Sandra Jackson-Opoku

Sandra Jackson-Opoku is an award-winning author of novels, The River Where Blood is Born and Hot Johnny (and the Women Who Loved Him), an Essence Magazine Hardcover Fiction Bestseller. Her fiction, poetry, essays, reviews, travel articles and dramatic works appear in Both Sides: Stories from the Border, storySouth, Obsidian, New Daughters of Africa, the Chicago Humanities Council, and other outlets. She also coedited Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks, a Chicago Review of Books Nonfiction Finalist.

Jackson-Opoku is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize nomination, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the American Library Association Black Caucus Award, a Chicago Esteemed Literary Artist Award, and many other awards and honors. She has won fellowships at sixteen arts residencies, including Hedgebrook, Djerassi, and MacDowell. She teaches literature and creative writing in colleges and universities, and presents workshops and readings throughout the US and around the world.