Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond


Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is an American-Ghanaian writer of novels, short stories and a poet. She has written for AOL, Parenting Magazine, the Village Voice, Metro and Trace Magazine. Her short story "Bush Girl" was published in the May 2008 issues of African Writing and her poem "The Whinings of a Seven Sister Cum Laude Graduate Working Board as an Assistant" was published in 2006’s Growing up Girl Anthology. A cum laude graduate of Vassar College, she attended secondary school in Ghana. Her book Powder Necklace is loosely based on the experience. In 2014 she was chosen as one of 39 of Sub-Saharan Africa's most promising writers under the age of 40, showcased in the Africa39 project and included in the anthology Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara. She is also a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

Personal life and education

She was born in the small town of Plattsburgh, New York. Her parents moved to New York City and then to Queens, where Brew-Hammond grew up before, at the age of 12, being sent back to Ghana, with her siblings, to attend secondary school by her parents. She went to one of the more prestigious girls secondary school in Ghana, Mfantsiman Girls' Secondary School in the Central Region. She is a cum laude graduate of Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY. She now has 10 years of experience in the writing world.

Writing career

In 2014, she was included among some of the most promising African authors under 39 in the Hay Festival-Rainbow Book Club Project Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara. The Africa39 anthology was published in celebration of UNESCO's designation of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, as 2014 World Book Capital. Most recently, she was shortlisted for the 2014 Miles Morland Writing Scholarship.
Also a style & culture writer, Brew-Hammond has been featured on MSNBC, NY1, SaharaTV, and ARISE TV, and has been published in Ebony Magazine, Ethiopian Airlines' Selamata Magazine, EBONY.com, The Village Voice, on NBC's thegrio.com, and MadameNoire.com, among other outlets". Her xhort story "After Edwin" is included in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

Selected writings