Nana-Ama Danquah, a native of Ghana, is an author, editor, freelance journalist, ghostwriter, speechwriter, public speaker, and lecturer. 

Her memoir, Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression (Norton/Ballantine) was published to critical acclaim and hailed by the Washington Post as “a vividly textured flower of a memoir that will surely stand as one of the finest to come along in years.”  Ms. Danquah is also the editor of four anthologies:  Becoming American:  Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women (Hyperion); Shaking the Tree:  New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women (W.W. Norton & Co.); The Black Body (Seven Stories); and Accra Noir (Akashic)

Ms. Danquah earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing and Literature, with an emphasis in nonfiction writing, from Bennington College.  Her articles and commentaries have been published in newspapers, journals, and magazines such as the Africa Report, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, Allure and Essence. They have also been broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR). Her essays and poems have been heavily anthologized and are used in high school and university textbooks.

As an editor, ghostwriter and speechwriter, Ms. Danquah has worked with celebrities, heads of state, and other high-profile individuals in the worlds of entertainment, business and politics, writing and editing book proposals as well as full-length books, many of which have been New York Times bestsellers.  She has written inaugural and State of the Nation addresses, and numerous other speeches that have been delivered at major international conferences and forums, such as the United Nations General Assembly.

A highly sought-after speaker herself, Ms. Danquah has delivered keynote speeches and addresses at dozens of conferences and gatherings throughout the world; she has been featured at Vassar College, The University of Ghana, The Carter Center, UCLA, Vanderbilt University, Hamline University, Pomona College and numerous other institutions.  For a year, she worked in partnership with Mental Health America (formerly known as the National Mental Health Association) as a spokesperson for their Campaign on Clinical Depression.

She lives in Southern California.

Website: www.danquah.com

Twitter Username: @DanquahRising

Publications

• Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression , W.W. Norton and Co. (August 1, 2012)

Degrees

• Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Literature from Bennington College (January 1999)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Playwriting, Screenwriting, Poetry