Authors are listed alphabetically by LAST name beginning with U
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Itua Uduebo
Your Name: Itua Uduebo
Genre(s) of your work: Millennial Fiction, Black Fiction, Humor, Slice Of Life, New York City Fiction, Political Fiction, Dystopia
Titles/Year of Published Work(s): Parade of Streetlights
Bio:
I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, reside in New York, NY, and graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in International Politics. I’m currently working in the financial technology industry. My writing journey began in 2016 and to date I’ve had several essays, articles, freeform poems, and short stories published online and in print. Partnered with Read Furiously Publishing on the release of my debut novel, Parade of Streetlights.
My focuses are new adult fiction, urban literature, science fiction, thrillers, politics, racial justice, culture, and global affairs. Currently working on my second novel manuscript and always looking to take on new creative challenges.
Why do you write in the genre that you do?
Everything I write and style I try, it’s always about crafting the life of the character. In my novel I explored the unique Black immigrant millennial experience and really dived into Kola’s story. What I’m working on now is a lot more about creating a character’s life in a setting that I’m very excited to build.
How has writing changed/altered your life?
Having a place to let my ideas breathe really centers me. Getting lost in plots and imagining characters in situations, the mundane and the more dramatic. It’s about the freedom for me, the purposeful escapes I can plot from everyday life. I also feel lucky that I get to share those moments with people and do my tiny part to inspire escapes of their own.
Who are your favorite authors and why?
Junot Diaz was my first and truest inspiration – he has this masterful way of painting life in his stories. There’s always enough humor in the tragedy, nothing feels overpowered. Like a fine stew, like the near-perfect dish from a five-star chef. I’ve found his characters to be richly composed and familiar.
Do you believe that audiobooks are the wave of the future, more of a passing fad, or somewhere in between and why?
I can’t listen to them unless I’m on a plane or in a car, so I might not be the best judge. Right now I’m listening to Neuromancer by William Gibson and just got through Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. Great experiences, great recordings, but took me a while to get through. I think that listening to a book will either unlock a deeper absorption of the story or fade out – reading text on the page is more stable, more even-keeled.
What have you found to be a good marketing tool? A bad one?
LinkedIn and Instagram are my favorite ones, and the only ones I’m any good at. I tried TikTok a few times but it’s not for me, Gen Z rejected me. I’ll stick with the old people.
Do you believe writing should be censored – that some topics should remain taboo?
No, never. Art is art and if it’s bad or offensive or completely evil it should be judged as such by those with sense and praised by those without. Societies have been impacted negatively by harmful art and writing—Birth Of A Nation was the dawn of the American cinematic tradition, and the Ku Klux Klan were our first superheroes—but once we accept that it’s within our ability to determine what expressions should and shouldn’t exist, we accept that art only exists to express shared values and ideas. We lose the desire to be challenged and attacked, to fully reflect on human experiences as the audience. It’s simply not worth the small measure of comfort we’d gain.
What is your opinion of Trigger Warnings?
I think it’s the responsibility of the writer to own the environment that they want to create for their reader. If you want people to feel a certain level of comfort or discomfort, then it’s a reflection of what you’re trying to do with your story, and any choice you make is the right choice. The readers will decide how they feel about the choice you made for themselves.
I don’t believe there’s value in forcing the use of these warnings if the purpose is to reduce works down to elements and sorts them into buckets of triggering vs. non-triggering. Much of the cultural conversation centers around people being offended by micro-aggressions or allusions to pearl-clutching, which is a whole dumb, terminally online can of worms, but traumatic experiences are real and people have real pain and they should be able to have authors and stories that create certain kinds of environments if that’s what they need. There’s nothing wrong with them, but they’re not for everything.
Do you find that you sell better in person (at events) or through social media (like a personal blog, website, or Amazon)?
I’ve definitely sold more from my in person events than online, and in person interactions at work and social events. Hell I sold a book on the subway one time. I feel like I should stand on a corner in Times Square and try my luck.
Where can people find you and your work?
ituauduebo.com @i.uduebo on Instagram
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Greta Lynn Uehling
Your Name: Greta Lynn Uehling
Genre(s) of your work: Cultural anthropology
Titles/Year of Published Work(s):
Decolonizing Ukraine (2025)
Everyday War (2023)
Beyond Memory (2004)
Bio:
Greta Uehling is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the subjective experience of war, conflict, and population displacement. As professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she teaches courses for the Program in International and Comparative Studies and is a Faculty Associate with the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Based on her fieldwork in Ukraine that included over 150 interviews, Uehling is the author of three books: Beyond Memory (2004); Everyday War (2023) and Decolonizing Ukraine (2025) as well as two edited volumes International Studies: Perspectives on a Rapidly Changing World and Migration and the Ukraine Crisis: A Two Country Perspective. In 2025, she embarked on a new project in Tbilisi, Georgia that builds upon both her artistic experience and anthropological insights.
Why do you write in the genre that you do?
Perhaps first I should explain my genre: I write ethnography, which is a qualitative approach that entails immersing oneself in the life of a community and using participant observation to understand it as deeply as possible. Throughout my career, I have been drawn to writing ethnography because it provides a way to generate the kind of thick description that readers need to supplement the more abstract knowledge on a topic they can gain from other sources. This approach makes it possible to develop theory from data, rather than testing a pre-existing hypothesis in a top-down manner. My career in anthropology has convinced me that people are not only wise but authoritative commentators on their own experience and there great value in listening. This way of writing becomes especially critical for the communities I study, such as refugees and other migrants, because they are often spoken about in ways that eclipse their authentic voices. Ethnography enables one to keep their words and perspective present. Especially in contexts of displacement, marginalization, or war, writing becomes a way to refuse erasure. It preserves testimonies, complicates simple narratives, and insists on the humanity of those whose lives are misrepresented.
How has writing changed/altered your life?
Writing has changed my life by providing me with a creative outlet. Like photography, it sharpens perception: moments that once seemed ordinary become the raw material for insight and I find myself noticing more. Writing also sharpens the mind. An idea that initially feels vague or inchoate becomes something I want to articulate, evoke, and refine. In this sense, writing brings the gift of agency because to write is also to decide what matters.
More than anything, writing has opened me to connection. In order to generate an ethnography, I speak with many people and being invited to inhabit someone else’s perspective – and to share my own – is a profound honor and privilege. It creates a kind of bridge between someone else’s inner world and my own. In a sense, like the displaced people I work with, I am continually trying to push back the limits of my understanding and imagination. There is always a new frontier of knowledge and creative expression that I want to find a way to cross.
This connection extends to my readers and listeners. Especially since the publication of my last two books, I have received many live speaking invitations and have appeared on many podcasts. I find it very gratifying to engage with readers and potential readers on the topic of my work.
Who are your favorite authors and why?
The novelist Fiodor Dostoevesky is among my favorite authors because, through his masterful use of inner dialogue (unheard of at the time he was writing), he takes readers into the most intimate chambers of his characters’ inner lives. In his hands, they move between the sublime and the depraves, gripped at times by profound anxiety and existential insecurity. Yet they also discover, oftentimes against the odds, pathways that allow them to endure. Dostoevsky’s work lays bare the raw discomfort of being human while illuminating the forces that enable one to carry on.
Another favorite is Gabriel García Márquez. Where Dostoevsky descends into the tormented landscapes of the psyche, García Márquez moves outward, widening the frame to encompass the mythic, the historical, and the cosmological. His characters are shaped as much by the uncanny forces that swirl through places like Macondo as by their own inner lives. I especially appreciate the way he reveals how people are swept into cycles of memory, repetition, and collective destiny. He writes from an enchanted vision of the world, where the marvelous is somehow continually being woven into the fabric of everyday life.
Do you believe that audiobooks are the wave of the future, more of a passing fad, or somewhere in between and why?
Speaking as a professor at the University of Michigan, I would say I occupy the middle ground. A growing appreciation for different learning styles means that audiobooks have become an important and indeed highly encouraged way of making course content more accessible. Along with administrators and professors, students are also looking for ways to better absorb new ideas, and audiobooks can be a valuable aid in that process. At the same time, nothing can fully replace the experience of engaging in a close reading of a written text.
I say all of this with the full awareness that artificial intelligence is already transforming how people learn and interact. A year or two from now, I suspect many people will not only be reading even less but listening to fewer audiobooks as well. They may increasingly rely on summaries and, I am afraid, potentially miss out on the rush of pleasure that comes from discovering a text on one’s own.
What have you found to be a good marketing tool? A bad one?
To my own surprise, I have found social media to be an effective marketing tool. Over time, consistent posting and maintaining visibility appear to build both trust and recognition. Had you asked me this question even two years ago, my response would have been very different. For instance, I have received several generous invitations to travel and speak about my most recent book, Decolonizing Ukraine, from individuals I have never met but who follow my work on social media.
I would argue that there are no inherently “bad” marketing tools, though the effectiveness of specific strategies depends on the book and its intended audience. For my books on Ukraine, such as Everyday War and Decolonizing Ukraine, a significant portion of the readership cannot attend in-person bookstore events. In these cases, online engagement is essential for disseminating the book’s key insights. In this context, the role of a skilled book publicist is invaluable. Authors benefit from someone who can both develop a coherent strategy and manage its implementation effectively.
What is your opinion of Trigger Warnings?
I think trigger warnings are a gesture of respect that acknowledge that readers and viewers have varying capacities for coping with potentially disturbing content. Thinking about the number of conflicts, wars, and crises in the world today, it seems clear that we live in an era of perpetual emergency, in which the previously unthinkable is continually emerging. I think of trigger warnings as a way to stave off the desensitization that could potentially result from this and to limit the normalization of violence and injustice.
Where can people find you and your work?
The best place to find out more about me and my work is my website:
https://gretauehling.com/ Here, people will find clips and full versions of the interviews I have done.
Sue Rovens 