Angela Watkins

Angela Watkins is a Chicago native and serious bookworm who makes it a point to visit libraries or bookstores almost every place she visits. In 2014, she earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa and her research background is in African diasporan literature. Her dissertation, titled Mambos, Priestesses, and Goddesses: Spiritual Healing Through Vodou in Black Women’s Narratives of Haiti and New Orleans, put Zora Neale Hurston’s work in conversation with contemporary novels to explore how fiction by black women writers serve as counternarratives to colonialist, racist, stereotypical, misinformed portrayals of African spirituality. She is also an English teacher and began her teaching career as an assistant professor of English at an HBCU. Currently, she teaches Integrated Humanities at an arts high school in New Orleans. To better understand who she is, Angela has been researching her family history, uncovering surprising information about her ancestors and their difficult journeys. The biggest surprise was learning that her ancestry can be traced largely to Nigeria. She grew up sewing by hand but soon, she will be learning how to sew using a sewing machine in hopes of telling some of the stories she’s learned about her family through quilting.