In her grant proposal, she wrote: “The majority of ‘readers’ nowadays consume their books through audio. Being able to provide this new avenue to readers would open up my work to a whole new audience. The second part of my request would go to improving my internet and website presence in relation to the book.”

The grant allowed her to hire a narrator and a web designer who could not only revamp her website, but help ensure Google searches show her coming-of-age tale, “I Am a Dahomey Warrior!,” near the top.

The story follows the adventures of a young girl growing up in pre-colonial West Africa. This story is based on a real tribe of female warriors whose fearlessness in battle was legendary.

If it sounds familiar, that may be because of its similarity to the 2022 movie, “The Woman King,” starring Viola Davis. In a very prescient moment, Hunter found the story of the Dahomey warriors before it was even “a glimmer in the eyes of the masses.”

An uplifting tale based on real events

“I felt a positive story based on historical facts of African history would go a long way to uplifting Black Americans,” she wrote in her application. “Since many times the images we see of ourselves … in relation to history is slave history. Although that’s a very important and heartbreaking part of our journey, it’s not all that makes up our history.”

Hunter writes a lot of historical poetry on topics including slavery, the Freedmen’s Bureau (established by an act of Congress in 1865), the Civil Rights era.

A friend suggested she write a poem about Africa before slavery. Hunter’s daughter, 31, had done some genealogical research and discovered she has DNA that can be traced to Togo in West Africa. She told her mom about the Dahomey warriors, which led to Hunter’s own extensive research and discoveries of stories that showed “women of African heritage as the powerful, complex, beautiful beings they are” and not the one-dimensional caricatures often found in the media. 

When we first meet the protagonist of Hunter’s tale, she’s just 10 years old. She’ll lose her parents and her sister and still come out triumphant.

There’s a little of Hunter in her heroine. When Hunter’s mom died, her 28-year-old father was left to raise three children, then ages 7, 5 and 2, on his own. He taught her to be independent and find strength from within.

Education – and pride in their heritage – were priorities in Hunter’s family. Her dad encouraged his kids to read, and Hunter gobbled up poetry, sci fi, horror and romance. “I fell in love with the art of storytelling and would spend hours weaving adventurous tales to entertain my siblings,” she wrote in her application.

She and her younger siblings had to read the dictionary and the encyclopedia after school – and then tell their dad what they’d learned – before they could go outside to play.

A message for the masses

Hunter calls herself an “everyday poet,” meaning she writes about families, love, loss, heartbreak, inspiration and motivation – the sorts of relatable subjects that pervade our daily lives.

Social justice is another topic that shows up repeatedly in her work.

She’s careful to be a calm messenger when speaking on that and other fraught topics; she knows people listen closer to a measured speaker than an embittered one. She aims to “teach and not divide. I bring light to issues that some might not want to discuss but in a tone that does not inflame, but reaches for connection and understanding.”

She’s well-versed in sharing her messages with her community and beyond. She said, “I’m all about bringing arts and culture to the masses.”

Hunter has performed spoken-word poetry at nursing homes and schools and has volunteered with Writers in Residence, an organization that mentors incarcerated people. She also serves as a Big Sister through the Big Brothers and Sisters organization.

She calls herself an “emerging artist,” but she’s prolific and has won plaudits for her work:

• Her spoken word videos were screened during the Ninth International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece.
• At the 2021 Raleigh Films and Art Festival, she won an award in the best spoken-word performance category.
• She’s been featured in a web series, “Equity in Art: Cleveland Poet Speaks to Social Injustice,” as well as in a television segment called “How Art Speaks in Unsettling Times” on WTVI’s “Carolina Impact.”
• Her writing has been included in anthologies.
• She performed at the Gantt Center during the 2023 Black History Celebration.

After receiving an ASC grant, Hunter went straight to work. She found her ideal narrator on ACX.com, a website where voice actors advertise their services.

She had a clear vision of the sound she was going after. She wrote in her application, “A great audiobook is performed – not read – by a person who thinks of themselves as an actor. The story is so dramatic, and so uplifting, it deserves to be told in the most spectacular way, and I would love to use an actress of African descent so that the diction is true.”

Hunter auditioned several voice actors and found one who’s originally from Nigeria and living in Ireland now. Hunter provided artistic direction, and her voice talent recorded the narration and sound effects – elephants stampeding, a drumbeat – in Ireland.  

Like her audiobook, her websites – one for her and her writing, poetry and speaking engagements and another for her book – turned out better than she could’ve imagined. And she’s “profoundly grateful” for the grant that made it all happen: “Those funds significantly facilitated the expansion of my author brand, enabling me to present myself in a refined; focused; likable, yet professional, manner that I think matches my personality.”

She first met web designer Dante Bland when he attended one of her events – a “Night of Artistic Renewal.” She didn’t then have the funds to redesign her website. But when the grant from ASC came through, she got in touch and hired him. She appreciates being able to support other Black creatives.

Not only does she have a new website, she now has the tools to monitor web traffic and improve her search engine visibility. Her twin digital projects – the audiobook and the website –surpassed her expectations. When she saw and heard the final products, she admits she had tears in her eyes.

She relishes being a role model for her grandchildren, who range in age from 5 to 11. After they heard the audiobook the first time, they all hugged her and told her how proud they were.

The grandkids live in Ohio and visit Hunter every summer. This summer, she’ll task each one with writing a book. “They’ll all be authors by the time they go home,” she said.

Sharing stories is part of their lineage.

Their grandmother is teaching them – and the rest of us – about “history that was left out of history books.”

See the trailer for “I Am A Dahomey Warrior!” on YouTube. Learn more about Hunter at her website, dionnehunter.com, and read more about her book at iamadahomeywarrior.com.