Sandra Jackson-Opoku is the author of the award-winning novel, The River Where Blood is Born and Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him, an Essence Magazine Bestseller in Hardcover Fiction. She also coedited the anthology Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks. Her debut mystery novel, Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes was published in July 2025. Jackson-Opoku’s fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works are widely published and produced, appearing in Adi Magazine, Midnight & Indigo, Aunt Chloe, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, New Daughters of Africa, Obsidian, Another Chicago Magazine, storySouth, Lifeline Theatre, the Chicago Humanities Festival, and others. Professional recognition includes the Malice Minotaur Award for First Mystery Novel, a Plentitudes Journal Fiction Prize, the Hearst Foundation James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell Arts, a US National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship, an American Library Association Black Caucus Award, a City of Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, the Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Award, a Globe Soup Story Award, and a Pushcart Prize nomination.
