Jun 28, 2025 3 min read

The Gloomy Girl Variety Show

Cover of The Gloomy Girl Variety Show by Freda Epum. Cover has a dark blue background with a circle in the middle that features a painting by Yasmin Idris of a young Black woman in an orange dress holding her hands to her head and looking straight ahead. The title is above and the author's name is below the circle, in orange capital letters with a 1920s font style. Below the author's name is a quote in white letters from Edgar Gomez that says "Dazzling, darkly funny, and fiercely incisive." Cover design by Dani Li, with artwork by Yasmin Idris

Hey everyone, I'm back! I was out for 9 weeks on medical leave and let me tell you it was ROUGH! I'm so glad to be up and about and furiously catching up on work. How are you all holding up in this topsy turvy chaotic world? I hope you're doing ok as possible. I love memoirs that use hybrid approaches to storytelling. I'm delighted to offer 5 ebook and 5 paperback copies of The Gloomy Girl Variety Show by Freda Epum. Details below.

About the book

Merging memoir, poetry, and criticism, this radical literary revue traces a first-generation Nigerian American’s search for home and belonging on her own terms

In The Gloomy Girl Variety Show, Freda Epum explores the opposing forces of her “no-place, no-where” identity as a Nigerian American daughter, diasporically displaced, who spent years in and out of institutions seeking treatment for life-threatening mental illness. Epum examines her journey through healthcare and housing systems via a pop cultural lens—our collective obsession with HGTV’s home buying and makeover shows—and a patchwork of poetry, art, and autotheory.

With raw honesty and glittering wit, this debut memoir maps the complexity of life under intersecting forms of oppression, revealing what it takes to turn from the brink of despair toward community and self-acceptance, find refuge in love, and reimagine home.

About the author

Freda Epum is a Nigerian American writer and artist. She is the author of two chapbooks, Input/Output and Entryways into memories that might assemble me, which won the Iron Horse Literary Review Chapbook Competition. She is the cocreator of the Black American Tree Project, an interactive workshop about the legacies of slavery in American society. Epum’s work has been published in The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Vol 1. Brooklyn, Entropy, Bending Genres, and others. She received her MFA from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her work has been supported by Lambda Literary, the Tin House Workshop, VONA, the Ragdale Foundation, the Anderson Center at Tower View, and the Jordan-Goodman Prize. Originally from Tucson, she now lives in Cincinn

Details

1) Any disabled person in the US is eligible to receive a paperback or ebook. You do not need to disclose any details about your disability.

If you already received a book from one of my previous giveaways, please consider letting other people have a chance.

2) If you do not receive a reply that means the books have been claimed or you did not include all the required information.

3) Send an email to DisabilityVisibilityProject@gmail.com with 'Freda Epum’ in the title of the message. Do not reply to this post!!

4) Include the following information in your message:

First and last name
Mailing address
Format (paperback or ebook). Pick one only!

Please note: I will send this information to the publisher. They are responsible for confirming your details and sending you the book. Please be patient!