Peace Adzo Medie Quotes

The transition probably happened when I was working on my doctoral dissertation. Around that time, I started sending out short stories. Short stories were more manageable because, in some ways, submitting them was similar to submitting academic research articles. So I think it was easy for me to do. But I remember going online, because I didn't know much about publishing or people in publishing - I only knew one person who was a writer before I published my book. I went on Google and searched, ‘how do you publish a book?’ and the steps just seemed so overwhelming.

I have to fight for what I want, for what's mine.

My identify plays a huge role in my writing. I’m Black, Ghanaian, and a woman, and one of the reasons I wrote His Only Wife was that I was hungry for stories of Black women just living their lives and doing regular things. In the social sciences, we know—although some continue to resist this truth—that our identities matter for our research: They matter for what we research, how we conduct our research, and how we write our findings. In the same way, I think our identities matter for the stories we tell and how we tell them.

I’ve been impacted by many books, but one that has profoundly impacted me as a writer is Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. After reading it as a teenager, I began to think seriously about how I could use words to create images and to effectively show the reader what I was thinking. Before then, my focus had been on producing fiction to entertain myself.

A person who talks so freely about her own life will talk just as freely about yours.

It takes strength to walk away from someone you love.

But when I'm thinking about starting a book, I want in those first few pages for the reader to get a good sense of who the main characters are, but also a good sense of the tension or conflict that is going to propel the book forward. So in those first few pages or the first chapter, by the time you get to the end of that chapter, you have a good sense of the characters, and you have a good sense of what is driving them, and what is driving the story. That's what I aim for.

Stories serve so many purposes. We need them because they document our truths, they magnify our dreams, they teach, they entertain, they inspire.

An important role that writers can play is in documenting resistance movements. This can ensure visibility, facilitate recognition, and bring marginalized voices to the center.

Respect is important and something that is very much needed in society, but has been constructed by some to mean submission and self-denial, especially in regard to young women.

Stories allow us to peek into the lives of others, and they also allow us to see ourselves.