Interview With Author Jalissa Carter
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am Jalissa Carter — a Master Coach, Wellness Practitioner, ordained Marriage Celebrant, and author based in Fort Smith, Arkansas. My journey into writing began long before my first published book, as someone who has always believed that words have the power to heal, clarify, and transform.
To date I have written six books spanning multiple genres:
Testimonials Tales & Females (2017)
Comical Love (2018)
Poetic-Li — a poetry collection (2019)
Lipsody (2021)
Poetic Rosé: Wine Journal (2024)
Wedlope: Wine-Infused Poems for Weddings & Elopements (2025)
My writing has evolved alongside my life — from storytelling and humor to poetry, journaling, and now the WEDLOPE philosophy. Each book represents a different season of becoming. Wedlope: Wine-Infused Poems is my most personal and fully realized work to date — a collection rooted in love, identity, and the quiet but powerful act of choosing yourself. Informed by my WSET wine certification, each poem is crafted like a fine vintage — layered, intentional, and meant to be savored slowly.
Beyond my own titles I have also ghostwritten song lyrics for other artists — work that fed my love of language while I continued building my own literary voice.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is Wedlope: Wine-Infused Poems for Weddings & Elopements, published in 2025.
The inspiration behind it lives at the intersection of three deeply personal experiences: 15 years of marriage, a transformative journey earning my WSET wine certification, and over a decade of coaching women through identity shifts and life transitions.
The word “Wedlope” itself is the heart of the inspiration — it’s a philosophy before it’s a title. It means to elope from the noise of expectation, performance, and other people’s timelines. To step away from who the world says you should be and step toward who you actually are.
Wine became my central metaphor because I realized that wine and women have everything in common. Both require the right environment, patience, and time to fully become what they were always meant to be. Both are often misunderstood before they are truly appreciated. And both are infinitely more complex and beautiful than they appear on the surface.
I wrote this book for the woman standing at a crossroads — whether she is walking down the aisle, starting over, or simply trying to hear herself think again. I wanted her to pick up these pages and feel seen without explanation, understood without having to perform, and inspired to pour into herself the same devotion she gives to everyone else.
Wedlope is the book I needed to read before I knew I needed to write it.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
My most unusual writing habit is that I write best when the world is asleep.
There is something about the stillness of late night — when the obligations of the day have quieted and no one needs anything from me — that opens a creative channel I cannot access any other time. My best poems, my most honest lines, my clearest ideas have all arrived somewhere between midnight and the quiet hours that follow.
I also write with a glass of Rosé nearby. Not for inspiration exactly — more for atmosphere. Wine slows me down in the best possible way. It reminds me to be patient with the words, to let them breathe before I rush to finish them. Some of my poems took years to complete because I refused to force them before they were ready.
And I almost never write in silence. Horror movies playing softly in the background is my strange but consistent creative ritual. Something about that tension in the background actually settles my mind and allows the more vulnerable, reflective parts of me to come forward onto the page.
I realize that combination — Rosé, horror movies, and midnight — sounds more like a Halloween party than a poetry session. But for me it is the most natural creative environment I have ever found, and Wedlope was largely written inside of it.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Several authors have left lasting impressions on both my writing and my sense of self.
Kimberla Lawson Roby was one of my earliest literary influences. Her ability to write complex, flawed, and deeply human women — particularly Black women navigating faith, relationships, and identity — gave me permission to write characters and stories that didn’t shy away from the full truth of a woman’s inner life. She motivated me to pursue my own dream of becoming a published author at a time when I wasn’t sure that dream belonged to me.
Maya Angelou showed me that poetry could be a survival tool. That words arranged with intention could carry the weight of an entire life’s experience and still feel light enough for someone else to pick up and carry with them. Her fearlessness in writing about identity, womanhood, and becoming deeply shaped the voice I brought to Wedlope.
Rupi Kaur demonstrated that contemporary poetry could be accessible without being shallow — that brevity and depth are not opposites. Her work gave me confidence that short, distilled poems could carry enormous emotional weight.
And in a quieter way, my own journals have been among my greatest influences. Years of writing to myself — processing transitions, marriages, losses, reinventions — built the muscle and the honesty that eventually became my books.
I write for the same reason I read: to feel less alone in the experience of being human.
What are you working on now?
Several things are unfolding simultaneously — which feels very true to who I am as a creator.
On the literary side, I am continuing to build the WEDLOPE brand as a living, breathing extension of my writing. This includes Poetry in a Bottle workshops — intimate 60-minute experiences where women paint recycled wine bottles, write letters to their future selves, and enjoy live readings from Wedlope: Wine-Infused Poems.
I am also developing We Eloped: A Group Coaching Experience — an intimate cohort for women who are ready to do the deeper work of choosing themselves. The experience combines guided coaching sessions with a symbolic self-love ceremony complete with wedding cake and champagne 🎂🥂, and ends with every woman holding a “WE ELOPED” sign for a group photo. It is unlike anything else I have offered and I am genuinely excited about what it will create.
On the wellness side I continue to coach women 1:1 through life transitions, identity shifts, and the quiet but powerful question of who am I becoming?
And quietly — always quietly — there are more books being poured. I have learned not to rush them. Like a good wine, they will be ready when they are ready.
The next chapter of WEDLOPE is just beginning, and I have a feeling it is going to be the most meaningful one yet.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Honestly, my most effective promotion has always been rooted in community and conversation rather than algorithms and advertising.
Google Business has been one of my most underrated tools — local searches for authors, coaches, and wellness practitioners in Fort Smith lead directly to my listing, where my book is featured prominently. It is free, simple, and consistently brings in people who are actively looking for exactly what I offer.
LinkedIn has become my most powerful platform for building a professional audience around WEDLOPE. With over 700 followers and growing, I have found that authentic storytelling — sharing my journey as an author, coach, and woman in progress — resonates far more than promotional posts ever could.
Word of mouth and local presence remain irreplaceable. Having Wedlope available at Bookish, a beloved independent bookstore inside Fort Smith’s Bakery District, and available to borrow at the Fort Smith Main Library has put the book directly into the hands of readers who would never have found me online.
Podcast interviews are my newest and most exciting promotional frontier — being able to share the story behind the book in a long-form conversation reaches people in a way that a post or a graphic simply cannot.
And finally — Nextdoor, which most authors overlook entirely. As a hyper-local platform it has connected me with Fort Smith neighbors who have become genuine supporters of WEDLOPE in ways I never anticipated.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Yes — and it is advice I wish someone had given me earlier.
Write the book you needed to read. The most common mistake new authors make is writing for an imagined audience before they have written honestly for themselves. Your most authentic work will always find its readers. Wedlope exists because I finally stopped asking “will people want this?” and started asking “does this tell the truth?”
Stop waiting until you’re ready. There is no perfect moment, no perfect draft, no perfect version of yourself that will finally feel qualified enough to publish. I wrote six books by simply beginning — imperfectly, inconsistently, and sometimes terrified. The beginning is always the hardest part and it never gets easier by waiting.
Build your community before your book is finished. Your readers want to know you before they know your work. Show up on LinkedIn, in local spaces, in conversations — not to promote but to connect. By the time your book arrives, your community will be ready to receive it.
Support independent booksellers and libraries. These are the spaces that champion authors who don’t have major publishing houses behind them. Walk into your local bookstore and introduce yourself. Donate a copy to your library. Those relationships will serve you longer than any algorithm ever will.
And finally — don’t let anyone convince you that your story is too small, too specific, or too niche to matter. The more particular and honest your story is, the more universally it will resonate. Someone out there is waiting for exactly the book only you can write.
Pour yourself into it. Then pour it into the world.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
The best advice I have ever heard is deceptively simple:
“You cannot pour from an empty cup.”
I know it sounds like something you would see on a motivational poster. But I did not truly understand it until I lived its opposite — until I spent years pouring everything I had into everyone else and arrived at a place of profound emptiness wondering where Jalissa had gone.
That single sentence became the foundation of everything I now do. It is why I coach women. It is why I wrote Wedlope. It is why the WEDLOPE philosophy centers on eloping from the noise and returning to yourself first — not out of selfishness, but out of necessity.
You cannot be a great partner, mother, friend, or professional from a place of depletion. You cannot write your best work, show up fully for the people you love, or build the life you actually want while running on empty.
The most radical act a woman can commit in a world that rewards her self-sacrifice is to fill her own cup first — deliberately, unapologetically, and without waiting for permission.
Everything I create, every session I hold, every poem I write is an invitation for women to do exactly that.
That advice did not just inspire a book. It became a life.
What are you reading now?
Right now I am reading geography books — researching destinations I plan to travel to internationally. There is something deeply intentional about studying a place before you arrive in it. I want to understand the landscape, the culture, the history before I experience it in person. It feels like the traveler’s version of doing the inner work first.
It is actually very aligned with how I approach everything — whether I am preparing for a coaching session, writing a poem, or planning a journey. I believe in arriving prepared, present, and curious rather than simply showing up and hoping for the best.
Travel has become an important part of my wellness practice and my creative life. I have found that experiencing different cultures, different paces of living, and different relationships with food, wine, and community always finds its way back into my writing eventually.
I am also a firm believer that the best authors are voracious observers of the world — not just readers of books. Geography, history, culture, people — these are all texts worth studying deeply.
Ask me again in six months and I suspect I will be reading something inspired by wherever I have just returned from.
What’s next for you as a writer?
The honest answer is that the next chapter of my writing life feels bigger than anything I have attempted before — and I mean that in the quietest, most intentional way possible.
Wedlope: Wine-Infused Poems opened a door I did not know was there. What began as a poetry collection has grown into a full philosophy, a brand, a coaching practice, and a community of women who see themselves reflected in its pages. That response has shown me that my writing has a life beyond the page — and I intend to follow it wherever it leads.
In the near future I am focused on bringing Wedlope into physical spaces — workshops, experiences, and gatherings where the book becomes a living, breathing conversation rather than something that sits quietly on a shelf. Poetry in a Bottle workshops and We Eloped: A Group Coaching Experience are both extensions of the written work made tangible and communal.
On the writing side — there are more books being poured. I cannot say much yet because I have learned that speaking too soon about a book that is still becoming can sometimes interrupt its natural arrival. What I can say is that wine, women, and identity will remain at the center of everything I write. Those three things have given me more material than I could exhaust in a lifetime.
I am also deeply committed to supporting independent booksellers and libraries — institutions that give independently published authors like me a real home in the literary world.
What is next for me as a writer is simply this: more truth, more depth, more willingness to pour the parts of myself I once kept hidden onto the page.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
This question made me smile because my answer says everything about who I am.
First I would bring a journal — blank pages and a pen. If I am stranded on a desert island with nothing but time and stillness, that is actually the most fertile creative environment imaginable. I would write the most honest book of my life out there.
Second I would bring my own book — Wedlope: Wine-Infused Poems. Not out of vanity, but out of necessity. There have been seasons of my life where I needed to be reminded of who I was before the noise got loud. A desert island qualifies as one of those seasons. I would want my own words to anchor me back to myself when the isolation tried to convince me I was lost.
Third I would bring a survival guide — because literary elegance and practical survival are not mutually exclusive. I believe in being prepared. I would want to know how to find fresh water, build shelter, and signal for rescue. Wisdom comes in many forms and sometimes it comes in the form of knowing which leaves are edible.
And if I were allowed a fourth — I would bring a wine education book. Because if I am going to be stranded indefinitely I might as well deepen my knowledge of something I love. And honestly, studying wine on a desert island sounds like the most WEDLOPE thing I could possibly do.
Surviving beautifully. That has always been the goal.
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