Скачать или смотреть Closing Words: BPL Writer-in-Residence Celebration with Cynthia Amoah & Alisha Skeel

Celebrate the culmination of the inaugural BPL Writer-in-Residence with a reading and interactive session with Cynthia Amoah. Cynthia will perform work that she's written during the residency, talk about her experience writing in community throughout the residency, and discuss the importance of connecting with other creatives around Columbus.

Cynthia will be joined in conversation by guest writer Alisha Skeel.

About the Writers:

Cynthia Amoah is the inaugural BPL Writer-in-Residence. Cynthia is a Ghanaian-American poet, national speaker, and teaching artist. She received her MFA from The New School where she was awarded the prestigious Paul Violi Poetry Prize and cited for Excellence in Poetry. Cynthia began competing nationally in recitation and motivational speaking engagements in 2006. Since then, her dynamic voice and strong stage presence has captured and inspired diverse audiences, both locally and globally.

Cynthia’s voice reflects the strong and colorful oral traditions of her homeland, Ghana, which undoubtedly cultivates and shapes her work. Although influenced by diasporic motifs, Cynthia transcends limitations and labels, instead embracing a holistic, multifaceted identity.

Her work can be found published in OURS Magazine, Nimrod Journal, Ohio Humanities: Pathways, and The African Poetry Book Fund’s New-Generation African Poets Chapbooks by Akashic Books. Cynthia’s chapbook Handrails was published by Akashic in Fall 2021.

Alisha Skeel is an autistic poet and writer based in Columbus, Ohio. Her work explores themes of self-discovery, curiosity, mental health, and the complexity that comes with being human. Writing helps her process and make sense of the unique experience of living life as a neurodiverse creative. She hopes that by sharing her work more widely, her words will reach the people who need them most.

BPL Writer-in-Residence programming is made possible through a State Library of Ohio grant.