Well, hello there …

I don’t know how you got here, but I am so happy to have you. Welcome.

My name is Vera Ezimora, but you probably know that already. I am a daughter, a mom, a friend (your friend too), a colleague, and so much more. Professionally, I am a storyteller. And I tell my stories through several means: writing, podcasting, speaking, content creation, social media, and video.

I started writing when I was a child. My favorite thing to write used to be an “essay” titled, “About Myself.” In it, I’d write my full name, my parents’ names, their professions, my date and place of birth, etc. The more I wrote it, the better I became at it. In school in Nigeria, I often won the award for ‘Best in English,’ which said a lot, considering that at one time in my life, I did not even speak English. More on this later.

I was a teenager in America when I started writing articles online. I wrote a lot about relationships – what they were supposed to be like, what men needed to do (or not do), etc. I thought I knew everything. Ha! Everything I thought I knew was theoretical; I had not even had a real boyfriend yet. Because I was so young, I wrote my articles semi-anonymously – with my real name, but no pictures. There was no Instagram back then, so keeping a pictureless profile online was relatively easy. My famous profile picture back then was a greenish picture of my eye – just one eye. It was greenish because it was taken on my phone, and the cameras weren’t as fancy as they are now.

Writing was always a hobby. I never thought of it as a career path because I was going to be a medical doctor like my parents. It had been drummed into my ears all my life, so I believed it – even when everything around me screamed otherwise. Then one day, I discovered blogging, and I thought, wow, an online space of my own where I can share all my thoughts?? Yes, please! I don’t think the word ‘oversharing’ had been coined yet – not that it would have stopped me anyway.

So, why Verastic? And how did I even come up with that name? Well, it all started years earlier when Yahoo Messenger was a thing. Remember Yahoo Messenger? Remember when you’d leave the computer speakers on so you could hear the sound of a door opening which indicated that one of your contacts was online? Exactly. But I swear, I’m not that old. Well, I was opening a Yahoo account and I needed a name and somehow, I coined Verastic. And it stuck.

I tell all my business on Verastic. Maybe not all of it, but a lot of it. It’d be cliche to call myself an open book, but I love having conversations with people, and I love talking about both the simple and complicated experiences of life. I like asking the difficult questions, and shaking tables is one of my virtues. Verastic is no longer just a Yahoo Messenger account name, but it’s still all me. Verastic is about authenticity and transparency and simply being human and figuring life out as I grow. And of course, sharing it along the way. And if you’re not just an angry witch, you might even laugh a few times.

In 2015, I was blessed with a baby girl. Someday in the future, with the right sperm, I will also be blessed with a set of confusingly identical twin boys. Don’t worry, I have already started praying for the healing of my vagina after they pass through it. I cannot confirm or deny that I will marry a man for his twin genes. Are you a man who has twins in his genes? See me in the other room. I suppose I should mention at this point that in 2017, I walked away from my marriage after giving it six years of my life. The story about how my marriage ended is epic, dramatic, and stranger than fiction. Of course, I have shared it here. Read at your own risk.

But back to the blog: I call my tribe members my Sweet Potatoes, and most of them are just like me: people of African descent in professional jobs, living in the Diaspora and learning to navigate life in the new place that they now call ‘Home.’ They’re raising children (or thinking about it); they’re married (or planning to be), and they’re wondering how they got tricked into thinking that adulthood would be fun. They might occasionally also be thinking about just quitting their jobs and going to sell pepper at the junction because who even needs this kind of negativity in their life?

Whether you’re reading the blog, listening to the podcast, watching a video, listening to me speak, reading my email, or attending one of my events, the message is the same: the thing that is doing you is also doing me, so come, let’s figure it out together and laugh about it too. After all, we cannot coman die.

I write and speak about everything from raising a sassy daughter, to living in America as a Nigerian/African. to style, to my period and the pimples it comes with, to marriage/relationships/dating, to not wanting to have sex for three hours (because that is madness), to money, underwears that give me wedgies, to blogging, to divorce, to food, to the Nigerian/African culture, to feminism, to beauty, to spirituality, to travel, and to commentary on news and current events.

See ehn, when you connect with me on any level, I just hope that I am able to make your day better and brighter, that when we are done, you have a huge smile on your face and your shoulders feel lighter. I hope that I am able to remind you that everything will work itself out and that God is looking out for you and making everything work for your good. I hope that when you encounter me, I leave you better than when I met you. This is my prayer because when I get to Heaven, I want God to be proud of me for using my talent. Also, I don’t like heat, so I really can’t do the hell thing.

In case I haven’t scared you enough, here are 10 random facts about me

1. I’m an only child.
2. I was born in Russia – and not by mistake. My parents were married and living there while they were in med school.
3. The first time I ever tasted mac and cheese was during a work trip to Miami in May 2019.
4. I can find humor in almost anything. This has its pros and cons.
5. I have a deep fear of needles, blood, doctors, hospitals. The joke is on me because both of my parents are medical doctors.
6. I don’t have a favorite color, but emerald green has a stronghold on me.
7. I’m not a smoker, but I carry a lighter in my bag because I watched a documentary about a family that got stuck in the snow and needed to burn their tires to keep warm. They wouldn’t have been able to do that if they did not have a lighter.
8. I failed out of nursing school.
9. I don’t speak Russian, but I recognize it when I hear it (I used to only speak Russian until we relocated to Nigeria when I was 4 and I forgot it while learning English).
10. I love nkwobi. I could get on a plane for nkwobi.

If you are interested in working with me and my Sweet Potatoes, please read the Work With Me page to find out how this can happen. If you have any questions at all for me or simply want to say hi, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thank You For Stopping By.