Longlist Profiles
Efua boadu
Efua Boadu is a British-Ghanaian writer and educator.
Efua’s work has already appeared in the Afritondo literary journal, with the short story, The Good Shepherd, longlisted for the 2022 Afritondo Short Story Prize. Her short stories were also longlisted for the 2023 Mary Prince Award and the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
In 2023, her short story, Run Am, appeared in the May 2023 edition of Isele Magazine.
Efua is an alumnus of the Outspoken mini-masterclasses, organised by Outspoken Press and facilitated by the writers, Joelle Taylor and Malika Booker.
Efua is an editorial board member of The Africa Migration Report, and her poetry is featured in their first anthology, Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration.
She is an active member of Peepal Tree Press’s Inscribe writing development programme.
Efua is currently writing her first novel.
rigwell addison asiedu
Rigwell Addison Asiedu is a Ghanaian writer. In 2019, he won the Dei Awuku Writer’s Contest, and was longlisted for the 2022 African Writers Awards (poetry category).
Rigwell’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lolwe, Isele Magazine, African Writer Magazine, Kalahari Review, Akowdee Magazine, Akpata Magazine, Ta Adesa, Ubwali Literary Magazine, The Journal of African Youth Literature, The Muse Journal, and elsewhere. He is an alumnus of the 2024 CANEX Book Factory Creative Writing Workshop. He currently serves as Managing Editor at Ojuju Magazine, Fiction and Nonfiction Curator at Nenta Literary Journal, and Prose Reader at Akpata Magazine.
He is obsessed with water, black cats, and crows.
olivia adekola
Olivia Adekola is a Nigerian-American author passionate about stories that center the experience of the African woman both on the continent and in the diaspora.
A graduate of the 2024 #WeNeedDiverseBooks Black Creatives Revision Workshop, she has works published in Isele Magazine and Porter House Review.
Ekpenyong Kosisochukwu Collins
Ekpenyong Kosisochukwu Collins is a writer from Nigeria.
His short story, “The Thing with Feathers,” was a joint winner of the K and L Prize for fiction (2024).
Shortlisted for the Grouse Grind Prize for v Short forms (2024) and the Koffi Addo prize for non-fiction (2023), some of his works are featured in Sonder magazine, Smokelong Quarterly, Lolwe, 20 35 Africa, and elsewhere.
A SprinNG Writing Fellow, Ekpenyong also reads for Fractured Lit.
He is on X (Twitter) at: EkpenyongK74940.
Emelda Nyaradzai Gwitimah
Emelda Nyaradzai Gwitimah is a fiction writer and poet from Zimbabwe, and currently resides in Canada. A trained advertising copywriter and creative director, she holds an MFA in Writing and Publishing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
A finalist for the African Writers Awards for Poetry, her work has been published in Lolwe, the Edmonton Capital City Anthology, the Aké Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Bambazonke, The Willowherb Review, The Doubleback Review, Ipikai Poetry Journal, the Strange Water African poetry anthology, the Our Stories Redefined African poetry anthology, and twice in the Intwasa Festival short story anthology in her hometown, Bulawayo.
You can follow her on X @bellaemelda.
Jen Thorpe
Jen Thorpe is a feminist writer. She writes novels, non-fiction books, short stories, feminist essays, and children’s books. She lives with her husband and two sons in Cape Town.
Find out more about her work at https://jen-thorpe.com
Olufunmilayo Makinde
Olufunmilayo Makinde is a Nigerian lawyer by day and a writer at every possible moment. She explores different genres but finds herself drawn to writing speculative fiction more often than not.
Her work has appeared in Full House Literary, The Periwinkle Pelican, and 100 Foot Crow.
Baaba Tekyi Mensah
Baaba Tekyi Mensah, a Medical Doctor whose love for writing began when she was 6, is a published writer exploring genres of non-fiction, prose and creative essays.
Her debut essay, ‘The Second Fall of Man,’ detailing life 10 years post-COVID, won first place in a competition held by Sedesel Publishing House in 2021. Other works of hers have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies such as ‘Creative Resistance’, ‘Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-WRI)’, ‘Awensem Magazine’ and most recently, “Tales and Whispers”.
Her recent reading of ‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov has reinvented her entire perspective on writing, emboldening her to not allow herself be shackled by the rules of literature.
She owns a blog where she experiments with poetry and creative fiction and aspires to publish her first novel soon.
Anisha Namutowe
Anisha Namutowe is a 36-year-old writer from Zambia who thrives on storytelling in all its forms—fiction, non-fiction, and when inspiration strikes (often at inconvenient hours), she dabbles in poetry, too.
In fiction, she’s drawn to romance, psychological thrillers, and fantasy . . . because what’s life without a little love, a little mind-bending suspense, and a dash of magic?
Her non-fiction explores everything from psychology and law to feminism, mythology, and the curious contradictions of culture and religion.
Recently, she snagged the Publisher’s Choice Award for Publish’d Afrika Magazine, a win she celebrated with an unnecessary amount of cake.
Her ultimate dream is to one day see her stories flickering across a screen, making audiences laugh, cry, and possibly question reality.
Yvonne Zabu Wamara
Zabu Wamara is a Ugandan writer and therapist based in Kampala. She holds an MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) from the University of East Anglia, where she graduated with distinction as a Global Voices Scholar in 2024.
Her fiction and creative nonfiction explore the complexities of contemporary African life. Her short story “Cracking” was the titular piece of the Ugandan cohort’s anthology under the International Chair of Creative Writing project, while her creative nonfiction “Akafuuzi” was published in The Weganda Review (Issue 6).
In 2024, she was selected for the Miles Morland African Writers’ Residency.
Nzube Nlebedim
Nzube Nlebedim (he/him) is a Nigerian writer and editor. He is the author of At Night Men Take the Lonely Way Back Home, a collection of thirteen creative nonfiction essays on time and roots. He is the founding editor of The Shallow Tales Review.
Nlebedim served in 2021 as the West African field editor of African Oil and Power, Mauritius. In 2024, he was selected for the Granta Longform Journalism Workshop and the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD) residency. He served on the jury of the 2024 Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Prize.
He is currently Associate Editor (fiction) of Iron Horse Literary Review, Lubbock, Texas.
Mustapha Enesi
Mustapha Enesi is an Ebira writer from Okene whose works have appeared in several literary magazines. He is fascinated by the concept of human existence. The very fabric of his storytelling is centred on the delicate process of creation—sex, pregnancy, childhood, awareness—and how all these phenomena crystallize as innate humanness.
He is the joint winner of the 2023 Bridport Short Story Prize (Young Writers Award) for his short story, One Good Thing.
Gift Nyoni
Gift Nyoni is a Zimbabwean-born writer and lawyer based in London. His writing explores identity, trauma, and notions of home, and has been longlisted for the BPA First Novel Award as well as the Bath Novel Award. His story, The Ritual Seat of the King, won the 2021 Guardian 4th Estate 4thWrite Prize. He is part of the 2024/25 London Library Emerging Writers Programme, where he is working on a collection of migrant love stories. Instagram and X: @literary_womble
Hussani Abdulrahim
Hussani Abdulrahim is a Nigerian writer. He has a degree in Pure Chemistry from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.
Hussani was shortlisted for the 2024 ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award and the 2024 BWR Summer Fiction Contest. He won the 2023 Writivism Short Story Prize, Ibua Journal’s 2023 Bold Call, the 2022 Toyin Falola Prize, and WRR’s 2016 Green Author Prize. He has also been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and Afritondo Short Story Prize.
His work has appeared in Boston Review, Wilted Pages, Brittle Paper, Evergreen Review, Solarpunk, and Ibua Journal.
Hussani is currently working on his debut collection of short stories. He lives in Kano, Nigeria. You can find him on X: @Hussaniabdul4.
Zoe Ngombane
Zoe Ngombane is an English graduate from the University of Pretoria. She is an educator by day, a writer by night, and an avid reader the rest of the time.
Zoe spent eight years living, travelling and working as an English Language teacher in Thailand and South Korea. Her writing focuses on relationships, desire, race and the human condition.
Her work has appeared on Brittle Paper and Heyhedone, and her novel was shortlisted for the Dinaane Debut Fiction Award.
Zoe can be found quasi-couchsurfing between Middelburg, Pietermaritzburg and her beloved Wild Coast.
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