Weaving Ourselves into Stories with Ivana Akotowaa Ofori

Greetings Glocal Citizens!

This week is the finale of our writing as activism series at the 2024 Pa Gya! Literary Festival. It has been such a pleasure bringing the works and words of these writers to a wider audience. It has been a wonderful multi-generational compilation of wisdom across genres. Joining us this week is Ivana Akotowaa Ofori, a Ghanaian storyteller known also by the alias, “The Spider Kid.” She is a weaver of words in many forms, including fiction, non-fiction and spoken-word poetry. Akotowaa has been nominated for various awards for her prose writing. Her work is included in the Flash Fiction Ghana anthology, Kenkey for Ewes and Other Very Short Stories, and the Writivism anthology, And Morning Will Come.

She is also included in the Africa Risen Anthology 2022 with her short story, “Exiles of Witchery”. Akotowaa’s debut novella, The Year of Return (2023) has been published in the US with Android Press and in West Africa with Smartline Publishers.

Writing aside, Akotowaa spends much of her time looking for excuses to make everything purple and this imaginative, playful spirit definitely shines through our conversation.

Where to find Akotowaa?
On the Ceiling
On Akotowaa’s Blog
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On X
On Facebook

What’s Akotowaa watching?
Dr. Who
Sherlock

What’s Akotowaa reading?
The Color Purple by Alica Walker
How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
Saltwater Slavery by Stephanie E. Smallwood
Manchester Happened by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie

Other topics of interest:
Black Girls Glow and the KOSHKA Sound Residency
Burma Camp, Accra
About Roald Dahl
Ananasesem
About Kente Cloth