Nadia Owusu

Beowulf Sheehan

Nadia Owusu is a Brooklyn-based writer and urban planner. She is the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award. Her first book is ”Aftershocks.” Owusu's lyric essay chapbook, “So Devilish a Fire,” was a winner of the TAR chapbook contest and was published in January 2019. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the New York Times, LUMINA, Catapult, The Literary Review, Electric Literature, Litro, Columbia Journal and The Rumpus, among other publications.

Owusu grew up in Rome, Addis Ababa, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Kumasi and London. By day, she leads research and racial equity at Living Cities, an economic racial justice organization. She is a graduate of Pace University, Hunter College and the Mountainview MFA program where she won the Robert J. Begiebing Prize for exceptional work and where she now teaches. 

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Awards: Whiting Award

Who Am I, Anyway?

Our stories impress themselves upon us, sometimes more forcefully than expected. Acclaimed authors Nadia Owusu and Kiese Laymon join us to discuss their personal stories about the push and pull of belonging, about race and identity, about home, family, trauma and the courage required to face such challenges.

Citi Stage (Seats 1000)
Sat, Mar 6, 2021, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction
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Panelists: Kiese Laymon, Nadia Owusu
Moderator: Laura Maher