'I was detained in China. Why on earth would they want me?'

Meet Alisa Kennedy Jones | Plus: HBDGAL Zoe Kravitz, Margaret Cho, Britney Spears, and...

Does your body feel like it’s de-coupling?

Alisa Kennedy Jones can relate

San Francisco • @the.empress.age

By Tiffany Nieslanik

Bespoke brand consultant and bestselling author Alisa Kennedy Jones is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on brand intelligence. Fluent in five languages, her celebrated TEDx talk on epilepsy changed the way we think about creativity, electricity, and the brain, and her debut bestseller Gotham Girl, Interrupted became a global phenomenon in the field of narrative medicine.

When not working on her next comedic novel, Ellery Goes Dark, Alisa is having the best time ever heading up a variety of initiatives, including The Empress, gotham girl, and the newly announced midlife women’s publishing house, Empress Editions.

She also founded the non-profit Institute for Women’s Futures with partners Alicia Dara of Womancake Magazine and Heather Bartos, MD, of Menopause Rocks. The goal of the foundation is to fund menopause physician education and low-income menopause care, as well as provide corporate education to keep midlife women thriving in the workplace.

The mother of two grown daughters, she’s trying… and failing. A LOT. But that’s OK.

The Midst: You were recently detained in China. What the heck happened?

Alisa Kennedy Jones: My trip to China was all about attending the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair — a chance to celebrate a kids’ book I worked on about navigating an AI-native world and exploring the ins and outs of global publishing. What I didn’t expect was a crash course in international immigration law, courtesy of a misunderstanding about 144-hour transit visas.

So there I was, suddenly with a guard taking away my phone, my passport, and my plane ticket. It was a moment of sheer What the actual—? that forced me to reckon with some deep, primal fears. Alone, in an unfamiliar system, I asked myself: Do I even exist right now? It was terrifying and humbling, but ultimately, it shaped me in unexpected ways.

I mean, I’d packed enough anti-seizure medication for travel but not enough for jail. This was the scariest part. The rest of the story is here, but let me say this: the experience opened my eyes — not just to my own resilience, but to the tech and problem-solving leaps we in the West are still catching up to. It was a trip in every sense of the word. And I love the Chinese people. They are incredible.

You were diagnosed late in life with epilepsy. Can you tell us about that journey and how you focus on neurodiversity and epilepsy activism?

Yes, I was diagnosed at age 40, right as the perimenopausal night sweats kicked in, with a type of epilepsy that’s often preceded by very potent “auras” that are both visual and musical. They’re gorgeous but terrifying in that the seizures themselves can be quite injurious if I’m alone or out somewhere, like the grocery store. I had one last year that had me cos-playing Marie Antoinette on a particularly deadly coffee table in my living room.

But before that, the idea of neurodiversity was something deeply familiar to me. My eldest is proudly neurodivergent, so I’d worked on projects involving not only her early education but also seeing that her voice was represented as one that was multifaceted and singularly insightful and powerful. When I was given my diagnosis, so much fuss was made over whether to disclose it, but I just couldn’t fathom being ashamed of something I have zero control over. It’s like being ashamed of the weather?

You’re also an author with a No. 1 debut novel on Amazon (Gotham Girl Interrupted) and another novel forthcoming in 2025. And a parent and an accomplished TedX speaker. How do you decide where to spend your time and energy when considering everything you want to be part of in life?

Oh, here’s where I really kind of suck as a person, lol. I’m terrible at prioritizing. I want all the things. I want to be there and there and there, and spend time, and be present… and my kids are grown and don’t need me butting in all the time. So, I do have more time than before… I have Empress Editions, my next book, Ellery Goes Dark, and the streaming series adaptation of it, which has been super exciting. Anything leftover from that goes to sleeping and yogic things to keep my midlife body from further decoupling… it reeeeeallly feels like it’s decoupling. 😂

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December 1

Zoe Kravitz (1988)

Sarah Silverman (1970)

Bette Midler (1945)

December 2

Britney Spears, singer (1981)

Lucy Liu, actor (1968)

December 3

Tiffany Haddish (1979, age 43)

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Tyra Banks, model, actor (1973)

December 5

Margaret Cho (1968)

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Sarah Rafferty (1972)

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Nicole Appleton, English-Canadian singer (1974)

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Nicki Minaj, 41

Sinead O’Connor, singer (1966, RIP)

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