Tendrils Ten with Gloria Ogo
Gloria Ogo’s work appears in Trauma and the Environment, Issue 2
What brings you joy? It could be recent or something you’ve enjoyed for ages.
I love getting lost in a good horror story. I’ve always loved the feeling of being completely pulled into a good story, the kind where I tell myself I’ll read one more chapter and then look at the clock and realize it’s much later than I thought. I especially enjoy stories that unsettle me psychologically and make ordinary things feel strange. Stories that are unpredictable and keep me guessing.What art form would you like to try at least once?
I’d love to try painting. I’m fascinated by people who can put something on a blank canvas and somehow make you feel a whole story without explaining anything. I think it would be interesting to work with color and shape instead of words for a change.When was the first time you thought of yourself as a writer?
I think I was writing long before I had the confidence to call myself a writer. For a long time, writing was just something I did because I needed somewhere to put my thoughts. I began thinking of myself as a writer when I realized I wasn’t simply writing to get something out of myself anymore, I was paying attention to language, to memory, to what a story could hold. That shift mattered to me.What’s one way you process or manage painful emotions?
I write. Sometimes it is an actual poem or story, and sometimes it is just pages of thoughts that will never see another person. Writing gives me enough distance to look at something that hurts without having to solve it immediately. I also take long walks. There are some things that become easier to understand when you’re moving.What’s a work of literature that has influenced you greatly?
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart has stayed with me for years. I was struck by how much the novel could hold at once; culture, family, masculinity, colonialism, loss, change, without reducing its characters to symbols. Achebe showed me that African stories could be deeply specific to a place and still speak to something much larger. That has stayed with me as a writer.What’s your favorite tool for writing?
A notebook and a pen. There is something about writing by hand that slows me down. I like being able to cross things out, draw arrows, write something in the margin, and come back to it days later. My phone and laptop are useful, of course, but a notebook feels more private. It feels like where the writing begins before it becomes a piece of work.If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?
I’ve always been interested in the way people learn, and I enjoy helping someone find a way into an idea that initially feels difficult or unfamiliar. Teaching and writing actually feel connected to me. Both require paying attention to people and to the stories they are trying to tell.If you could instantly master any skill, what would you choose?
Dancing. I’ve always admired people who can hear music and just let their bodies respond to it without thinking too much about what they’re doing. I’d love to have that kind of freedom, to put on a song and actually know what to do with myself.If your workspace could talk, what would it say about you?
It would probably give me a speech alongside a deserving ovation. It has seen the hours I’ve spent staring at a blank screen, rewriting the same sentence, getting distracted, coming back to it, and finally getting the words right. It has seen the frustration, the excitement, and all the little moments when I surprise myself with something I’ve written. So yes, I think it has earned the right to applaud me.If you could chat with one writer, living or dead, who would you choose?
I would choose Toni Morrison. I’d want to hear her talk about memory, language, and the things writers inherit without realizing they’ve inherited them. I think I would mostly listen. There are some writers whose minds you want to sit beside for a while.
Gloria Ogo is the winner of the Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize (2024) and a finalist for the Jerri Dickseski Fiction Prize (2024), the ODU Poetry Prize (2025), and the Rhonda Gail Williford Poetry Prize (2025), earning honorable mentions. She is also a finalist for the Lucky Jefferson Poetry Contest (2025). Her work was longlisted for the American Short(er) Fiction Prize (2025). Follow her https://glriaogo.wixsite.com/gloria-ogo.