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Home » 2024 Courage to Write » 2024 CTW Finalist » Shazna Nessa

Shazna Nessa

April 10, 2024

Beneath the Same Stars (Memoir), New York, NY

Beneath the Same Stars is about a girl’s escape from child marriage, which ultimately leads her to a decades-long pursuit of an ever-shifting idea of truth, memory, and freedom.

“I want to embolden and inspire anybody who has struggled for autonomy and the freedom to make their own decisions amidst prescribed cultural roles for women.”

Shazna Nessa is an American, British-Bangladeshi writer with a background in visual journalism. She has held senior roles at The Wall Street Journal, The Knight Foundation, The Associated Press, and Condé Nast. She was awarded a degree in linguistics, literature, and history from the Sorbonne, Paris. Fellowships include a MacDowell residency in 2024, a John S. Knight fellowship at Stanford University in 2014, and a Sulzberger fellowship at Columbia University in 2008. She is currently an entrepreneur in residence at the Brown Institute at Columbia University, and teaches at the Craig Newmark Graduate School for Journalism at CUNY.

Visit Shazna’s Instagram: @shaznanessa

LinkedIn: @shazna-nessa

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The de Groot Foundation is a private 501(C)(3) grant making foundation located in the United States that supports writers and the literary arts.

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