Take a look at this sneak peak Q&A with Ebony Walden for her upcoming release, Where I’m From: A Poetic Journey Across Five Continents, that blends poetry, travel and culture into one beautiful memoir. Set for release September 8, 2026, the book follows Walden as she travels across multiple countries, connecting with people and exploring identity, culture, and belonging. Through vivid storytelling and reflection, she captures not just the places she visits, but the transformation that comes from stepping beyond your comfort zone.

Where I’m From: A Poetic Journey Across Five Continents by Ebony Walden

At twenty-nine, poet Ebony Walden leaves her job to embark on an eight-month journey across the world, exploring new cultures and experiences from Guatemala to India to Kenya. Along the way, she connects with people through poetry, capturing stories that transform her. But as she travels, she’s also forced to confront her own past and the challenges that shaped her. Blending travel memoir and personal growth, the memoir shows how seeing the world can ultimately help you understand yourself.

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What was your inspiration behind the memoir?

My inspiration was twofold. First, the journey itself. In 2010, I took a solo trip around the world, volunteering, backpacking, sightseeing, and writing poetry across five continents. I knew it was a story worth sharing, but I didn’t initially write it for publishing.  In 2014, I began writing as a personal/spiritual practice to process my experiences. I knew the places I visited had transformed me, but I wanted to recount the specific ways I had changed and the lessons I learned.

I completed a full draft in 2017 and set it aside while I built my consulting business. Years later, in 2024, as I prepared for a year of remote work and travel, I returned to the manuscript. By then, travel had become central to both my life and my work again. Revisiting the book then felt aligned with the life I am now creating around sharing my story and inspiring others toward travel, transformation, and liberation. Now is the right time. Everything feels aligned.

What are you looking forward to readers diving into?

I’m excited for readers to experience both the outer and inner journey. They’ll travel with me to 15 countries and experience the food, people, places, and poetry I created with those I met along the way. Each place and poem offers a window into identity, culture and the beauty and hardships of life.

But at its core, this is a deeply human story. It’s about growing up in poverty, carrying that struggle with me, and eventually being invited—through travel, connection, and reflection—to lay some of that down. I hope readers see themselves in that journey and feel both inspired by the world and moved to reflect on their own lives, on the beauty and brokenness of where they are from.

This book is about crossing borders—geographic, emotional, and spiritual—and what it takes to come home to yourself.

What made you decide you wanted to tell this story now?

In many ways, I had to go back in order to go forward. In 2024, I began remote working abroad while filming my DIY travel documentary series, Black Beyond Borders, which explores culture, cuisine and connection across the African diaspora. I realized that the foundation of that work and of my voice as a storyteller began with my trip around the world and with writing poetry.

Telling this story felt essential. It’s not just the story of where I went, but the origin story of who I am, where I’ve been, and where I’m from. Sharing it now allows me to connect the past to the present and invite others into a broader conversation about identity, arts, culture, and living beyond borders.

Tell us about the journey behind the memoir.

The memoir traces my eight-month solo journey around the world. The book takes readers from the initial idea through the planning process and the trip, ending when I returned home. It captures both the external adventure and the internal transformation that unfolded along the way.

What deepens the journey is that each place I visit and each “Where I’m From” poem I co-create with new friends sparks a memory from my early life. As I move from country to country and poem to poem, I’m also moving through my own history. I revisit moments from childhood through young adulthood that require reflection, reckoning, or healing. In that way, the book becomes a dual journey: across continents and across time. Readers travel with me from ages 8 to 30, witnessing how the past and present are in constant conversation. It’s a blend of where I am from, where I went on the trip and a window into where others are from through the poems we co-create together.

The journey of writing the memoir has been just as layered. I began writing a few years after the trip, took a two year-long memoir writing classes, completed a full manuscript in 2017, and then set it aside for years. In 2024, I returned to it with a fresh perspective. I found a copy editor and publisher in She Writes Press and began editing, refining, and shaping it into the book it is today.

It’s a journey across the world and a journey back to myself.

You’ve worked on a broad range of projects. Tell us more about your work and how readers can connect with you while they wait for Where I’m From.

I often describe myself as a storyteller across mediums who curates spaces for transformation. I’m an author, filmmaker, speaker, and consultant.

During the day, I’m a trainer, facilitator and strategist working at the intersection of leadership, equity and organizational change. Increasingly, I integrate lessons from art and travel such as embracing creativity, trusting your intuition, being present, and learning to pivot.

As a coach and speaker, I share lessons from my journeys to motivate and inspire others to move from idea to action, live beyond the limitations placed upon them and embrace the fullness of their identities.

Last year, I launched Black Beyond Borders, a documentary series capturing my travels across the African diaspora. This travel series highlights the dynamism of global Black culture. Season One focused on Dakar, Senegal. I am working on Season Two (Colombia) and Season Three (Ghana).

Alongside that, I podcast, write reflective essays and create content rooted in travel, transformation and liberation.

Readers can connect with me at:

1. Ebonywalden.com, to learn more about the book and explore my work.
2. Visit www.BlackBeyondBorders.com to watch the series.
3. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter Beyond Borders for reflections on travel and transformation.
4. Follow along on Instagram (@ebonywalden80) and YouTube (@ebony.aroundtheworld) as I continue sharing my journey.

Ebony Walden is an author, filmmaker, and speaker who has traveled to nearly fifty countries and all fifty US states. She is the founder of Ebony Walden Consulting, a racial equity–focused consulting firm, and the creator of Black Beyond Borders, a documentary series and podcast exploring culture, creativity, connection, and cuisine across the African diaspora. In 2025, she won the LA Independent Women Film Award for Best Web Series-Pilot. The series is also an official selection of the Virginia Black Film Festival and has several planned festival screenings in 2026. Ebony also writes Beyond Borders, a weekly Substack newsletter on travel and transformation. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.