Eva-Tatiana Siakam

I am my wonderful mother’s daughter and one day hope to become a wonderful mother to a daughter of my own, and as such, one of my dreams has always been to empower little girls who will one day grow into powerful women. In my early formative years as a non-English speaking immigrant child from western Cameroon, books were my bridge to the English-speaking world, a world virtually unknown to me and one In which I desperately wanted to assimilate into. My beautiful and diligent mother made certain that I had all the necessary tools in place to nurture my imagination. At the onset of each school week, my immigrant mother would have me pick out various books at random, all of which was expected of me to read and have a written daily report ready for the purposes of correction, It was in that process I fell in love with reading/ writing. And thanks to the never ending support of my diligent and prayerful mother, conceptualizing an identity as an educated American seemed closer to my reach than ever. I have chosen to embark on the journey of authorship, not only because it is one of my great passions, but also because I’m acutely aware that I’m privileged to have been given the opportunity to have an education at all, a privilege which most girls aren’t globally afforded, and in my own way, I have chosen to utilize that privilege and pay it forward. From the vast terrains of western Cameroon, to the congested city of metropolitan D.C, to the open airy suburbs of northern Virginia and beyond, women and girls are at the center of all my works, I write about them, I write for them. I write in hopes that one day, the tool with which I was easily able to satiate my desire for knowledge will also be easily accessible to all women and little girls.