Profile | Dwania Duhaney living her childhood dreams
Published:Sunday | January 26, 2020 | 12:00 AMVanessa James - Outlook Writer
“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams ...”
– Oprah Winfrey
At 29 years old, Dwania Duhaney is living the life she dreamed of as a young girl; the same dream which was being manifested in her love for writing. Now she is the author of a compilation of short stories called The Taxi Chronicles, which tells the usually funny tales of her daily experiences taking public transportation.
Duhaney explained that she decided to write the book after being convinced by her Facebook followers to do so.
“I have had some of the most bizarre experiences on taxis, even this morning, and I used to share my stories on Facebook. My followers were always encouraging me to publish so I said, ‘Alright, let’s go ahead and do that then’,” explained Duhaney.
She told Outlook that the process of writing the stories began in late 2016 and The Taxi Chronicles was published in July 2019.
“Initially, I wanted to write 101 chronicles because, believe it or not, I find that the weirdest things happen to me in taxis, like, all the time, so I have quite a lot of stories to share. It took a short time for me to just hammer them out and send them off,” she explained.
The high-school teacher stated that she is sharing this book, hoping that her readers can have a different outlook on life by finding joy in their challenges.
“I can share this and find laughter and fun in it because this is life, and these things will happen from time to time, and so you have to just have a good perspective about what is happening in your life and find the joy in bad experiences,” Duhaney encouraged.
She said she has always had a love for writing, so it comes as no surprise that she is already writing her second book. This one stems from the joy that the author feels when she sees people happy and growing.
“The next set of books I write will have a more ministry-based theme to them – helping people come out of difficulties and challenges, or to learn what their process is all about. That is the sort of thing that I really like,” she explained.
She encourages others to face their fears and do the one thing they have always wanted to, but was too afraid to do it. As for Duhaney, her fears stemmed from questioning if her work would be worth reading.
“While writing this book, one of the biggest challenges for me was Who will listen? Why would anybody read what you’ve written?” she said. “So it was really pushing fears aside and knowing that you have a talent, you have an ability, and you just see what happens.”
As a result, Duhaney is living her childhood dream of being an author and is enjoying it immensely.
“I think it’s just me trying to accomplish goals and live the dream that I have always had,” she said.
The Taxi Chronicles can be found at Neighbour Care Professional Pharmacy and Bookmax Limited in St Ann’s Bay and some pharmacies and churches in the Brown’s Town area. It costs $1,200.