On this edition of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie chats with author Theresa Okokon about her debut memoir in essays, Who I Always Was.

When Theresa Okokon was nine, her father traveled to his hometown in Nigeria to attend his mother’s funeral…and never returned. His mysterious death shattered Theresa as her family’s world unraveled. Now a storyteller and television cohost, Okokon sets out to explore the ripple effects of that profound loss and the way heartache shapes our sense of self and of the world—for the rest of our lives.

Using her grief and her father’s death as a backdrop, Okokon delves deeply into intrinsic themes of Blackness, African spirituality, family, abandonment, belonging, and the seemingly endless, unrequited romantic pursuits of a Black woman who came of age as a Black girl in Wisconsin suburbs where she was—in many ways—always an anomaly.

Theresa Okokon is a Pushcart Prize-nominated essayist. A Wisconsinite living in New England, she is a writer, a storyteller, and the cohost of Stories from the Stage. In addition to writing and performing her own stories, Theresa also teaches storytelling and writing workshops and classes, coaches other tellers, hosts story slams, and frequently emcees events for nonprofits. She is an alum of both the Memoir Incubator and Essay Incubator programs at GrubStreet.