Award-winning Ghanaian and Armenian American writer Nadia Owusu has always turned to reading and writing as ways to process the world and the events of her life.
…”But eventually, I realized that this was a story I needed to tell.”
Owusu
“Writing rigorously requires us to complicate the often too-easy stories we subconsciously create for ourselves. I believe that every person has work to do in interrogating the stories we’ve been given, particularly the ones that cause harm. We can revise those stories so that they’re more truthful and full of possibility,” Owusu said.
Owusu, the 2019 Whiting Award winner, confronts her stories in her acclaimed debut memoir, “Aftershocks,” which is part of the 2022 Chippewa Valley Book Festival.
University of Wisconsin-Stout’s Literature Committee and the book festival are co-hosting Owusu’s virtual presentation, “Reclaiming Our Stories,” from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 27. Registration is required.
In her presentation, Owusu will discuss how people are often fed stories about themselves and how writing can help people reclaim themselves by processing trauma, grief, isolation, dislocation and disconnection, and remake their stories toward healing, self-love and a radically reimagined world.
A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation, moderated by Lopamudra Basu, Literature Committee co-chair and professor in the English, philosophy and communication studies department.
