Nana Awere Damoah was born in Kotobabi, a suburb of the capital city of Accra, Ghana, where he spent the first twenty five years of his life, ‘a very tough place to grow up, but a crucible of learning experiences’. He holds a Masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nottingham, UK, a first class degree in Chemical Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana (where he graduated top of his class, receiving the Unilever Excellence and the Shell Foundation awards), and spent all his Secondary school years at Ghana National College, Cape Coast, Ghana.
A British Council Chevening scholarship alumnus, Nana worked with Unilever Ghana Limited from 2000 till 2005 (when he left for further studies) and returned to Unilever Ghana in 2006 after his studies in UK. Presently, he is the Production Manager (Foods) for the Tema factory.
Right from preparatory school, Nana was involved in acting plays and reciting poetry. He started writing seriously when he was about 17 years, in the Sixth form; he began with essays, but moved swiftly into short stories, and has had a number of his short stories published in the Ghanaian weeklies ‘The Mirror’ and ‘The Spectator’. In 1997, he won the first prize in the Step Magazine National Story Writing Competition. In KNUST, he was part of the Literary Wing of the Interhall Christian Fellowship, where he acted and wrote poems.
His poems were published in magazines on KNUST campus. He maintains three blogs of his writings:
Excursions in My Mind (essays)
Stories from the Loom (short stories)
Patmos Collections (poetry)
He also publishes his writings and thoughts regularly on Facebook.com, and has been circulating his Excursions in my mind series amongst his friends via email since 2004.
His first book, Excursions in My Mind, a collection of reflective essays and poems, was published by Athena press UK in October 2008 and is available on Athena.com, amazon.com and amazon.co.uk, as well as in Ghana bookshops. He is working on his second book of essays and poetry, ‘Through the Gates of Thought’, due in March 2009.
As a writer, Nana sees himself as a distillation plant which takes issues around him - mundane, routine everyday occurrences - as his raw material, reflects on and processes them, producing various fractions, fit for use by his readers.
His work with Joyful Way Incorporated, a Christian Music ministry in Ghana, of which he was National President from 2002 to 2004, takes a greater part of his spare time. He is in the Prayer and Counselling Department of the ministry and also plays the drums, when drummers are not available!
He is married to Vivian. The couple and their sons, Nana Kwame Bassanyin and Nana Yaw Appiah, are based in Accra, Ghana.
Dear Kwesi, This letter comes with a reminder of the best gift I can ever give to anyone - my heart, my love, my life. It is very late here but I am very much awake, 'cos my dear, you are on my mind. Always on my mind. Cupid sent his arrow my way and I lurched forward with my bosom once I espied your name of the tail of the arrow; come and see the hole it has created in my heart. What sweet pain! You know, the heart is not a locket that is opened easily, and once opened, the holder of the key becomes so significant! You hold those keys, Kwesi... Full Story 
