Their Story Matters with Sara Troy and her guest Ona Gritz, on air from April 9th

 Ona Gritz, author of the beautifully written memoir, Everywhere I Look ? With an investigator’s determination, Gritz unravels the mystery and tragedy of the murder of her sister, Andrea Susan Gritz, also known as Angie Boggs, while sharing her own awakening to loss, grief, guilt, and the truth. Her story is testament to the idea that grief can be transformative, and that the truth can truly set us free.

On January 11, 1982, Angie Boggs was brutally murdered in her home, along with her husband, Ray, and their eleven-month-old son. She was twenty-five and pregnant with their second child. Six weeks later, Angie’s body was found, stuffed in the crawlspace of the apartment she had shared with her family and her murderers.

When Angie was just a little girl called Andra, she was the first person Ona remembers loving. Gritz was nineteen when she learned of her sister’s murder. “Well, she’s dead,” their mom announced, with a crisscross slap of her hands, later remarking: “A social worker told us years ago that, with the way Andra lived her life, she wouldn’t make it to thirty.” That made Gritz angry, but she wasn’t grief stricken either. After all, she was used to being without Angie. For many years after losing her, all she felt was numb.

When Ona Gritz was in her late forties and the only survivor of her immediate family, a succession of small events began to bring Angie back to her.  Suddenly, she was filled with questions about the disparaging view of Angie that, despite her love, she had internalized from her parents. “She’s a runaway.” Growing up, that’s what Ona would answer whenever someone asked, “Where’s your sister?” But what was Angie running from? And why did her parents keep shutting her out and sending her away?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Ona Gritz holds a Master of Arts in poetry from the creative writing program at New York University. She is the author of August Or Forever, a Reader’s Choice and Wishing Shelf finalist in middle grade fiction. Her nonfiction has appeared in Brevity, The Guardian, The New York Times, River Teeth, The Rumpus, The Utne Reader, and been named Notable in The Best American Essays and Best of the Year in Salon. Her earlier books include On the Whole: A Story of Mothering and Disability and Geode, a finalist for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. She won the Poetry Archive Now Worldview 2020 Competition and has received many other honors for her poems, which have been widely anthologized. Ona lives with her husband, writer Daniel Simpson, near Philadelphia.

 https://www.onagritz.com

 https://www.instagram.com/onagritz

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