My debut children’s book, Mayen and the Unexpected Gift, launches June 14, 2026.
I turned eight on my first birthday in a village in Eastern Nigeria, and have carried this story in my heart ever since.
As a Lagos city girl, I knew birthdays the way most children know them — mine. My day. My cake. My presents. My friends gathered around a table arranged so I would take center stage.
Then our family went to the village for the holidays. And everything I knew about birthdays — about belonging, about joy, changed. The drums started, but they didn’t beat for me alone. The children sang, but they sang for everyone. Nothing belonged to me the way I’d expected.
After many decades, I still can’t fully describe what happened in my little chest that day. But I know what I learned – joy is exponentially greater when shared. The village wasn’t taking my birthday away from me; it was giving everyone a much larger celebration.
I learned generosity isn’t something you do after you have enough — but something you do so there can be enough.
Those lessons stayed with me. Through migration from Lagos to California, graduate school, marriage, separation, and a fifteen-year corporate career. Ah! The long, slow rebuilding of a life. The first village birthday, sharing joy, and being generous with those who have less than I do, has shaped the woman I’m still becoming. And for years, I’ve been trying to write them down.
The book I almost never finished
I have to be honest, or the rest of the post won’t make sense.
I have manuscripts. Multiples. Sitting on my hard drive, “almost ready.” Always almost. I told myself I needed more time, a better cover, one more edit, a less busy season. I told myself I was being responsible. I told myself the work wasn’t ready. Finishing meant judgment; almost finishing meant safety.
How many of us live this way? Guilted by unfinished books, unlaunched businesses in their draft folders, unsent emails to dream clients, and unmade calls to estranged loved ones. We give excuses like the project needs refining, the right time, more research, but we are really hiding. Well, no more.
So, Meet Mayen
On June 14, 2026, my first children’s book goes live.
Mayen and the Unexpected Gift tell the story of a little girl who plans the perfect birthday — cake, presents, and her princess tiara — but ends up in a village where birthdays and celebrations belong to everyone. At first, Mayen is heartbroken. Then the festival drums begin. Friendships bloom. Surprises unfold. Mayen discovers the greatest gift isn’t something you can unwrap, but a feeling that settles inside her heart.
Mayen is for readers, ages 6–10. It’s a celebration of culture, community, kindness, and the quiet shifts that happen when a child encounters a world bigger than the one she knows. She returns to the city, a different child than she’d been when she left.
Mayen and the Unexpected Gift start The Mayen Creative Series for Dormanes Publishing and Media. More upcoming projects are:
- A diaspora anthology this summer
- AUAMNY — a financial education channel for working professionals and women pivoting and rebuilding mid-life — launching this fall
- More books, including an inspirational guide for parents raising special-needs children, and some fiction novels, are near the finish line.
Mayen goes first. Every long road needs a beginning.
How can you join this?
If this post moved you, step into what happens next:
Join the launch list. Connect and send me a message, and I’ll send you the link to Mayen and the Unexpected Gift the morning she goes live on June 14. Launch-day momentum matters more to authors than most people realize. Your early support changes everything.
Share this post. If you know a parent, a teacher, a librarian, an auntie, or anyone who loves children’s books — especially books featuring kids and stories in African settings — please send them here.
Finish your own thing. I mean it. Whatever sits in your drafts folder, your hard drive, your studio, your head — pick one and ship it – Imperfect, a little messy, but on time and now. Not in the right season. The version of you who lands on the other side will live as a different person.
One last thing
I started this blog years ago to write about culture, faith, vision, and meaning. I’ve come a long way from Lagos to Los Angeles. I think, somewhere underneath, I started it because I knew I’d need a place to land and find my own community as Mayen did.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for staying. And thank you, especially, to everyone who never stopped asking, Ama, when is your book coming out? You know who you are.
The answer, finally, is June 14.
Join the launch list today and get ready to step into Mayen’s world!
— Ama
Mayen and the Unexpected Gift launches June 14, 2026. To join the launch list, subscribe to my blog, or send me a message. To follow along with the journey, find me at @amadanesi on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
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