Kuukua is one of the many talented writers who will be participating in AWDF and Alliance Francaise (Accra)’s book slam for International Women’s Day, 8th March. She will also be sharing her thoughts on writing, and providing insights into some of her experiences that has inspired her particular writing style.

She characterizes herself as a memoirist, essayist, and writer of social commentary. Kuukua is the author of several essays and prose poems. Some of her essays have been anthologized in: African Women Writing Resistance (UW Press), Becoming Bi: Bisexual Voices from Around the World (BRC), and Inside Your Ear (Oakland Public Library Press). Her essay, “The Audacity to Remain Single: Single Black Women in the Black Church,” won the Marcella Althaus-Reid Award for best “Queer Essay,” and is anthologized in Queer Religion II (Praeger Publishers). Her piece of creative non-fiction, “Where is Your Husband: Single African Women in the Diaspora and the Exploration/Expression of Sexuality” is due to be published shortly. She has participated in the Voices of Our Nation residency at UC Berkeley.

She has her hands in three projects currently: The Coal Pot, a Culinary Memoir celebrating her Ghanaian roots, Musings of an African Woman, her blog which features a collection of personal essays about immigration and assimilation, and The Innocents, an adolescent mystery novel. She hopes to compile an anthology of stories by adult children of immigrant parents sometime late 2013. Her scholarly and writing interests lie at the intersection of race and skin color, African culture, Black women’s bodies, expression of voice, and non fictional writing.

She avidly feeds a voracious travel bug that occupies the hinterlands of her soul, so is often found wandering various parts of the world. She has been feeding her love-hate affair with Ghana for the past 4 months.

Even though she’s struggling with the adjustment to Ghana—irregular availability of water and electricity, men’s sexist attitudes, and the Traffic (nothing can adequately capture it), her vision for the country requires that she deal with her own participation in the brain drain. For now, she is enjoying being Addidas, which in Twi means eating and sleeping and doing it all over again. In her case, the occasional memoir or blog post thrown in for color.