About Qiala
Your rebirth doesn’t have to be loud.
Hi, I’m Qiala Patrice. Author, speaker, and witness to the woman who has been holding it all together on the outside while quietly disappearing on the inside. I write for the mother who forgot her own name.
Through memoir, gentle storytelling, and honest conversation, I help women slow down, breathe deeper, and reclaim the parts of themselves they tucked away to be everything for everyone else. My words aren’t loud. They’re steady. And sometimes, steady is exactly what we need.
Who I Write and Speak For
You’ve been holding it together for everyone else. You’re the one who remembers the appointments, the permission slips, the birthdays, the groceries. You give and give, and somewhere along the way, you stopped showing up on your own list.
You don’t need a louder life. You need yourself back. Quietly. Gently. Without burning anything down.
My work is for you if…
Who Am I, Anyway?
I’m a writer, speaker, and woman who spent years answering to Mom before remembering I had a first name. I care about honest words, slow mornings, and helping women find themselves in the quieter parts of their own lives. I write what I needed to hear when I was the most invisible. And I’m still becoming, on purpose.
A Few Things I Love
Iceland
Sip & Paints
Sitting on a beach
Pilates
Soft Blankets
Deep Conversations
Laughing with my family
Slow Sunday Mornings
My Journey
From silent journaling to the words that brought me home…
2013
Became a mother. My son arrived in September, and from the moment I held him, I started disappearing into the role. I didn’t know it yet, but the woman I had been was already beginning to dim.
2017
Started journaling privately. Every morning, before anyone in the house woke up, I wrote. I didn’t share a word with anyone. Those pages were the only place I still existed as myself, and they would become the foundation of everything that came next.
2020
The world shut down, and I started over. I left one job and stepped into a new one in the heart of the pandemic. Working from home meant there was no commute to hide in, no office to perform in. Just me, my journals, and a house that had gotten very loud and very quiet at the same time. The disappearing got harder to ignore.
2021
The moment I couldn’t do my own hair. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and realized I had no idea how to style the woman looking back at me. That was the day I knew I was gone. It became the first chapter of my book, and the beginning of finding my way back.
2025
Began calling myself a writer. Not someone who wrote. A writer. The same year, I stepped onto a Pilates mat for the first time and let my body start teaching me what my journals had been trying to say for years.
2026
Published First Name, Not Mom and founded Still Becoming Media LLC. The book I needed to read when I was the most invisible became real, and the woman I had been quietly becoming for years finally had a name and a place to live.
“The process of becoming is and should be a lifetime endeavor, and I am still at it at 83, maybe more than ever.”
“I just finished reading your book and wanted to let you know how moved and impressed I was. I’m long past the life challenges you address, but the book got me looking back and thinking about my own early child rearing years. I was so moved by your personal struggles, and so impressed with your courage and insight in working through them. There must be many women facing the same challenges, and you are offering them a lifeline.”
If you’ve read this far…
Here’s How We Can Stay Connected
Read the Book
First Name, Not Mom is for the mother who forgot her own name. Part memoir, part roadmap home. If anything on this page resonated, the book is where the deeper conversation lives.
Invite Me to Speak
I speak at women’s conferences, retreats, corporate wellness events, and faith communities. The focus is always the same: honest words, gentle presence, and the kind of conversation women actually need.
Read the letters
The Still Becoming Letter is where I write to women in the in between. Quiet essays on identity, motherhood, and the slow work of coming back to yourself. New letters land in your inbox most weeks.