The inaugural Ibom Writers’ Workshop is set to be led by six brilliant and accomplished writers from across Africa. These talented facilitators will bring the depth of their knowledge and vastness of their experiences to the workshop, creating a vibrant environment for selected participants. The facilitators will spend one week thinking and developing alongside the participants. Their goal is to leave the participants better equipped to reimagine the framework of their lives and the conditions of the familiar. Read their bios below:
Poetry Facilitators
Jakky Bankong-Obi is a media consultant and poet living in and writing from Abuja, Nigeria. Her chapbook What Still Yields was chosen by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for publication in the New-Generation African Poets box sets, by Akashic Books and APBF (Spring/Summer 2022). Jakky has a BSc. is the Poetry Editor at Pepper Coast Lit Mag and Co-Editor at Ice Floe Press. Her work is forthcoming and in London Grip, The Kalahari Review, Reliquiae Journal (Corbel Stone Press), Pipewrench Magazine, Hobart Pulp, Gutter Magazine, The Poetry Review, Pigeonholes and Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry etc.
Ojo Taiye is a Nigerian writer, cultural worker, and artist who uses poetry as a tool to hide his frustration with society. His debut mixed media installation will be exhibited in Linz, Austria, as part of the 2023 Ars Electronica Festival. In his spare time, he enjoys bingeing on Netflix, browsing new opportunities, and birdwatching. He is currently at work on his second poetry pamphlet.
Nonfiction Facilitators
Immaculata Abba is a Nigerian writer and artist. Her work has been screened, exhibited and published widely on platforms such as Le Temps (Switzerland), The Brooklyn Rail (USA), The Guardian (UK) and Jameel Arts Centre (UAE). She was a 2021 journalism fellow with African Arguments, a 2021 artist grantee with the Black Art Joy project (UK), a 2022 writer-in-residence at the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (Ghana), an architecture research fellow on the 2022 DOCOMOMO Shared Heritage Africa project and a 2023 participant of the New York Portfolio Review. Her academic background is in history, literature and cultural theory and she has degrees from Queen Mary University of London and University of Oxford.
Zenas Ubere is a Nigerian writer and editor. He was selected for LOATAD’s 2023 West African Writers Residency and was a participant in the SBMEN & Goethe Institut Art Writing and Criticism Workshop. He is the coordinator of Lolwe Classes.
Fiction Facilitators
Dennis Mugaa is a writer from Meru, Kenya. He won the 2022 Black Warrior Review Fiction Contest, was Shortlisted for Isele Magazine’s inaugural Short Story Prize and was longlisted for the 2021 Afritondo Short Story Prize. His work has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Jalada Africa, Lolwe, Isele Magazine and Washington Square Review. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia where he was a 2021/2022 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship recipient. His debut work of fiction, Half Portraits Under Water & Other Stories will be published by Masobe Books.
Jeff Atuobi is a writer based in Accra, Ghana. They are interested in African artistic and literary productions as sites for revolutionary praxis. An alumnus of the Caine Prize for African Writing Workshop, Goethe-Institut Lagos Art Writing and Criticism Workshop and an Ebedi Fellow, Jeff prioritises collaborative, collective thought. Their work aims to build connections between art practitioners, writers and thinkers on the continent committed to decolonising Africa’s cultural output. Their work can be found in Jalada Africa, A Mind to Silence: The Caine Prize Anthology, Art From Africa: Its Place in our Life and Time, Za! Magazine and elsewhere.
