Fox Cities Book Festival: Connecting Writers and Readers

Sagashus T. Levingston was born in Chicago and raised in the area now known as Bronzeville, but known before gentrification as the Low End. She holds a bachelor’s in English Literature from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has been attending graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There she earned a master’s in Afro-American Studies and is currently a PhD Candidate in the Department of English. Her dissertation is titled Infamous Mothers: Bad Moms Doing Extraordinary Things. While her research focuses primarily on literature, it is informed by theory and criticism from rhetoric, motherhood studies and black feminism. Her coffee table book, simply titled Infamous Mothers, is inspired by this work and so is Infamous Mothers, LLC, a social enterprise where Sagashus offers personal and professional development training meant to empower women who mother from the margins of our society. She also delivers programming to the organizations and professionals that make an impact on these women's lives. Sagashus is a proud button-wearing member of the Doyenne Group, Inc. located in Madison, WI. She also sits on the WWBIC South Central Ambassadorial Advisory Committee. As the proud mother of six children—three boys and three girls, and partner of Tosumba, she and her family lives in Madison, WI.