Please join us on Feb. 27 at Porter Square Books: Boston Edition.
RSVP here to attend in person or on Crowdcast to attend virtually. As always, admission to all Tell-All events is free. Signed copies of Theresa Okokon’s book, Who I Always Was, will be available for purchase.
THERESA OKOKON is a Pushcart Prize nominated essayist. A Wisconsinite living in New England, she is a writer, a storyteller, and the co-host 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. An alum of both the Memoir Incubator and Essay Incubator programs at GrubStreet, Theresa’s memoir in essays about memory, family stories, and the death of her father—WHO I ALWAYS WAS—was published by Atria Books at Simon & Schuster on February 4, 2025.
Theresa’s essays (and bathroom selfies!) have appeared in midnight & indigo, ELLE, the Independent, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, and Boston.com. Her essay Me Llamo Theresa, published by Hippocampus Magazine and nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize, was named among the Top Essays of the Week by Longreads and The Rumpus.
Theresa Instagrams gorgeous cocktails, food porn, and pics about Blackness, fatness, and her very cute senior dog at @ohh.jeezzz. She believes very seriously in capitalizing the B in Black and the W in White, and you can read more about that here, with Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Featured Readers
NEEMA AVASHIA is the author of Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place (WVU Press 2022). She has been an educator and activist in the Boston Public Schools since 2003. She lives in Jamaica Plain with her partner, Laura, and her daughter, Kahani.
ALEX LOCH (“Being Led”) is a dancer/choreographer, physical therapist, and aspiring writer at the intersection of queerness and disability. Blind, gay and growing up in rural Minnesota, it took Alex a while to embrace and celebrate himself. Now earning a master’s in Media, Medicine, and Health at Harvard Medical, Alex gives special thanks to his cohort, professors, and husband for their immeasurable support.
MARTHA MOYER (“Barbie During Wartime”) is a retired high school math teacher who is now an artist, writer and storyteller. She has won Moth Story slams and was in WGBH Stories from the stage. She was an army-BRAT during her formative years and is working on a memoir reflecting how the structure of life on army-bases has influenced who she is. She lives in Somerville where she paints pet portraits and writes.
PIA OWENS (“Unadulting”) is a lawyer, writer, negotiation coach, and mom of teenagers who lives in Watertown. Her Substack, Negotiation for the Rest of Us (piaowens.substack.com), offers free monthly advice on embracing conflict. One of these days she might actually finish her novel about women of color in STEM who just want to make robots but are forced to deal with an institution that would prefer they leave.
CAROLINE WAMPOLE (“Background Music”) is a writer, artist, musician, and performer. She co-founded and played bass and sang in the band Big Soul, whose hit song in French, “Le Brio,” helped them earn a platinum record in France. She has also been an art teacher, improv theater director, documentary filmmaker, and expat painter in Paris. Her essays have been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, Atticus Review, the Carolina Quarterly, and the Forge Literary Magazine. She is currently working on a memoir about how playing in a rock band led her to her true home of art.
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