Junauda Juanita Petrus-Nasah is an American author, filmmaker, performance artist, and "pleasure activist".[1][2] Her debut novel, The Stars and the Blackness Between Them, was a winner of a Coretta Scott King Honor Award.
Junauda Petrus | |
|---|---|
| Born | Minneapolis, Minnesota, US |
| Occupation | Author, filmmaker |
| Genre | Young adult fiction |
| Notable awards | Coretta Scott King Honor Award (2020) |
| Spouse | Ngowo Nasah |
Petrus was born on Dakota land in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[3][4][5] She is of Afro-Caribbean descent.[1] Her mother was born in Trinidad and her father in US Virgin Islands and later moved to Minnesota.[6] She was one of four daughters born to her mother and father; her father has a total of eleven children from five mothers.[7]
As a child, Petrus wanted to be an astronaut and enjoyed reading V.C. Andrews, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Anne Rice, and Alice Walker.[4] She came out as gay to her family at age 30 and met her wife, a native of Cameroon, four years later.[7]
Petrus' piece There Are Other Worlds was performed at Intermedia Arts in 2015.[2][8] She and Erik Ehn co-wrote Queen, which was performed at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in 2016.[9] Queen was partly inspired by Petrus' 2015 poem "Could we please give the police departments to the grandmothers?"[10] This poem was contributed to the anthology How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation by Maureen Johnson, which was released in 2018.[11]
Her 2019 novel, The Stars and the Blackness Between Them,[12] is a coming of age story of two 16-year-old queer black girls in Minneapolis.[4] In February 2021, Petrus announced that she was working on a film adaptation of the novel.[13]
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Petrus wrote a short prose piece "Sweetness for George".[14]
Petrus' works incorporate themes such as black diasporic futurism, female friendships, queerness, black community, identity, and healing.[4][12][8] She is inspired by her mother, Al Green, nature, and women.[15]
Petrus is an affiliated writer of The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis.[16] Along with Erin Sharkey, she co-founded the group Free Black Dirt, a collective of writers and creators who seek to "spark and engage in critical conversations".[2] The group organizes events to showcase original performance and theatre works by emerging artists.[17]
Petrus describes herself as a "pleasure activist",[18] which she claims her art has "healing power" and relates to themes involving desire and pleasure.[clarification needed] She has written about her pleasure activist work in Adrienne Maree Brown's book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good,[18] which explains pleasure activism as making social justice work "the most pleasurable human experience."[19]
Petrus lives in Minneapolis with her wife, Ngowo Nasah, and family.[1][20]
Petrus was recognized as a City Pages Twin Cities artist of the year in 2016.[10]
In 2020, Petrus received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award for The Stars and the Blackness Between Them.[21]
Petrus has also been awarded several fellowships.[22]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life?
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)She has received the MN State Arts Board Cultural Community Partnership, the Givens Foundation Writer’s Mentorship, The Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellowship, and the Jerome Travel and Study Grant.