Building The Worlds You Never Saw | THE Story Artist | Shawna
Shawna Mills is a story artist, director, and designer whose work you already know — Black Dynamite, Star Wars Rebels, Rise of the TMNT. In this conversation with Jess, she goes deeper: to her grandmother Ernestine, who told her she could do anything, and to the ongoing work of moving from surviving into thriving.
They talk about grief as love in another form. Anger as sacred information about a boundary. The parts work Shawna was doing before she had a name for it. And her company, Soda Monkey Entertainment — built to make the worlds she never got to see as a Black girl growing up watching animation. Her dream: put those dreams in the front seat.
Chapters:
0:00 Meet Shawna Mills (opener + intro + Purple Couch pre-roll)
2:23 The conversation begins — reading Shawna's bio
4:30 Grandmother Ernestine — the belief that shaped a career
9:00 From Black Dynamite to Star Wars Rebels
12:00 Grief as love in another form
15:00 A word from Main Street America
15:43 Back to the conversation
17:30 Anger as sacred information about a boundary
23:00 Parts work before she had a name for it
28:30 The move from surviving to thriving
33:00 Soda Monkey Entertainment
36:30 Putting Black girls' dreams in the front seat
39:00 The tree house dream
