Sandra Jackson-Opoku
Chicago, IL
Fiction & Playwriting
Sandra Jackson-Opoku is the author of an award-winning novel: The River Where Blood is Born received an American Library Association Black Caucus Award and earned a listing in Best Novels of the Nineties: A Readers Guide. A second novel, Hot Johnny (and the Women Who Loved Him) was an Essence Magazine Bestseller in Hardcover Fiction. Her co-edited anthology, Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks was a finalist in the Chicago Review of Books Nonfiction Award. A forthcoming historical novel explores centuries-long connections between China and people of African descent.
Jackson-Opoku’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic works are widely published and produced. Her work appears in Midnight & Indigo, Aunt Chloe LitMag, African Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, Both Sides: Stories from the Border, story South, Another Chicago Magazine, New Daughters of Africa, Novus Literary Journal, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, the Chicago Humanities Festival, Lifeline Theatre, and other outlets.
Professional recognition includes a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a listing in “Newcity Lit50: Who Really Books in Chicago,” an Esteemed Literary Artist Award from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, an inaugural fellowship in the Lifeline Theatre BIPOC Adaptation Showcase, the Hearts Foundation James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell Arts, a Pushcart Prize nomination in fiction, the Globe Soup Story Prize, second place in The Plentitudes Journal Fiction Prize, the Circle of Confusion Writers Discovery Fellowship, and many other awards and honors.
Jackson-Opoku is also the recipient of such research fellowships as the Culture and Animals Creative Grant, a Railway and Locomotive Heritage Society Research Fellowship, the Billops-Hatch Research Fellowship at Emory University, a “Roots Seminar” National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the University of Virginia, a New Orleans Center for the Gulf South Monroe Fellows Research Grant, the Newberry Library Historical Fiction Writer in Residence Fellowship, and a Folgers Library Artist Research Award.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku has taught literature and creative writing at Columbia College Chicago, the University of Chicago Writers Studio, the University of Miami, and Chicago State University. She has been a resident fellow in over 30 artist communities, among them MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Ragdale Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Djerassi Foundation. She presents workshops, readings, and literary presentations in schools, universities, libraries, and arts organizations throughout the US and worldwide.