, I was a single mom—until twenty-one, when my now-husband and I began building our blended family. I even put myself through college, trying to follow the “traditional route,” but life had other plans. A few months after graduation, we lost our home in a fire. That season of survival led me to rebuild everything—creating AMVS from the ground up and slowly growing it into what it is today.

I already knew how to build a business—AMVS proved that when my daughter was only eighteen months old. I built it after surviving eight months of homelessness following that house fire, when she was just four months old. Out of that chaos, I learned resourcefulness, grit, and the value of starting over.

I built that business while managing a household, finding stability alongside my husband. Now, I’m grateful for everything that’s led me here. The future isn’t guaranteed, but every day I get to write feels like a gift.

I’ve been published in different ways over the years—modeling, magazine features, even a collaborative book in 2017. I once tried to write a memoir, and later a life-lessons short story collection (which I might revisit someday). But nothing ever fit until Baby Girl.

When I finished that book in a month—writing without overthinking, just letting the story breathe—I realized I had found my soul’s work.
All those earlier attempts didn’t fail; they were leading me to understand why I love to write.

For me, it’s about creating beauty out of chaos and transforming lived experiences into a story. It’s healing, it’s art, it’s survival.

That’s what birthed the Daughters of Violence Universe—a world built from pain, resilience, and reclamation. I’ve been quietly building the back-end systems because I don’t see this as “just self-publishing.” This is a career.

By summer 2026, three more of my kids will graduate high school. My oldest is already twenty and serving in the Army, and my rainbow son turns eighteen in just a few months. Life is shifting—motherhood looks different now. I’ll always be “Mom,” but in a new season. And in this next chapter, building the Daughters of Violence Universe has given me purpose again.

I write dark stories because I’ve lived through dark things. I write for the survivors, for the ones who feel unseen.

My goal is simple: that anyone who reads my books takes away a piece of wisdom, a spark of strength, or even just a seed of hope for when they might need it later.

As my Grandma June used to say, “Pay it forward.”
She was my role model, and she passed when I was fifteen—but her voice still echoes in everything I do.

I’ve spent years raising my children, teaching them strength, patience, and compassion through every storm we’ve weathered. Now, as they grow into their own lives, I find myself raising something new — stories. Stories built from the same love, resilience, and hope that carried us through. Maybe that’s what this next season is about: not starting over, but passing the torch. The lessons, the grit, the grace — all of it lives on, one chapter at a time.

✍🏻 Anya Marie Whitmore writes within the Daughters of Violence Universe — where survival meets story.