Kehinde Winful is a first generation Nigerian-American attorney and author. Her debut novel Flooding the River was published in January 2025. She is currently an Anoka County Library Featured Author for the 2026-2027 calendar year. Her latest short story “Fishing for Cats” was published in the The Hummingbird Journal. She is working on her second novel.

When I decided I was going to be an attorney, I knew what to expect (said no one ever). What I mean by that is that I knew the steps I had to take. I had to apply to law school, graduate from law school, and take the bar exam. Three simple steps laid out in front of me, and all I had to do was take the first one.

My writing journey has been so unlike my journey to becoming an attorney, namely because I had no idea what steps I had to take to get to the outcome I wanted: becoming a published author.

My novel, Flooding the River, is published with Wise Ink Creative Publishing, a hybrid publisher. Before I became a published author, I knew there were three general paths to publishing: self-publishing, traditional publishing, and hybrid publishing. I knew I didn’t want to self-publish because I didn’t want to handle the marketing and business side of publishing myself (LOL). Looking back, that really just shows how much I did not know.

Because, of course, with hybrid publishing, I was still very much involved in the marketing and business side of being an author. In many ways, I found myself back at the beginning of the lesson I needed to learn: there was no clearly defined path. There were steps, but I had to figure out what they were while I was taking them.

I have of course  learned many other lessons during my almost two years as a published author, but in the end, my favorite lesson is one I already knew and then somehow forgot.

I was reminded of it in June when I went to an event at the Denver Public Library and listened to Nancy Viera, author of Flower Moon Runner, give a talk. During her talk, she said, “The prize is that it exists.”

That was true. So true.

Before my novel, Flooding the River, was out in the world, I didn’t think about things like reviews, ratings, lists, or even marketing. I only thought about writing. I wanted to write a story about love, family, relationships, and identity. I wanted the story to exist in the world. That was all I thought about: it existing, because I needed it to.

But for a bit, somewhere along the way, I forgot that was what mattered. So before I arrived back at what I already knew to be true, I felt the ache of being a new author.

There is something very strange about putting a book you have spent years creating into the world and then realizing that, suddenly, everyone else gets to have an opinion about it. When it was just mine, the book was enough. Once it became the world’s, the truth was I started looking for evidence that it was enough.

Was it getting enough reviews? Was the rating high enough? Was anyone talking about it? Was it being recommended? Was it selling? Was I doing enough to market it? Should I be posting more? Should I be reaching out to more people? Should I be pitching more publications? Should I be doing events? Should I be doing something I hadn’t even thought of yet?

Often, I found myself sitting on my couch after a long day at work. . . tired. There was also a new metric to chase, and I was tired of running.

Reflecting, I think that is one of the hardest parts of publishing that no one really prepared me  for. I had spent years thinking, I just want my book to be published. And then it was. And although I sat with the miracle of writing a book I loved for a bit, gradually I started thinking about what came next.

I wanted more readers. More reviews. More recognition. More opportunities. I wanted the book to do well because, somewhere in my mind, I had started equating the book’s success with my success as a writer.

Post “ the truth is that it exists” I returned to what I knew before:  the truth is that those things are not the same.

For me, Flooding the River was never supposed to be a business plan. It started as a story I needed to tell. It started with characters I wanted to understand and questions I wanted to explore. It started because I wanted to write about love, family, identity, and the complicated ways those things intersect.

On the drive home from listening to Nancy talk I turned off the radio (and listened to my heartbeat as my mom would say) and more of the truth began to seep in. Yes, publishing gave Flooding the River a life outside of me, but it did not change why I wrote it in the first place.

The publishing journey may not have the neat(ish) three-step roadmap that becoming a lawyer had. There is no LSAT, law school, and bar exam equivalent for becoming an author. There is no checklist that guarantees the outcome you want. There is just the work, the uncertainty, the learning, and the willingness to keep going.

If anything, my first year as a published author taught me that I have to keep returning to that original reason. The prize is that it exists.

Flooding the River by Kehinde Winful

Lolah’s extraordinary journey takes her from a secretive birth to Nigeria’s distant past, where love, heartbreak, and a complicated love triangle shape her life across generations and continents. Blending romance and family drama, this moving story explores resilience, forgiveness, and the enduring bonds of family as Lolah navigates loss, discovers her strength, and ultimately finds her place in the world.

Buy the book now: Amazon