Theresa Okokon "Who I Always Was" Author Meeting

Chelsea based author Theresa Okokon will join us for our September 6th Book Club to talk about her newly published memoir "Who I Always Was". This will be a potluck style event at either Chez Zazula or Chez Zabot! TBD...

Everyone is welcome to join. If this is going to be your first book club, it will be a memorable one! Read more about Theresa below!


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 storytelling events, and collaborates with nonprofits on narrative-driven special projects and events. 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 in 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.

You may also like the following events from Devra Sari Zabot:

• Next month, 7th June, 10:30 am, June Book Club "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong in Chelsea

Also check out other Arts events in Chelsea, Literary Art events in Chelsea, Workshops in Chelsea.