Episode 2099: Na Makasi - A Gripping Tale of Power, Betrayal & Self-Discovery

Ashley Van-De-Cruize's brand is rooted in bold storytelling that bridges healing, heritage, and the power of voice. As a multidisciplinary author, she uses her work to create space for reflection, empowerment, and connection. Whether it’s through the ancestral strength in her comic book “Na Makasi: Ancestral Awakening,” the emotional introspection in her poetry collections “Love Never Fails” and “Letters to the Ocean,” or the sensual unraveling of identity and desire in her romance mystery “Confident Sensuality,” her goal is to tell stories that speak to the soul.

Her journey from nursing to storytelling is not just a career shift—it’s a reclamation of purpose. As she transitions fully into her creative career, Ashley wants to be known not just as a writer, but as a force for liberation through words—someone who inspires others to embrace their full selves, create boldly, and remember that our stories are sacred.

Get The Comic HERE: https://a.co/d/1I9asEW

Web: https://www.dirtywordsmith.com...

About the comic: Na Makasi" plunges readers into a world of hidden powers and ancient conflicts, following Anaya, a young Black woman of African and Japanese descent. Her life shatters after a devastating betrayal, unlocking extraordinary abilities: mind-reading, telekinesis, and time manipulation. These evolving powers reveal a hidden legacy deeply tied to her ancestry.

As Anaya is thrust into a shadowy world of supernatural forces and hunted by mysterious enemies, she discovers her powers are both a gift and a dangerous burden. Guided by the enigmatic Shadow, she must unravel cryptic family secrets, rescue her sister from a sinister organization, and uncover her true place in a centuries-old conflict.
Rich with intrigue and action, "Na Makasi" masterfully explores the weight of inherited power, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the profound strength required to rise above fear when faced with unimaginable threats. Discover this thrilling journey of supernatural suspense and empowerment.

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Dive into Ash's World: AshSaidit.com & The Ash Said It Show

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What are doing?

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Said the world. It is your girl, but what an
only ash Brown?

Speaker 3 (00:07):
And this is the ash set It show over two
thousand episodes since twenty fourteen, half a million streams around
the world. None of this is possible without you, guys.
So I thank you so so very much. Today, my
guest is someone that I have been following. I know
I sound very stalkersh right. I've been following her for

(00:30):
years now and watching her journey just continue to evolve
and seeing all the things that she is just mixed
up in. And you know, she got the Caribbean flair.
You know, she's a fellow Ashley, So you know, I'm
always down with my Ashley's.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
I don't know too many. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
No lazy Ashley's I don't know. And if they exist,
I don't know them. I don't know know people. So
I've got the bold storyteller herself, wonderful Ashley van de Cruz.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hellos, Hi, how are you.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
So excited to be here? Thank you so much, so much.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Thank you so much for having time. I know that
you are a busy lady. There's so many pots on
the stove. You're always cooking up something new. If it's
not a story time or something else. So I appreciate
you having time on your schedule today.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Oh absolutely, I'm super excited about this. I appreciate you
even having me in your show. This is so dope.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
And so, you know, there's kind of certain things off,
you know, giving your unique background transitioning from nursing to storytelling,
how has your understanding of healing evolved?

Speaker 4 (01:50):
You know what I will say, I feel that healing
takes a massive amount of forms.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
It does not come in any specific way, in any
specific gift.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
Certainly isn't bow Tide for anybody, and there are so many.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Sides to it.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
And I feel that I myself personally, have found healing
in storytelling.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
I grew up with my mom telling us stories.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
I grew up reading stories like the shorter stories to
my little sisters. I just found so much comfort in storytelling,
and so to me, that was healing. And I feel
that a lot of my patients they love to talk,
they love to tell you their story, They love to
tell you how they got to where they were.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
They have a beginning, of middle, and an end. It's
just healing takes many many forms.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yes, yes, now, your brand emphasizes a lot about bold
storytelling and connects with healing, heritage, and the power of voice.
Can you share an instance where these three elements kind
of converged unexpectedly in one of your projects.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Absolutely so my more recent project, which is Namakasi and
Such Awakening. That is my comic book, and that book, I'm.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Obsessed with it. I love the story that I conjured
up with it.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
But it's so culturally robust, and I myself personally feel
like every culture has a story. Every culture, every single culture,
I mean, what makes it a culture. It has its
own story, its story of origin.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
What makes it what it is.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
And that, paired with the amount of patients that I
see on a daily basis, people from all walks of life,
from all over the world, it's.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Something that I felt was inevitable.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
You know, you go to work, you talk to your patients,
You speak to somebody from India, you speak to another
person from Nigeria, you speak to another person from Japan,
and every single one of them have something to say
about their culture and what their plan is to heal
when they get out the hospital. And I felt that
when I started to write this story, I wanted a

(04:16):
piece of that in there.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
I wanted pieces of culture.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
And so I the main character has heritage from the
Republic of Kungo, Japan, and then additional characters are coming
in with Hispanic heritage, with Korean heritage, Trinidadian, and it
was just beautiful for me to officially birth of that
and pour it out into the world. And I'm really

(04:41):
excited to introduce more cultures in the upcoming stories. It's
just it's coming together so nicely. Initially it intimidated me
because I was.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Like, you don't even know a whole lot about all
these cultures. How you gonna do this?

Speaker 4 (04:54):
But you never get so surprised with these conversations you
have with these patients.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
They're just so willing to share.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Wow, that is outstanding.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
I mean I'm a bit older than you, I'm sure,
and so I'm an eighties baby that grew up watching
You know, there was a lot of women empowerment in
the eighties as far as like cartoons and stuff go.
But I remember that there wasn't a lot of cartoons
and characters that look like me exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
You know what I'm saying, Like.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
I love Shira, I love gem and the Holograms and
I love Punky Brewster and stuff like that, and they
always would have like their token little black girl.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
You're like, okay, I had enough. I would hear that's.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
It, but you know, you never had like that, that
real future player. So when I heard about that, you know,
like I said, I've been following you for a minute,
and then when I heard about the I.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Was like, oh.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
And so when I saw it and everything, I was like, wow,
I see I see reflections and parts of you and
parts of me and parts of my sister. And you know,
I see so many women represented and women of culture,
women of color represented in her. And I thought that

(06:12):
I was like, wow, this is incredible. I got to
get to the root of how Namakasi came to be.
So that was a lot of the push behind me,
you know, getting in contact with you and trying to
get to the root of this story.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
So thank you for that, absolutely, thank you. Thank you.
That was beautiful. I love that you.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
Were able to see you, your sister, you know, like
the people that mean something to you in this story.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
That means a lot, yes, And I mean there's just
you know, with every thing that's going on in our world, now,
you know, there's all kinds of crazy randomness going on
around us. I think something like this definitely will keep
people grounded. And though in my younger time, you know,
we didn't have representation like this, the generation coming up,

(07:03):
they get to see this, and I feel like that
is the the that is the real power of them
being able to see themselves in these stories. I know
that you are somewhat connected with Black Line and Cups,
so you you've heard about them, yeah, and I know
you've been kind of maybe in contact, you know, shout

(07:25):
out to Hotep. You know, I had him on the
show a couple weeks ago, and you know, same thing,
just talking about representation and how important that is for
this next generation coming up, because they should be able
to see themselves in these stories and think of themselves
as the hero and think of themselves as helping people
and saving lives and all these things. So I said, kudos,

(07:48):
you know, kudos too, exactly.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Thank you, Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (07:52):
Definitely an interesting guy.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
I love that we were able.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
To chat and have our own conversations, and I love
that he exposed me to the projects that he was
working on as well.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yes, yes, good good people, good confident. But going going
back into Namakassi the ancestral Awakening, it explores that the
ancestral strength, while confident sensuality delves into identity and desire.
So how do you navigate and blend such diverse themes

(08:25):
across the many genres?

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
When I started writing Confident Sensuality, I.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Was in high school, so I knew nothing.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
I knew nothing about confidence, and I knew nothing about sensuality.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Let's start there.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
So when I came to California for my very very
first nursing contract, this is the perfect place to meet
people and to find people to help you with your
creative journey, and or, at least at that time, it was.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
And I'm really.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
Glad because my editor, who was incredibly transparent with me,
was my Actually, this book is horrible.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
You need to start over.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
And of course it was because I knew nothing about confidence.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
I knew nothing about sensuality. I knew nothing.

Speaker 4 (09:09):
About what it meant to know what you like, you know,
to be confident in who you are, to find yourself.
Because I was in high school, I knew nothing, and
so coming to California for the very first time, all
the way across the nation from my family.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
It was prime.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
Time for me to start discovering who I was and
falling into little traps and little situations that I don't
have the support of my family to help me get through.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
It was just.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
I certainly did find myself during the first couple of
years of me doing traveling, nursing, and I also being
completely transparent and you know, sharing a deeper part of myself.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
I was also very much a.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
Version and not at all active in the dating world,
so there was very little that I can contribute to
the reality of confidence sensuality. And then of course I
met my husband, and you know when things finally started
to get serious is when I started understanding like what it.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Meant to be in love, what it meant to understand.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
You know, being pleasured and providing pleasure. Like it was
definitely a rollercoaster of a ride, and that was something
that I was incredibly grateful for to be able to
implement in my stories in the exposure.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
It's just it really did pour.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Into that story, and I felt like that opened up
my creative juices when it came to delving into different genres, like.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Okay, actually you can do this. You can do anything.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
You moved across the nation, You worked out some kinks
that you probably wouldn't have dealt with if you had
all the support of your family.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
You know, a lot, a lot of.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
The stuff that comes with going on to your own
and making decisions on your own really did help with
me pouring into these stories and opening up my creative
juices and just creating.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, and I'm sure you grew from it. You know,
this is this is a part of the journey. This
is a part of your life's journey.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Oh yeah, absolutely, And it was quite a journey.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
I can imagine. I can imagine.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
And you aim to inspire others to embrace their full
selves and create boldly beyond your published works. What practical
advice do you advocate for individuals?

Speaker 4 (11:45):
Just whatever it is you're trying to start doing, whatever
it is you are attempting to start, whatever project you're
working on, just start.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Just just do it.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Stop waiting to find an editor, stop waiting to find
a producer or a director or whatever.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Before or whatever it.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
Is you think you need to start working on whatever
project it is you'd like to work on, Just start.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
You keep waiting and you're kind of dampening.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
That those creative juices, the creative ebsit clothes the things
that you're going through.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
The process is the art. The inspiration is in the process.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
Stop waiting for the perfect time, the perfect opportunity, the
perfect setting.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
It doesn't exist.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Just do it, Just do it. I love it.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, the beauty is in the process. You're absolutely right,
absolutely right on that one. Now, considering your belief that
our stories are sacred, what responsibility do you feel as
an author to not only tell our own stories but
also to amplify those marginalized voices that you know seem

(13:01):
to be oppressed and silenced.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
So I was actually watching this documentary the other day,
or not necessarily a documentary, but like a snippet where
Trevor Nola had mentioned that there's a difference between racism
abroad in racism in America, specifically South Africa as abroad.
He said that you know where you stand. In South Africa,
they're blatant, there are abvio is.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
They say it to you.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
We you know, we don't like ex people. And then
in America it's kind of sad because you kind of
have to be a detective to figure out if there
is this racism.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Is it because I'm black?

Speaker 4 (13:42):
You know, Black people don't want to pour race into everything.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
We don't.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
But we have to figure out if this is about race,
so we know how to address it, We know how
to approach it. And when other voices, when those other
oppressed voices see that a voice that was once oppressed
has fought.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Through the suppression and.

Speaker 4 (14:06):
The racism and those defeated moments, when they see that
you have made it, that your story is out there,
your book is published, your features are featured in a
cartoon movie.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
It is so inspirational. That is my duty to keep pushing.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
Everything that I create is going to belong to me
so that I maintain the creative power, the creative freedom,
the creative flexibility to make sure that that voice that
keeps being oppressed, the voice that keeps being suppressed.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Makes it through, pushes through.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
And I just know that, you know, like at least
when I was eleven nine, ten, eleven twelve, and I
was just so sure that I was going to be successful,
it meant so much to see another African American author,
another African American director, producer, you know, like it's just
it means a lot, and that is my duty to

(15:06):
make it clear. I created this so you can create it.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
I love it, Asley, Thank you so much for coming through.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
We have absolutely so much.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Let everybody know how they can keep up with you,
how they can get the comic of course, and how
do I follow you on social media?

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Oh for sure, for sure.

Speaker 4 (15:29):
So my comic book is available on Amazon as well
as on my personal website. So my personal website is
dirty wordsmith dot com. And then of course on Amazon,
you just have to search Namakasi Ancestral Awakening and it
pops up.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
So and then of course my socials.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
I'm the soul of my pen, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, just
the soul of.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
My pen.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Affection.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
And I know there's gonna be so much more stuff
that you are announcing, so much stuff coming in the future.
I would absolutely love it if you would come back
and share it with us.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
We will make time.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
We will make space, my sister, to go ahead and
spread the good word.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
But continue doing what you're doing. You're on You're in
your You're in your path. And it's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
To see a young black female doing hard thing, doing
hard thug thisle like I see you across social and
I'm like, that is my sister, That is this.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
I am so proud of you.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Keep doing it. Keep doing what you do is making
a difference. There's a voices, there's room for all, and
I think that's another testament to this show is there's
always room for everyone's voice. We just got to sit
up there. We got to make that space happen. Yeah,
make you absolutely and I appreciate each and every one
of you, guys. Thank you so much for your love

(16:58):
and support. Keep in your mind. Anyone to tell you
that you can't do what you want to do, you
look them, squam the face you tell them, don't believe me.
Just watch that's what I do. Watch me make it happen.
Watch me make history. That's what we're doing this for
the history books. Social media is nice, but real life
is so much better. Yeah, until next time, you guys,