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Fiction Reading with Nana Brew-Hammond in conversation with Keisha Bush (via Zoom)

July 31 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Free – $25.00

Nana Brew-Hammond will be in conversation with Keisha Bush after she reads from her new novel, My Parents’ Marriage. Her book is about a woman trying to redefine what marriage means to her in the shadow of her loving, charismatic, self-made, philandering father, her mother, and his other wife. Set in the ‘70s between Accra, Ghana and Aneho, Togo, and Brooklyn, Bronx and Buffalo, New York, this novel is a meditation on what it can mean to put two (or more) disparate entities and histories together–and what it can require to break free of harmful generational cycles.

 

Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is the author of the children’s picture book BLUE: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky, illustrated by Caldecott Honor Artist Daniel Minter. Named among the best books of 2022 by NPR, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, and The Center for the Study of Multicultural Literature, BLUE is on the 2023-2024 Texas Bluebonnet Master List, has been honored with the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award® recognizing excellence in the writing of non-fiction for children, and is an NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literature for Children. Brew-Hammond also wrote the young adult novel Powder Necklace, which Publishers Weekly called “a winning debut”, and she edited RELATIONS: An Anthology of African and Diaspora VoicesKirkus Reviews called the anthology “smart, generous…a true gift” in its STARRED review.

Her short fiction for adult readers is included in the anthologies Accra Noir edited by Nana-Ama Danquah, Africa39 edited by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, New Daughters of Africa edited by Margaret Busby, Everyday People edited by Jennifer Baker, and Woman’s Work edited by Michelle Sewell, among others. Her writing has also appeared in Now2African Writing, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Sunday Salon. 

Brew-Hammond was a 2019 Edward Albee Foundation Fellow, a 2018 Pa Gya! Literary Festival Guest Author, a 2018 Ake Arts and Book Festival Guest Author, a 2018 Hobart Festival of Women Writers Guest Author, a 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar, a 2016 Hedgbrook Writer-in-Residence, a 2015 Rhode Islad Writers Colony Writer-in-Residence, and in both 2015 and 2014, she was shortlisted for a Miles Morland Writing Scholarship.

Also noted for her personal style, Brew-Hammond’s fashion sense has been captured by New York Magazine, Essence Magazine, BFA, TheSartorialist.com, Paper Magazine, and The New York Times, among many other outlets. Recently, she co-founded the made-in-Ghana lifestyle line EXIT 14, which was featured on Vogue.com.

Every month, Brew-Hammond co-leads a writing fellowship whose mission is to write light into the darkness.

Keisha Bush is the author of No Heaven For Good Boys, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and the Scholastic children’s book My Family Tree. She has a business degree from Bentley University, an MFA in creative writing from The New School, and is currently pursuing a Master of Theology degree at Harvard Divinity School.She has received fellowships from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Councils Workspace Residency, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Moulin à Nef, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Vermont Studio Center. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Lion’s Roar Magazine, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, and Electric Lit. She is the Assistant Director of Communications for the FXB Center For Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. She teaches writing courses at the Center For Fiction and English and Literature at New Jersey City University. She currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Some reviews below:

My Parents’ Marriage is a deeply engaging and gratifying novel that deftly explores the generational cycles we are each born into and offers a moving portrait into the joys – and guilt – of finding our own way. I can’t remember the last time I rooted for a character as wholeheartedly as I did for Kokui, a young woman who, having faced shattered illusions around her parents’ union, is determined to shape her life and marriage around truth. Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond’s is a rare talent.” – ADRIENNE BRODEUR, Author of Little Monsters and Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover and Me

“Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond brilliantly explores a radical reimagining of marriage in a tenderly written love story that completely broke my heart open. As Kokui and her new husband journey from Ghana to the US in an idealistic search for a better life and more equal partnership, they find the road to nuptial harmony paved with frequent shocks and disappointments. The marital realities of patriarchy, class, reproduction, culture, and finances are minutely and exquisitely observed in breathlessly tense exchanges I couldn’t look away from.  Brew-Hammond has crafted an arrestingly evocative story, which, like Dominicana and Brown Girl, Brownstones, dismantles immigrant cliches and delivers powerfully vulnerable moments that show what we can mean to each other. This thought-provoking and intense novel speaks loudly to a universal desire not to repeat the mistakes of the past and urgently reminds us it is in our ordinary lives that we must be extraordinarily brave.” – VANESSA WALTERS, author of THE NIGERWIFE

My Parent’s Marriage is a thought-provoking and searing examination of how patriarchy can impact marriage customs of all kinds. In Ghana, Kokui’s charismatic and philandering father Mawuli Nuga leaves a trail of wives and children in his wake. Though his marriages are both “customary” and “white,” the common threads among them are pain and anger and confusion. Kokui is determined to have a monogamous marriage and live in the United States, but she soon discovers that, too, is not easy. Through her vibrant, complicated characters Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond explores the downstream effects of a system that benefits a few at the expense of many.” – ERICA BAUERMEISTER, NYT bestselling author of No Two Persons

“Intent on avoiding the same marriage trap her mother falls in, Kokui Nuga goes on a heartfelt journey from the glitz of Accra in the ‘70s to the mystical markets of Togo to freezing New York State. My Parents’ Marriage, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond’s new novel, tackles Ghana’s complicated customary marriage laws with smooth and powerful prose. I couldn’t stop reading it.”

AYESHA HARRUNA ATTAH, author of The Hundred Wells of Salaga, The Deep Blue Between, Saturday’s Shadows, and Harmattan Rain

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Details

Date:
July 31
Time:
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Cost:
Free – $25.00

Venue

Hudson Valley Writers Center
Philipse Manor Station
Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591 United States
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Phone
914.332.5953
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Organizer

HVWC
Phone
914.332.5953
Email
ask@writerscenter.org
View Organizer Website