Afia Ofori-Mensa is a Ghanaian American educator and storyteller. The first member of her immigrant family to be born in the United States of America, her creative and academic work focuses on identity, belonging, privilege, oppression, and inequality. Growing up, suspended between the culture of her parents' birth and the culture of her own, she developed a keen sense for the sound of different people's voices and the value of different people's stories. Whenever she was not retreating to a corner to lose herself in a novel, she sought out both stories and voices by giving careful and caring attention to what the people around her said. Now, an affinity for listening, language, and literature drives her approaches to both creative and academic work. A captivating storyteller, she believes in the power of stories to inspire empathy and to change how people understand the world and each other. As a purveyor of narratives in various forms — written, spoken, visual, and performed — her commitment to social justice animates all the ways that she gathers and shares the stories she tells.