Nadia Owusu

How did you become a writer?

Ever since I can remember, writing has been a way for me to process the world and to understand what I think. In my twenties, I did some freelance writing, but it wasn’t until I was approaching thirty that I decided to give myself the space and time to see if I could make a career out of writing. For me, that meant getting an MFA and beginning to submit essays and stories to journals and magazines.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Some of the writers who are really important to me are Zora Neale Hurston, Jane Austen, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Joan Didion, Virginia Woolf, and Leo Tolstoy.

When and where do you write? 

I have a day job, so scheduling time to write is really important. I block the time off on my calendar and I hold that time sacred. Usually, I do a short writing session before work and then another longer one in the evening. When I can, I get additional writing time in during my lunch hour. 

What are you working on now? 

I’m working on a novel and also on several essays.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I don’t think so. There are times when I don’t really want to write and times when it is going horribly. But I find that if I just keep showing up, I’ll find my way eventually. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Follow your curiosities. My father told me that. He was my first writing teacher.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read a lot and read widely. And approach writing as something you have to practice.

NADIA OWUSU is a Brooklyn-based writer and urban planner. Simon and Schuster will publish her first book, Aftershocks: A Memoir, in January 2021. Her lyric essay chapbook, So Devilish a Fire won the Atlas Review chapbook contest. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the New York Times, the Washington Post’s the Lily, Orion, Quartz, The Paris Review Daily, Electric Literature, Catapult, Bon Appétit, Epiphany and others. She is the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award.