She is a multifaceted creative: dancer, photographer, entrepreneur, and writer. Above all these, she is a daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin, and one day, she will be a mom. Author Mangie Nadia Kpaka began cultivating her “writer’s vault” since age eleven. She is a second-generation immigrant from the West African country of Sierra Leone. Growing up in a traditional African household, while still having to navigate through American society, Kpaka often found herself in between two worlds. At home, she felt voiceless, so she turned to writing. Naturally, the words would flow through her mind while washing dishes at night. She’d keep in mind the rhythm, the cadence; writing in one shot or periodically. As her confidence grew, so did her interest in sharing them via spoken word. After all, poetry is for the ear. Throughout middle school and high school, Kpaka wrote endlessly; poetry became a vital source of survival against the trauma and psychological warfare she battled within herself. M.O.M is an anecdotal poetic anthology that explores themes of black feminism, love, liberalism, and humanity. Inspired by personal events in her life, Kpaka takes her readers on a thought-provoking journey.