
Live from the Living Room presents…

An Evening with
Theresa Okokon
moderated by Neema Avashia
Saturday, March 1st, 7:30pm
Author Talk at The Big Yellow House
647 Main Street, Melrose MA
Please join us to celebrate author Theresa Okokon‘s new memoir, Who I Always Was, with a reading and Q and A moderated by Neema Avashia. Molly’s Bookstore will be on hand with copies of the book for sale.
Doors open at 7:00pm. Registration is required, though walk-ins are welcome if space is available. While the event is free and open to all, please consider a suggested donation of $10, which ensures that events like this can continue to take place at The Big Yellow House.
About the book
For fans of Aftershocks and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, a gripping and deeply honest memoir in essays, this debut collection sets out to answer the universal question of: Why am I like this?
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 gifted storyteller, and her gift is on full display in Who I Always Was. Each essay holds the heady mix of truth, humor and vulnerability that, for millennia, has kept us seated at the storyteller’s feet, asking for just one more story. Just one more.”
– Neema Avashia, author of Another Appalachia
About the Author
Theresa Okokon is an award-winning writer, storyteller, and teacher. Her work has appeared in Elle, midnight & indigo, Hippocampus Magazine, and much more. Her first book is the essay collection Who I Always Was. Follow her on Instagram at @Ohh.Jeezzz and find out more at TheresaOkokon.com.


About the Moderator
Neema Avashia is the daughter of Indian immigrants born and raised in southern West Virginia. An educator and activist in the Boston Public Schools since 2003, she was named a City of Boston Educator of the Year in 2013. Her first book, Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, was published by West Virginia University Press in March 2022. She lives in Boston with her partner, Laura, and her daughter, Kahani.