Junauda Juanita Petrus-Nasah is an American author, filmmaker, performance artist, and "pleasure activist". Her

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, '' The Stars and the Blackness Between Them'', was a winner of a Coretta Scott King Honor Award.

Early life

Petrus was born on

Dakota Dakota may refer to: * Dakota people, a sub-tribe of the Sioux ** Dakota language, their language Dakota may also refer to: Places United States * Dakota, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Dakota, Illinois, a town * Dakota, Minnesota, a ...

land in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, Minnesota. She is of

Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...

descent. Her mother was born in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and her father in

US Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...

and later moved to Minnesota. She was one of four daughters born to her mother and father; her father has a total of eleven children from five mothers. As a child, Petrus wanted to be an astronaut and enjoyed reading V.C. Andrews,

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and ...

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...

Anne Rice Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien; October 4, 1941 – December 11, 2021) was an American author of gothic fiction, erotic literature, and Christian literature. She was best known for her series of novels ''The Vampire Chronicles''. B ...

, and

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...

. She

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

as gay to her family at age 30 and met her wife, a native of

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

, four years later.

Career

Petrus' piece ''There Are Other Worlds'' was performed at

Intermedia Arts Twin Cities hip hop, also referred to as Minneapolis hip hop, is sub-genre of rap music that originates from the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Minnesota. History Hip hop culture in the Twin Cities can be traced a ...

in 2015. She and Erik Ehn co-wrote ''Queen'', which was performed at

In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (also known as Heart of the Beast or HOBT) is a puppet company and nonprofit organization from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company has written and performed scores of full-length puppet plays, per ...

in 2016. ''Queen'' was partly inspired by Petrus' 2015 poem "Could we please give the police departments to the grandmothers?" This poem was contributed to the anthology ''How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation'' by

Maureen Johnson Maureen Johnson (born February 16, 1973) is an American author of young adult fiction. Her published novels include series leading titles such as ''13 Little Blue Envelopes'', ''The Name of the Star'', ''Truly Devious,'' and ''Suite Scarlett''. ...

, which was released in 2018. A picture book based on the poem, titled ''Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers?'', was released in 2023. Her 2019 novel, '' The Stars and the Blackness Between Them'', is a

coming of age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...

story of two 16-year-old queer black girls in Minneapolis. In February 2021, Petrus announced that she was working on a film adaptation of the novel. In the wake of the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...

, Petrus wrote a short prose piece entitled "Sweetness for George". Petrus' works incorporate themes such as black diasporic futurism, female friendships, queerness, black community, identity, and healing. She is inspired by her mother,

Al Green Albert Leornes Greene (born April 13, 1946), better known as Al Green, is an American singer, songwriter, pastor and record producer best known for recording a series of soul hit singles in the early 1970s, including " Take Me to the River", ...

, nature, and women. Petrus is an affiliated writer of

The Playwrights' Center The Playwrights' Center is a non-profit theatre organization focused on both supporting playwrights and promoting new plays to production at theaters across the country. It is located in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In Oc ...

in Minneapolis. 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". The group organizes events to showcase original performance and theatre works by emerging artists. Petrus describes herself as a "pleasure activist", which she claims her art has "healing power" and relates to themes involving desire and pleasure. She has written about her pleasure activist work in

Adrienne Maree Brown Adrienne Maree Brown, often styled adrienne maree brown (born September 6, 1978), is a writer, activist and facilitator. From 2006 to 2010, she was the executive director of the Ruckus Society. She also co-founded and directed the United States ...

's book ''Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good,'' which explains pleasure activism as making social justice work "the most pleasurable human experience."

Personal life

Petrus lives in Minneapolis with her wife, Ngowo Nasah, and family.

Awards

Petrus was recognized as a

City Pages ''City Pages'' was an alternative newspaper serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. It featured news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews and music criticism, available free every Wednesday. It ceased publication in 2020 due to a ...

Twin Cities artist of the year in 2016. In 2020, Petrus received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award for '' The Stars and the Blackness Between Them''. Petrus has also been awarded several fellowships.

References

External links