Street Style: Meet Jessica Buchanan
“I got pregnant with my son three days after the rescue,” shares Jessica Buchanan. “I was thrown into motherhood — it was quite a journey.”
After being held hostage by Somali pirates for 93 days, Jessica was rescued by SEAL Team Six on the order of President Obama on January 25, 2011. She and her husband, Erik, shared the harrowing experience in Impossible Odds, a New York Times bestseller. As she began her healing journey, she would later realize it was the child growing inside her that saved her from the dark days that followed.
In March of 2013, she left Africa and moved back to the U.S. with Erik and their son, settling in Old Town. “My best friend Amie Fox lived in Alexandria, and there was a house for rent…and we’ve been here ever since.” In May of 2013 after their book was published, Jessica began speaking publicly about survival post-trauma.
“It did become very difficult and emotionally taxing, and I took a break in 2018-2020. I didn’t want to only be known as ‘the girl who had been kidnapped.’ I went back to teaching in a traditional classroom until the pandemic hit. And that’s when people started asking me to speak virtually because they needed someone to bolster their teams and employees. I thought ‘I can do this again.’”
Jessica Buchanan
Photography: Renée C. Gage Photography
Self-styled
Shoot location: Captain Gregory’s, 804 N Henry Street, Alexandria
Jessica left teaching and co-hosted a podcast for three years. In 2022, she launched Soul Speak Press, a boutique publishing house, so that other women could also find a place to find their voice and share their stories. “Women were reaching out to me, asking me how did you start speaking, how did you get a book deal? I saw the need.”
The first anthology, From Deserts to Mountaintops: Our Collective Journey to (re)Claiming Our Voice, debuted in 2023.
“We worked on it through most of 2022. The most recent anthology, From Deserts to Mountaintops: The Pilgrimage of Motherhood, was released in January 2025. It was a very popular project, and a lot of women wanted to be part of it—women who have children, women who don’t, those on a fertility journey… mothers with children facing challenges like mental health issues, cancer, autism, ADHD, and other forms of neurodivergence. There are stories from women who have given everything to motherhood and lost themselves in the process; single mothers, LGBTQ+ mothers, and those exploring relationships with their own mothers.”
Each anthology has about 20 authors and they’re currently at work on the fourth and final volume of this series: Out of the Ashes.
Since inception, Soul Speak Press has published 15 other books, with many reaching bestseller status on Amazon. They’ll begin recording audio books in the next few months.
What’s next for Jessica? “I’m working on a solo venture: Surviving Survival: How to Turn Life’s Hardest Moments Into Contributions for the World. I’m almost done with the manuscript.”
To stay on track, she’s set self-imposed deadlines. An early morning writer, her day often begins at 4:30 a.m. She’s a big fan of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which recommends “morning pages,” – the practice of starting each day by handwriting three pages. No typing, no audio transcribing.
“Even if you’re scribbling, ‘this is so boring, this is so boring’, it’s about getting the cobwebs out of your brain. They’ve done research – there’s something that happens with our brains…the creative process sparks if you are handwriting words.”
Jessica does this every day. “This is why I get up at 4:30 a.m,” she says laughing. “I have deadlines for my manuscript that are due to my copyeditor, so I’m burning the pre-dawn oil…and I also have so many other manuscripts I’m copyediting for my clients. Thankfully, my kids are very independent, even though my 12-year-old did need me to make him a peanut butter jelly sandwich today, so…”
I ask if her kids—August, 12, and Ebba, 10—have picked up the writing bug. “They’re both good writers and enjoy it. It’s something I’m trying to foster. I buy them lots of journals.”
She says their family will spend most of the summer in Sweden, where Erik is from. Jessica grew up in Clarksville, Ohio, and attended college outside Philadelphia, at the University of Valley Forge. “My dad and sister are in Virginia now, and my brother is in Boston.”
To manage the operations of her business, she’s grateful to have an amazing team. “I understand that I’m a visionary, and I need integrators around me to get things done. My counterpart Loren, is my sister- in-law and she’s phenomenal. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be able to get it done.”
Jessica’s entrepreneurial spirit has her looking ahead, and she plans to step away from the day-to-day of Soul Speak Press to further build her own brand. “Once I realized that this is what entrepreneurs do, it was very freeing. It wasn’t that I couldn’t ‘stick things out,’ this is just part of my magic. I will move on to the next project to build something new.”
With the heaviness of the stories she helps share, she says it’s important to take lots of breaks. “I take really good care of myself. It’s very heavy and I shift my focus to the mountaintop after having gone through the trauma. Look at what you have survived, look at what you have overcome. This is also one of the reasons we publish the anthologies on January 25, it’s the day of my rescue. It’s a liberation day for all to publicly come out and talk about what they survived. It’s a celebratory event, It’s not sad. Our authors feel empowered. They feel safe, they feel seen.”
Check out Jessica’s Street Style:
ABOUT JESSICA
Neighborhood: Fort Hunt
Hometown: Clarksville, Ohio
What would surprise people about you? I’m afraid of heights.
Favorite book: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
Guilty Pleasure: Ordering room service and eating in bed!
Latest binge-watch: The Last Anniversary
Bucket list travel destination: Galapagos Islands
STYLE
Define your style in three words or less: Eclectic, colorful, bold.
The go-to piece in your wardrobe: Leopard anything.
Favorite trend: Stripes!
Beauty product you can’t live without: Mascara.
Boots, heels or sneakers? Boots.
WELLNESS
Go-to way to de-stress: Massage.
Most fun way to stay active: Pilates (obsessed!)
Wellness goal: Get strong and stay active as I age.
Want to try: An overnight hiking trip.
Proudest wellness achievement: Getting up for 5:30 a.m. Pilates classes.
HOME
Favorite room in your home: My family room.
Antiques, modern, or a mix? Mix. My father is a furniture maker so I have an eye for antiques.
Favorite way to entertain: Outside on my deck.
Clutter-free or well-lived in? Definitely well-lived in!
Next planned purchase: Flowers for my deck/garden.
ALEXANDRIA
What do you love about Alexandria Stylebook? The variety of industries that people come from.
Favorite spot in Alexandria: Barca
Your go-to shop: Anthropologie
Best food spot: Josephine’s
Favorite local organizations: Together We Bake
Alexandria event you most look forward to: Summer anything!
