Sam Farler will lead a discussion of Kosiso Ugwueze’s short story Supernova.
Supernova is the story of a suicidal young woman who is kidnapped and held for ransom in the jungle of northern Nigeria. It explores the dark shadow early childhood abandonment has cast across her life, alternating between the stages of the kidnapping and key events of her life. Noteworthy is how the story treats childhood trauma without being heavy-handed.
Ugwueze was born in Nigeria and raised in Southern California. She earned an MFA from Johns Hopkins and has served as managing editor of the Hopkins Review. For Supernova Ugwueze received the 2023 New England Review Award for Emerging Writers. The story was included in Best American Short Stories 2023.
Hosted by: Anne Beall
DOWNLOAD DISCUSSION MATERIALS HERE:
BIO: Sam Farler is a writer based in St. Charles. His focus is the impact of trauma and mental illness on perceptions of self and others. He has been writing full-time since 2018, completed a first memoir in 2024, and is currently working on a second. He has taken craft classes and participated in writing workshops at the University of Texas, Austin; University of Chicago; StoryStudio Chicago; Storm Writing School; The Loft; and others.
He volunteers teaching coping skills for adult children of parents with borderline personality disorder. He has been an active member and Zoom host of Off-Campus Writers’ Workshop since 2020 and is the project manager and a critique group leader for OCWW’s 80th anniversary anthology.
