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Writing Across Borders Reading & Conversation with Nigerian Writer Uchenna Awoke
Join us for an evening with Nigerian writer Uchenna Awoke, who will be joining us virtually from Nigeria to share his work as well as discuss his writing journey from a self-educated writer in rural Nigeria to MacDowell Fellow. Uchenna will also talk about the current struggles his region in Nigeria faces.
UCHENNA AWOKE grew up in rural Nigeria (where he still lives) and where he was educated through secondary school. Despite his lack of education, he’s always wanted to be a writer. He remembers the day his mother emptied the only oil lamp his family used so he would stop writing—she saw it as a waste of kerosene, but more importantly, she believed it would lead him into trouble. Self-educated as a writer, Uchenna’s short stories have appeared in Transition, Elsewhere Lit, Trestle Ties, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Vermont Studio Center in 2018 and 2019 respectively, where he worked on completing a first novel manuscript.
Host / Moderator
JOY BAGLIO founded Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop in 2016, and it has since grown to include more than thirty instructors, and close to a hundred writing workshops offered yearly (now completely virtual). Joy’s short stories have appeared widely, in journals such as Tin House, American Short Fiction, The Iowa Review, and elsehwere. Her work has been supported by fellowships, grants, and awards from Yaddo, Vermont Studio Center, The Elizabeth George Foundation, Bread Loaf & Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, among others. She holds an MFA from The New School and is at work on a novel.
More About Writing Across Borders & Uchenna’s Story
The Writing Across Borders Reading Series at PVWW seeks to promote dialogue between writers across cultures and continents. So often our writing communities remain cloistered and small, limited to the writers in our geographic area, our classmates, our small bubbles, yet the writing community is truly a global one. We aim to feature one writer each fall who is writing in politically or socially unstable region, often subject to war, poverty, lack of resources, and little access to outside support. We hope to offer a platform to these writers in which they can share their work and their story in whatever way feels safest/most comfortable to them, with a goal toward learning about their work as well as increasing awareness of the challenges their communities and regions face. The program aims to benefit both the local writing community by providing interactions with writers from other regions as well as the featured writers and their regions. While we will have a more formal nomination process and form available soon, in the meantime please email Joy at joy@pioneervalleywriters.org if you are interested in nominating someone.
About the Fall 2021 Featured Writer: From Founder/Director Joy Baglio: “I met Uchenna in the fall of 2019, while we were both fellows at Vermont Studio Center. An immensely talented writer, Uchenna had recently completed a MacDowell residency, just finished his first novel and was gearing up to begin querying agents. He was full of exuberance, gratitude to be in Vermont, and a hopeful determination to continue his literary work no matter what the challenges he faced back home in Nigeria. We shared many conversations about our work, books, the writing life, our home lives, the state of the world, etc. Uchenna had plans to apply for more fellowships which would give him the time and space to continue final revisions of his novel, yet a little over a year after our VSC residency, I learned about the horrors he was living through with his family in his region of Nigeria, as violent attacks from nomadic Fulani militants became more frequent in his region (named 4th deadliest terror group in the world by the Global Terrorism Index), which of course made writing an impossibility, as he feared more and more for his life. The escalating conflict and unpredictability of attacks has had devastating economic repercussions, leading to widespread poverty and starvation among communities in his regions that had otherwise relied on farming. Uchenna is currently in hiding with his wife and sister.”
Our Goal / How You Can Help: In addition to featuring Uchenna in our Writing Across Borders reading, PVWW is raising funds to help him and his family flee the worsening violence. All money raised via PVWW’s Fundraiser for Uchenna Awoke will go directly to him and his family in their efforts to flee their current region and secure basic housing, food, and necessities while they rebuild their lives. Anything you are able to contribute to this effort – no matter how little – will help, including sharing Uchenna’s story, this event, and our fundraiser page.
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