Ofstad Reading to Feature Author, Editor

Author, editor and mentor Faith Adiele will read selections from her nonfiction writing at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15 in the Del and Norma Robison Planetarium as part of the 2017 Ofstad Reading Series.

Adiele is the author of “Meeting Faith,” a memoir about becoming the first African-American woman ordained a Buddhist nun in Thailand. The book received the PEN Beyond Margins Award for Best Memoir of 2005. She also wrote “The Nigerian-Nordic Girl’s Guide To Lady Problems.” Adiele was writer/narrator/subject of “My Journey Home,” a PBS documentary film about growing up with a Nordic-American mother and then traveling to Nigeria as an adult to find her father and siblings. She is also the editor of the international anthology, “Coming of Age Around the World.”

An associate professor in creative nonfiction at California College of the Arts in the Bay Area, Adiele is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto where she is completing “Twins,” a memoir that will finish the story begun in the PBS film. Named as one of Marie Claire magazine’s “5 Women to Learn From,” Adiele, who was educated at Harvard University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has been featured on NPR; in a pilot for a new reality show; in a national television ad; on “The Tavis Smiley Show”; and in “A Day in the Life of Faith Adiele,” a two-page, center spread in Pink Magazine. She has also been a contributor to O: The Oprah Magazine, Essence and Transition. More information about Adiele can be found on her website, adiele.com.

Prior to arriving at Truman to conduct a weeklong writing workshop, Adiele will be reading at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. as part of the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) Convention. Generously funded by the Clayton B. Ofstad Endowment, the Ofstad Readings take place during the residency of a visiting writer.