Aduke utilises her legal and advisory skills to assist in business and creative development. Commencing her career in legal practice with the law firm of Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie, she later worked for many years in various leadership roles within Ecobank Nigeria Ltd and Leadway Pensure PFA. Aduke was appointed to the Governor Fashola Administration of Lagos State in the role of Senior Special Assistant/Secretary to the Lagos State Hotel Licensing Authority in 2011. She was also appointed to serve as a member of the Lagos State History Committee and as a member of the Lagos Carnival Committee, where she headed the Junior Carnival Sub-Committee.

Aduke is regularly called to speak and moderate on topics related to her interest in history and culture and these have included sessions at Cornell University, USA; The Institute of Africa and Diaspora Studies at the University of Lagos; the Lagos State Record and Archive Bureau; the annual conference of the Lagos Studies Association; the Ake Festival; the Quramo Festival of Words; and the Lagos Book and Art Festival(LABAF) amongst others.

Aduke’s published collection of poems have featured as festival books for both the LABAF and the Ake Festival. And her children's books have also featured at previous editions of LABAF and Akada Children's Book Festival and at the Pa Gya Book Festival in Ghana.

She is currently the Chair of the Steering Committee of Art4Life – an initiative of the Lagos State Ministry of Health established to introduce art and the practice of art into the entire healthcare process. Aduke was recently appointed to the Board of the Lagos Studies Association - an organisation established for the exploration and dissemination of Lagos history. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of Open House Lagos as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the Lagos Biennial. She volunteers on the Board of Child Life Line - an NGO established for the welfare of street children.

Aduke is a 2024 recipient of the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad from the President of Ireland.

Ms. Agnes Titriku is a parliamentary development expert with seventeen years of experience in active engagement in the field of Parliamentary Democracy and Governance. She is the Programs Manager for the African Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA) where she is involved in the design and implementation of various programs for several African Parliaments and parliaments outside the continent, with a focus on capacity building, institutional development, strategic planning, parliamentary oversight, gender and poverty reduction. She holds a Master of Arts in Social Policy Studies from the University of Ghana and is very passionate about the Arts and Literature.

Akorfa Dawson is a Ghanaian short-fiction writer whose work explores friendship, childhood, nostalgia and love. Her writing preserves everyday moments while offering readers connection and escapism. She participated in the University of Iowa International Writing Program with Nisi Shawl, where she refined her speculative craft. She blends sci-fi with Ghanaian narratives and Afro-feminist themes.

Her work has appeared in anthologies by the Ama Ata Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing and Tampered Press, and her story A Time to Be Stubborn was a finalist in the Imagining Early Accra competition.

Akorfa co-leads NadèLI, building space for emerging Ghanaian creatives to thrive.

Akumbu Uche is a writer and storyteller from Nigeria. She is committed to preserving African oral storytelling traditions and infuses her performances with songs and physical theatre. Ín addition, her fiction and poetry have been published by Aké Review, Brittle Paper, Canthius, The Cincinnati Review, Engaging Borders Africa, Ibua Journal, Konya Shamsrumi, and The Wild Umbrella, among others. She was a finalist for the 2025 Evaristo Prize for African Poetry

Alice Johnson is a Ghanaian theatre and film producer, and founder of Found Space Productions, a collective of trained performers dedicated to telling African stories for African audiences. A summa cum laude Theatre Arts graduate of the University of Education, Winneba, she has trained with multiple institutions including the Multichoice Talent Factory West Africa Academy, Institut Français’ Re-imagining Folk(lore) for Now, Inside Nollywood Fellowship and Durban Talents. She is also one of two recipients of the inaugural Playwrights’ Commission Ghana award.

This marks her fifth year of staging at PaGya, where she has directed stage readings including adaptations of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, His Only Wife, Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes, and Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad.

Writer, singer, visual designer and entrepreneur - Ama Asantewa Diaka is a storyteller and a community catalyst. She is the author of three books; “You too will know me”, “Woman, eat me whole” and “Someone birthed them broken”. She is the founder of Black Girls Glow, an arts nonprofit dedicated to empowering women and fostering transformative opportunities for their artistic growth; Tampered Press, - an independent Ghana-based publisher focused on books by and about Africans; and Yobbings, a culture-inspired design company.

With over a decade of community leadership, advocacy and innovation, she lead sprojects using human-centered design to address systemic inequality. Ama is an innovative thinker who divides her time between Accra and Amsterdam, bridging seemingly disparate worlds. Passionate about arts and culture, she has advised the Creative Industries Fund and the Prince Claus Fund and played a key role in the Chale Wote Street Arts Festival in Accra. Ama is deeply involved in Ghana’s vibrant creative community and works to find solutions that support and sustain local artists. Through the Dr. Monk Foundation, she works with teachers in rural cocoa-growing communities, helping children identify challenges and create solutions through design thinking. Ama has facilitated diverse groups, from local children to global leaders, and has worked with influential figures worldwide.

As a facilitator, Ama has vast experience working with divers groups; from children in cocoa growing communities to world leaders in global governance and private brands. She has worked closely with former Prime Minister of The Netherlands Ruud Lubbers and Steven Rockefeller on The Earth Charter as an Ethical Framework in a globalized world. She has been a lead facilitator at the Harvard Ministerial Leadership program and for the Obama Foundations Leaders: Africa program and for the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development Amujae Program.

Andrew Entsua-Mensah is the project manager Arts and Culture at British Council. He has over the years supported the literature and publishing space in Ghana pushing for reforms, policy and research to build a thriving literary space.

He has been instrumental in the work of commissioning British Council publishing features research in SSA, created connections for writers and publishers in Ghana and the UK, notably Bradford city of culture residency, help build professional development to Chelteham and Momentum festival in the UK. He continuously looks for opportunities that support a reading culture among young Ghanaians and was instrumental in the covening of a dialogue for publishers and writers at the just ended Ghana International Book Fair 2025. His work is today demonstrated with the on-boarding of Aeon media at this years Pa Gya Festival after a successful writers workshop.

His background is in civil engineering, finance, logistics and supply chain. He loves listening Ghanaian,classical and jazz music.

Angela Wright is a writer, photographer, and communications professional from Canada. Her work has been published in Canadian, American, and Australian literary journals, including The Fiddlehead, Catapult, and The New Quarterly. Her work has also been featured in Canadian media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, CBC, and the Toronto Star. Angela writes book reviews on children’s and young adult literature for Quill & Quire, a Canadian publishing industry magazine.

Angela currently lives in Ghana undertaking research for two books: a historical fiction novel about the daughter of a king who goes on a trek from Northern Ghana to the coast to search for her lover who was kidnapped into the slave trade, and a collection of essays tracing the journeys and experiences of past and present Black writers from the diaspora who have moved to Ghana.

Angela has a bachelor’s in history and African and African American Studies from the University at Buffalo, a master’s in the history of race and slavery from The University of Iowa, and will receive a Master of Public Administration from Queen’s University later this year.

Angelina Boakye is a passionate actress and a change agent whose love for theatre and film has shaped her journey. A graduate of the University of Education, Winneba, she was recognized in 2019 with the Best Supporting Actress award from the Department of Theatre Arts, UEW. Since then, she has featured in several films and stage productions, working alongside respected creatives such as Nii Commey and Alice Johnson.

Beyond the stage, Angelina is dedicated to nurturing the next generation of talent. She volunteered as a coach for a children’s reality show, where she mentored over 50 young performers, helping them discover confidence and creativity through the arts. With her talent, warmth, and commitment to storytelling, Angelina continues to make her mark in Ghana’s performing arts scene.

Dr. Asangba Reginald Taluah is a senior lecturer at AAMUSTED, the erstwhile Kumasi and Ashanti Mampong campuses of the University of Education Winneba. His research areas include: Literary Linguistics, English Education, African Studies and Liberal Studies. His works have been published in both national and international anthologies. His poem, Mother was awarded the Castello Di Duino Poetry Prize in 2014, Italy.

Audrey-Bertha Nartey’s story is one of reinvention, resilience, and impact. Known to many as Nuerki, she has built a career that bridges telecommunications, education, and technology, demonstrating how curiosity and courage can lead to transformation at every stage.

For over 16 years at MTN Ghana, she honed her expertise in corporate training, performance management, customer experience, and coaching, helping thousands of professionals develop the skills and confidence to thrive in competitive industries. Her time there cemented her reputation as a people-focused leader who turns strategy into action.

Today, Nuerki serves as Ghana Country Lead for Coral Reef Innovation Africa, an EdTech organisation committed to preparing young Africans for the future of work through affordable AI-powered learning tools and teacher development programmes.

An Intel-certified AI Mastercoach, she brings together creativity, strategic insight, and a legal background to design learning experiences that make technology approachable and useful for everyone ; from students in rural schools to corporate teams seeking to innovate.

Beyond her corporate role, Nuerki is passionate about storytelling, personal branding, and showcasing Ghana. She often says, “This life isn’t a rehearsal! You show up, stay curious, and make it count.”

For Nuerki, tech and education are more than careers; they are avenues to explore the world, spark impact, and remind others that growth can be adventurous, human, and deeply rewarding.

Ayaz Shah is a Danish-Pashtun writer and trained actor based in Copenhagen. He writes in Danish, yet his stories unfold within cultural landscapes far removed from Northern Europe. Having grown up bilingual, he is deeply aware of how language and culture are often intertwined. In his work, he plays with these connections, blending and reshaping them to create narratives that move between worlds and open up new imaginative spaces. His debut novel, La Victoria (Wadskjær Forlag, 2024), is steeped in the tradition of Latin American magical realism. Set in a small Venezuelan town, it explores themes of mental illness, toxic masculinity, and cultural denial, weaving reality and myth into a vivid portrait of a community on the edge. In a Danish literary context, La Victoria is groundbreaking as one of the first works by an author from an ethnic minority background that does not centre on the immigrant experience. Ayaz refuses to be defined by society’s expectations of what an ethnic minority writer “should” write about, instead asserting the freedom to tell any story he chooses. The novel was recently adapted for the stage at Literaturhaus in Copenhagen, where Ayaz also performed.

Alongside his literary work, Ayaz continues to work as an actor, drawing on his training from the Copenhagen Film and Theatre School. He has appeared in theatre productions and on television, bringing the same dedication to storytelling to the stage and screen. Committed to narratives that challenge stereotypes, confront social taboos, and illuminate overlooked perspectives, Ayaz believes in the power of art to open windows between cultures. Whether on the page or in performance, his work invites audiences into unfamiliar worlds while offering fresh ways to see their own.

Aziza is a multi-lingual UK and Ghanaian qualified corporate and commercial lawyer and development consultant with over 25 years of work experience. She studied Law at the University of Manchester and the Ghana School of Law. Aziza received a Masters in Law from University College London and a Diploma in Legal Practice from London Guildhall University. She has worked in Europe, the GCC and Africa for the International Law Firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Norton Rose Fulbright for many years.

Aziza is currently Senior Counsel at Stafford Law in Ghana and advises clients on various corporate and commercial transactions. Aziza is on the board of various NGOs in West Africa, Central America and Europe. She is currently involved in running workshops and trainings for communities in underprivileged areas of Accra. She ran a Literacy project (Eduquemos a La Nina) initiated by the Ministry of Education in Guatemala for the Mayan Q’eqchi Indians for Proyecto Ak’tenamit, which is still in operation as well as a vocational training project for youths in the Niger Delta. Aziza completed a course in Script Writing/Screen Plays at London College of Communication and course in Film-Making at New York Film Academy. She has since worked on various scripts and documentaries internationally. She is part of the BBC Media Action Writers that write for the Development Radio Drama Series Nebor my Nebor that is widely broadcast and seeks through stories to reduce the instances of infant mortality. She co-founded the Saturday School Literacy, Numeracy and Mentoring Project in London in 1999 that now has various branches in the UK. After conducting extensive field trips and research, she wrote the first comprehensive report on the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme in collaboration with the Partnership for Child Development and Imperial College London that was run in Kano and hopes to spread to other states and other countries in Africa. The project seeks to encourage states to provide one balanced meal a day to primary and secondary school students to encourage them to attend school.

Image Credit: Angela Tellier

Babs Gons is a Dutch writer, spoken word-performer and host.

For decades, she has been a driving force behind numerous poetry stage initiatives.

Gons made her debut in 2021 with her poetry collection and has since published several books and won several prices for her work. She has been presenting her work for years at festivals, in museums, debate centers, on radio and television, and has traveled with her work to South Africa, Sudan, Curaçao, Suriname, Hungary, and Brazil, among other places.

Gons is the Poet Laureate of the Netherlands from 2023 until 2025. The selection committee of the Poet Laureate praised Gons as 'one of the most appealing poets the Netherlands has right now, with a voice full of fire, burning and warm, both on stage and on paper. She is a poet who knows how to give passionate and committed words to what is going on in this day and age, in a society that she, full of conviction, connects with poetry.'

Beatrice “Bee” Arthur is a Ghanaian award-winning fashion designer of Russian and Ghanaian descent, born in Odessa, Ukraine. Her early love of poetry by Pushkin and Lermontov nurtured a lifelong fascination with language, rhythm, and identity. A graduate in Russian and Spanish Literature from the University of Ghana, she began as a curator with Poesía Ensemble, creating immersive poetry-art performances that fused text, sound, and movement. Later, she joined Ars Poetica Ghana, expanding her practice into spoken word and performance. Founder of the Waste Afterlife Art Movement (WAAM), Bee explores themes of environmental justice, decoloniality, and self-definition through what she calls artvocacy—the intersection of art and activism. Winner of the KORA All Africa Fashion Award, she continues to blur boundaries between poetry, fashion, and installation, transforming discarded materials and words alike into visceral reflections on memory, culture, and rebirth.

Boakye D. Alpha is a Ghanaian writer, filmmaker, creative entrepreneur, and a Global Voices Scholar at the University of East Anglia (UEA), where he is pursuing an MA in Creative Writing. He writes poetry, prose, screenplays, and creative nonfiction and has been published in GUAP Magazine, Lolwe, The Shallow Tales Review, among others. His short story was longlisted for the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

With a strong dedication to stories that matter, his work often explores issues of selfhood, gender-based violence, and the lived experiences of underrepresented voices. As a filmmaker, his projects have been broadcast on television networks and streaming platforms across Africa, with some earning recognition at film festivals and awards, including nominations at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA).

Alpha is also a recipient of the Tony Elumelu Storytellers Fund, the MultiChoice Talent Factory Scholarship for emerging African filmmakers, and the African Union’s MoveAfrica Grant.

In May 2025, he served as a juror for the European Association of Creative Writing Programmes’ 2025 Flash Fiction Contest. Alpha was also a member of the Editorial Board of UEA’s Creative Writing 2025 Anthology.

He is currently part of the Editorial team of the Shallow Tales Review as a proofreader. Alpha is the founder and director of Creatives Project Gh, an organisation committed to providing a platform where young creatives can access resources, support, and opportunities to develop their craft and build sustainable careers.

Profile of HRM King Bubaraye Dakolo Agada IV, Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom, and Chairman, Bayelsa State Traditional Rulers Council.

His Royal Majesty Bubaraye Dakolo, Agada IV, FANA, Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama kingdom, became a first-class traditional ruler in Bayelsa State, Nigeria in 2016 when the Ijaws of Ekpetiama Kingdom rose as one and anointed him as their paramount traditional head. He became Chairman, Bayelsa State Council of Traditional Rulers on March 16, 2022. He is also the Chairman, Conference of Ijaw Traditional Rulers and Elders (CITRE).

In November 2023, he became a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). With critically acclaimed audacious book titles like The Riddle of the Oil Thief, Once a Soldier , The African Voice , Pirates of the Gulf, and The Kingfisher: An Intimate Portrait of Environmental Injustice in the Niger Delta. To his credit he now numbers among the greatest of Africa’s literary greats. King Dakolo stands out as a loud voice in the African continent on the subject of oil and gas exploitation and security and how Africa could overcome western imperialism.

Born two decades after the death of Marcus Mosiah Garvey in the decade of the wanton, reckless and ruthless assassination of Black Nationalists in Africa and in the Americas, that decade that saw African nations breaking free from colonialism, and stepping into neo-colonialism or imperialism; that decade which saw western powers’ reluctance to let go of the Africa they were milking dry, a continent suffused with diamond, gold, platinum, uranium, plutonium, and vast deposits of petroleum. It was a decade that witnessed the mindless plunder of beans, cocoa, coffee, and the open exploitation, rape and wastage of human life so long as it was African. Wasn’t that the decade to be born?

Although slave trade had been outlawed, the west herded us yet into another trap, a masked alternative means of governance meant to exploit Africa’s human and material resources in perpetuity. He was born during the beginning of that era. The era we are still grappling with.

It holds significance that he was born in 1965 in Otuabagi, the community where the first commercial-scale oil well was drilled in Nigeria.

Residing at his Nun Riverbank hometown of Gbarantoru, he also survived the great flood of 1969 as well as the deadly wave of fierce fighting that enveloped Ekpetiama Kingdom during the Nigerian civil war on account of the cut-throat contest to control the crude oil resource fields in the Niger Delta.

Shortly after the war in 1970, he lived with his father and siblings at the residential quarters of Nigeria’s pioneer petroleum refining company (NPRC) at Alesa Eleme in Rivers State where his father was then a brand-new post-civil war employee.

Oblivious of the danger posed by exposed oil pipelines, he – like other children – daily walked the four-kilometre-long distance to and from his Ibuluya-Dikibo State Primary School, Okrika, Rivers State, on those naked big oil pipelines. From the back of his school, he also watched sea-going massive oil tankers as they shipped petroleum from the refinery jetty near his school at the Okrika peninsular to the western world.

Aside from being exposed early to the messy realities of the oil industry in Nigeria, while they were still dripping fresh at Ogbia, he was equally exposed to the works of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr in his teens. The works and fate of early African nationalists, like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, Nelson Mandela, and Steve Beko, helped to reinforce his pan-Africanist disposition into rock solid concrete.

Living in the Ekpetiama community of Gbarantoru, virtually within a 500-metre radius of the Renaissance Consortium - operated onshore multi-billion-dollar Central Processing Facility/Field Logistic Base (CPF/FLB) that produces over 60,000 barrels of crude oil equivalent of gas daily, with an extremely tall projected gas flare which spews large volumes of poisonous gases into the atmosphere since 2008. He has been a witness to life as a nauseating noxious affair in Ekpetiama kingdom and the rest of Bayelsa State.

Amongst several educational accomplishments, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Chemical Engineering, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education, and a Master of Arts degree in Terrorism, International Crime, and Global Security. He is an alumnus of the Nigeria Defence Academy, NDA, Kaduna, and the University of Port Harcourt, both in Nigeria, as well as Coventry University, England. He is a Director of the New York-based International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation, ICERM, and Chairman of its World Elders’ Forum. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators of Nigeria, and an awardee of the Institute of Peace, United States of America.

Prior to becoming Ibenanaowei, he served in the Nigerian military, taught at the University of Port Harcourt Demonstration Secondary School, UDSS, served in government offices as the pioneer Director of Ethics and Compliance in the Due Process and E-governance Bureau of Bayelsa State, and pioneer Technical Assistant to the first Executive Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, Abuja.

He is a passionate environmental and human rights activist. A founding member of the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, and the Ogbia Study Group, OSG, an intellectual partner of the Ijaw struggle for resource control from the late 1990s. He is the founder of the Nun River Keepers Organisation, a community-based organisation whose objective is to protect one of the most historically significant rivers in the world – the Nun River and its environment. With great optimism, he advocates for a Nigeria free of oil and gas pollution, and manages its oil resources equitably.

He is married to Her Royal Majesty, Queen Timinipre Bubaraye Dakolo, Igirigi I of the Universe, nee Ogiriki, an exceptionally beautiful and loving Ijaw woman. They have two lovely children.

His Royal Majesty identifies as a proud black African with an enduring love for his family, his people, music, reading, writing, learning and teaching.

Busisiwe Mazibuko is a South African theatre practitioner based in Pretoria. She studied Dance, Music & Drama at Usuthu Arts Productions. Known for her versatility, she began her decade-long career as a performer but has since pivoted to writing, directing and arts leadership, serving as an adjudicator at various talent competitions, and coordinating the Siyazikhakhazisa Theatre Festival.

She is also the Founder and CEO of Inkaba Creative Art House, a theatre company. Their award-winning plays have been staged in various South African theatres, and at arts and cultural festivals across Africa.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/busisiwe.mazibuko.9256/

Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of speculative fiction, romance and YA. She is part of the Sauútiverse Collective, which created a shared universe for Afrocentric speculative fiction, and Petlo Literary Arts, a creative writing organisation in Botswana. She has published several novels, short stories and novellas in various genres, including speculative fiction and romance. Her Sauútiverse novella Songs for the Shadows was published in 2024 by Atthis Arts and her short story collection Black Friday and Other Stories from Africa was published in 2025 by Flame Tree Publishing.

Photo Credit: Victor Adewale

Chiké Frankie Edozien began his journalism career reading the news bulletins at the Nigerian boarding school Federal Government College, Port Harcourt from 1981-1986. While studying for a journalism degree in New York, he was part of the BET News team that covered the 1992 Democratic National convention that culminated in Bill Clinton’s nomination for president of the United States.

Edozien assumed the leadership of NYU’s Africa campus as the Global Site Director of New York University Accra. He was worked to significantly increase enrollment and created multiple pathways for undergraduates to study in Ghana as well as convening conferences in Ghana for scholars to center Africa in their research.

Credit:www.edozien.net

Christa Kuljian is a Johannesburg-based writer who has focused on issues of social justice. She is the author of three books of narrative nonfiction – Sanctuary (Jacana 2013) is about poverty, migration, and the refugee crisis at Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg. Darwin’s Hunch: Science, Race and the Search for Human Origins (Jacana 2016) was short listed for the Alan Paton Prize and the NIHSS prize for nonfiction. And Our Science, Ourselves: How Gender, Race and Social Movements Shaped the Study of Science (University of Massachusetts Press 2024) is about a network of feminist scientists in the Boston area in the US in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Christa grew up in the Boston area, and has lived in Johannesburg for over thirty years. From 1992-2003, Christa was the Director of the C. S. Mott Foundation’s South Africa office, which supported legal rights and paralegal organisations, women’s organisations, and the NGO sector. Currently, Christa is a Research Associate at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) at Wits University. She was a Ruth First Fellow in 2010 and gave the Steve Biko Lecture on Bioethics in 2023. She has published in many publications including Botsotso, City Press, New Contrast, Social Dynamics, African Studies, the South African Journal of Science, The Times, the Mail and Guardian, Daily Maverick, the Johannesburg Review of Books and The Conversation Africa. In addition to her undergraduate degree in the History of Science from Harvard (1984), she holds a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton (1989) and an MA in Writing from the University of the Witwatersrand (2007).

Christopher Armoh is a Ghanaian poet and cultural storyteller. He holds a B.A in English from KNUST, where he graduated in 2022. His work explores identity, culture, social consciousness, nature, and sustainability.

In 2025, he won the Adinkra Poetry Prize. His writing has appeared in Brittle Paper, and his poems “Focus on Africa” and “Negro” feature in Of Voices and Movements, an anthology by KNUST’s English Department. “Focus on Africa” is studied by second-year students.

He hosts the Take Um So Podcast and founded BOYS & BOOKS, a literacy-focused book club launched in December 2024 and active since January 2025.

Ciaran Gaffney, or Gaff as he is more commonly known is the founder of the global storytelling collective, Seanchoíche. He lives in London, and spends a lot of time in between Ireland and the UK when he isn't travelling overseas. Crossfitter, runner (when he isn't spraining an ankle), big film and music head, and loves a good coffee and a good book. Fluent in English, Irish, Spanish and French. Learning Portuguese.

Cindy Selasi Humade is a passionate writer, editor, and storyteller who recently completed her degree in English and Political Science at the University of Ghana. Her stories explore belief, grief, and the small bits of humour that hides in pain. Readers describe her writing as beautifully sad, deeply emotional, and effortlessly relatable.

She currently works with Silent Beads and leads her own creative storytelling brand, Creaty Cindy. Though often called a “sad storyteller,” Cindy finds joy in using words to stir emotion: to make people laugh, cry, and most of all, see themselves reflected in her stories.

C. M. Govender is a British-South African writer based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Her work explores faith, identity and belonging with a particular focus on fantasy fiction. Her practice in informed by a broad engagement in culture and she has worked with Manchester International Festival, Bradford Literature Festival, and Yorkshire Festival of Story.

Crystal Tettey is a Malagasy-Ghanaian polyglot whose art often manifests in poetry, music, performance, advocacy, and activism.

She is currently a Consulting Editor for Tar Baby, a new literary and cultural journal published by the Toni Morrison Foundation.

Her podcast, CURATING DREAMS | A Creative's Podcast, documents conversations with leading artists and human rights advocates from Africa and the Black Diaspora.

Crystal currently runs a year-long wellness series—yello —that offers conversations and community, live soul-filled music, and wellness gifts that include free massages and free holistic foods. All events of this wellness series are free to attend.

Daniel Dazam is an actor, theatre director, and performing arts teacher with a Bachelor of Theatre Arts degree from the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Education, Winneba. He has featured in many theatrical productions and has won awards such as Best Actor on Stage for three consecutive times in the Department of Theatre Arts (UEW). Some notable productions include: The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, Firestorm, Medicine For Love, Iredi War, and The Placenta of Death, amongst others.

He featured in theatrical play reading performances at Pa Gya (a literary festival in Accra) 2022-2024, playing as an actor in His Only Wife, Changes, a Love Story, and Nearly All the Men in Accra Are Mad (an adaptation of Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad), all directed by Alice Johnson (Director, Foundspace Production).

Daniel has also directed stage plays such as Dasebre, The Exodus, and Guilty?. As Director of Legacy Kreatives Consult, he organized three editions of the Legacy- Students Theatre Festival, empowering students and communities, promoting arts and positive social change.

Dr Demi Priscilla Letsa is a Ghanaian global health professional, author, and founder of Legacy 28 Press. With over 18 years of experience in health systems strengthening, program design, and strategic leadership, she has led multimillion-dollar USAID-funded initiatives in Ghana, the United States and Haiti focusing advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, improving access to quality care for women and adolescents, and shaping health systems that respond to the needs of vulnerable populations.

Over the past decade, Dr Demi has led and contributed to cutting edge research, national policy dialogues, and global health initiatives across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.

Dr Demi has worked with institutions such as the Population Council, Total Family Health Organization, USAID, GIZ, KOICA, UNFPA, the World Bank, to name a few, providing technical leadership, driving advocacy and mentoring the next generation of public health professionals. Her career spans pivotal leadership roles where she built and managed teams, advised national ministries of health, and advanced gender equity and sustainability across health programs.

A trained scientist, Demi holds a PhD in Public Health from the University of Ghana, a Masters degree in Global Health and Policy from Boston University, and a Bachelor’s of Science in Microbiology and Immunology from the California State University, Sacramento.

She has held Visiting Scholar Faculty positions at Penn State University School of Medicine and at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, both in the United States of America. Presently she is adjunct faculty at the University of Ghana School of Public Health and the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene where she practicalizes principles of global health for Masters students.

In 2020, after a season of personal and professional transformation, Demi embraced her lifelong love of storytelling and began her creative writing journey. As we all know, her debut novel, The 28th February House —a sweeping historical fiction rooted in Ghana’s colonial legacy. She launched her imprint, Legacy 28 Press, to spotlight African stories that interrogate our identity, and the complexity of belonging.

Demi is a passionate advocate for equity and a gender-balanced Ghana. When she isn’t busy with all these amazing things, Dr Demi can be found reading, correcting someone’s English, drinking coffee or dreaming up lavish vacations she is yet to take.

Denoo Edinam Yawo is a Ghanaian poet and writer whose work delves into themes of the body, the politics of language, spirituality, and faith at the intersection of living. She is a 2025 Black Atlantic Residency Fellow, the 2024 Second Runner- Up and the 2025 First Runner-Up of the Adinkra Poetry Prize. She is also a recipient of the 2025 DUAPA Mentorship Program. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Kalahari Review, Akpata Magazine, Akowdee Magazine and others.

Direi Masenya is a South African actor based in Pretoria. His journey in the performing arts began in 2020 when he landed his first role in the stage play Ke Mosadi So What. Since then, he has performed in various radio drama, theatre, film and TV productions.

In addition, Direi is the current Monologue Festival Champion at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), where he is enrolled as a final-year student. He takes pride in showcasing cultural diversity through his artistic work. Guided by his personal motto, “Keep showing up, and God will keep showing off,” Direi continues to pursue excellence and authenticity in his craft.

TikTok: @masenya_direi

Dirk Skiba is a German photographer who has been focusing on international authors for more than ten years. He persistently attempts to explore and break through the boundaries of a primarily commercial genre, as his aim is to create valid and artistic portraits of authors. Unlike other author photographers, he undertakes extensive travels to meet authors in their familiar surroundings. Over the years, he has created around 1,700 portraits, which are made available to the public in one of the largest archives of authors portraits worldwide.

In his photo book “The poem and its double”, he presents one hundred German-speaking poets who accompany their photographs with their own literary self-portraits. This concept, contrasting the photographer's view from the outside with comments from the subjects themselves, was widely acclaimed. Following the publication of the photo book, six solo exhibitions were held in German-speaking countries.

In recent years, Skiba has begun to explore Africa. After photography trips to Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania, he is excited to discover the diverse literary voices of Ghana.

Divine Fiave is an architectural designer and the Owner of Da-Vine Haven an architectural firm.

He is a member of Found Space Production and has performed in various dramatised readings, such as “Changes, a love story” and “Nearly all the men in Accra are mad!”

He is a singer, voiceover actor, spoken word artist and loves everything about creativity and performance.

Dr Dora Abra Egblewogbe graduated from the University of Ghana Medical School in 2005. She had her post graduate training in Family Medicine and is a Fellow of the West African College of Physicians.

She is the current acting head of The Trust Hospital Company Limited, Osu and training coordinator for Family medicine at both the TTH and Greater Accra Regional Hospitals. She is passionate about providing patient -centred care to clients, research and loves to teach the rudiments of family medicine to residents and medical students.

She loves to write in her spare time and has a wide collection of material ranging from poetry and short stories to devotionals and commentaries on pertinent national issues. She loves to listen to and make music, play the guitar, read and admire and capture scenes of nature through photography.

Eastwind-Blessmann Jewell is known in the creative space as Jewell King-Speaks. Jewell is a dynamic and passionate spoken word artist from Ghana and he has won ten poetry slams in the country. He was the first to represent Ghana in the World Poetry Slam and he is known for captivating audiences with powerful performances that blend storytelling, social commentary, and cultural expression. Jewell has performed internationally across West Africa and beyond to amplify the voices of the marginalized and connect communities through art. He is also the co-founder of Back2kcab poetry and rhetoric orchestra.

Edem Torkornoo is the Founder and Reader-in-Chief at Booksie, a pan-African education company on a mission to make African children's books easily accessible and to help children fall in love with reading. Booksie does this in three ways: an online children’s bookshop that curates African books for 0-18-year-olds, a literacy programme for 3-12 year-olds and page to stage theatre productions that families love.

Prior to Booksie, she served as a Communications Teaching Fellow at MEST-Africa where she taught and mentored aspiring software entrepreneurs communications for business and how to pitch. She was also on the Founding Team at the African Leadership University (ALU) in Mauritius and built the university’s digital media presence.

When she’s not reviewing lesson plans or new books for the bookshop, Edem loves to read African fiction, try out new eateries in Accra or watch a good crime drama.

Edwige Dro is a writer, literary translator (English and French) and literary curator from Côte d’Ivoire. Her fiction, articles, translations and creative nonfiction have been widely published in Africa, the United Kingdom and North America. As a curator, Edwige works at the intersections of literature, feminist literary productions and art.

Edwige has been jury member of prizes like the Caine Prize for African Writing, the PEN International Short Story Prize and on the advisory boards of organizations such as the PEN/HEIM Translation Fund, Culturescapes and the African Book Festival.

Edwige is a 2014 Africa39 laureate, a 2019 Miles Morland Fellow, and a 2021 Writing Fellow of the Iowa International Writing Program.

In 2020, she founded 1949: the library of women's writings from Africa and the black world focused on feminist and women-led decolonial practices, knowledge production and democratization, in Abidjan.

Efo Dela is a Computer Engineer with over a decade of experience working on Digital Inclusion in the International Development sector.

He's also an avid reader and sometimes poet and sometimes satirist.

Eline Gadegbeku is a 13-year-old student, writer, and literacy advocate. A student at Ghana International School, Eline writes for The Voice, the school’s newsletter, and serves as a youth columnist for Business & Financial Times (B&FT), one of Ghana’s leading national newspapers. She is also the founder of Titanic Beach Readers, a community reading program she started to help children in her neighborhood develop a love for books.

Passionate about storytelling, empathy, and self-expression, Eline uses her writing to share her thoughts and experiences from a young person’s perspective—speaking to both children and adults with honesty, curiosity, and hope.

Elizabeth Patterson is a Ghanaian disability advocate, author, and founder of the Girls Education Initiative of Ghana (GEIG).

After a near-fatal car accident in 2003 that left her with a traumatic brain injury, she turned her recovery into a mission to champion inclusive education and disability awareness.

Founded GEIG in 2013 to support disadvantaged girls, especially those with special needs.

Author of My Life After Death, a memoir challenging assumptions about disability and resilience. Recognized internationally as a leading voice for disability inclusion and education equity.

Elizabeth is also the host of Ability Talks, a podcast centered on disability advocacy and storytelling. Through the show, she amplifies voices and sparks conversations on resilience, inclusion, and social impact.

Eloghosa Osunde is a maker and artist whose work spans multiple disciplines from text-based art to film, brand consulting to visual art, theatre to creative curation and beyond. Winner of the Museum of African Diaspora's African Literary Award (2023), the Plimpton Prize for Fiction (2021), an ASME Award for Fiction (2022), they are the author of two widely celebrated novels: NECESSARY FICTION which has been lauded by almost thirty of the world’s top publications since its July 2025 release and VAGABONDS! which was a New York Times' Editors Choice, New Yorker Best Book of The Year, and has remained an unrelenting bestseller in Nigeria since its publication three years ago. A finalist for the Edmund White Prize For Fiction, the Nnomo Awards for Best Novel, the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, a top three finalist for the VCU Capbell Prize; longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize and the Nota Bene Prize, a NoName Book Club Pick, a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick and a Foyles Book Of The Month, Eloghosa has also worked with global brands from Orange Culture to Victoria’s Secret, crafting a custom monologue for supermodel Naomi Campbell. Eloghosa is an alumna of the Lambda Literary Workshop (2019), New York Film Academy (2017), the Caine Prize Workshop (2018), the Purple Hibiscus Trust Workshop (2015). Named one of the 100 most influential Africans (2022), Eloghosa's writing has appeared in multiple publications including Paris Review, Granta, Gulf Coast, Georgia Review, DAZED, Guernica, Lithub, Catapult, Berlin Quarterly and their visual art exhibited across three continents so far.

Emmanuel Papa Quansah is a Ghanaian poet born and raised in Takoradi, Ghana. He holds a Bachelor of Education (Arts) in English with History from the University of Cape Coast, where he also served as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of English. His poetry draws on personal experiences and extends to explore themes such as postcolonial memory, intergenerational trauma, religion, gender, etc. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in notable journals, including Kalahari Review, Rigorous, Spillwords Press, Literary Yard, and All Poetry. His poems, "Echoes of the Chain" and "Meditation on the Coast," first published in Rigorous, have also appeared in the maiden edition of the Ghana Poetry Festival Anthology. He was a finalist for the 2025 Adinkra Poetry Prize and a fellow of the Sprinng Writers Fellowship (9th Cohort).

Papa believes in the transformative power of poetry to create a safer and more just world, making it a better place. When not writing, he enjoys reading African fiction and engaging with political discourse. Connect with him on X (formerly Twitter) @_Sagalin.

Empi Baryeh is a Ghanaian author of sweet and sensual African, multicultural, and interracial romance and women's fiction. She was born in Liberia to Ghanaian parents and considers herself an honorary citizen of her country of birth. She spent the first thirteen years of her life living in various African countries, including Liberia, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Her interest in writing started around the age of thirteen after she stumbled upon a Young Adult story her sister had started and abandoned.

The story fascinated her so much that, when she discovered it was unfinished, she knew she had to complete it. Somehow, the rest of the story began to take shape in her mind. Although she never completed that story, it marked the beginning of her future writing career.

When she is not writing, she likes to spend time with her family, read, listen to music, and catch up on TV series. Her published novels include: Most Eligible Bachelor (2012, 2020), Chancing Faith (2012), Forest Girl (2018), His Inherited Princess (2018), Expecting Ty's Baby (2019), Unwrapping Hanie and The Illegitimate Prince (2021).

Empi has won several awards and recognition for her novels, including 1st prize in the Novel Category for The Illegitimate Prince in the 2023 Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) Literary Awards. In 2018, she won 3 rd prize in the same category with her book, Chancing Faith. She has also won the Ufere Awards Book of the Year for Most Eligible Bachelor and Expecting Ty's Baby.

Academic Experience

Teaching: Esi Sutherland-Addy is retired associate professor of African Studies at the University of Ghana and Adjunct Professor at the New York University Study Centre in Accra. She has been visiting lecturer at Manchester University, University of Indiana (Bloomington) as well as Birmingham University. She has also taught at L’Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Sutherland was Academic Associate Director of the African Humanities Program of the American Council for Learned Societies.

Research: Her main research interests are: written and oral Literature, women’s literature as well as educational and cultural policy. Her current research projects are a) Oral Traditions and Expressive Diversity involving the collection and digitization of Ghanaian Oral Traditions and b) Archiving the works and papers of Efua Sutherland. She is also oversees the Willis Bell Photographic Archive.

Other Professional Experience: Sutherland-Addy was Deputy Minister for Tourism and Culture (1986) and Higher Education (1986-1993) in the Republic of Ghana. She has undertaken consultancies with the World Bank, UNESCO , She has also served on several national and international boards including Ghana Commercial Bank, Open Society for West Africa, West African Civil Society Institute, the Commonwealth of Learning, and the Board of Trustees of the Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. the W.E.B. DuBois Centre for Pan African Culture; the Ghana Education Service Council, the National Development Planning Commission and the Media Commission. Between 2020 and 2024 ,she served on the Cultural Policy Review Committee and the Steering Committees of the Year of Return and Beyond the Return Initiatives. She currently chairs Afram Publications Ghana and is a subscriber of Star Ghana.

Selected Technical Papers and Publications

Work in Civil Society: Her work in civil society cuts across the arts, children, girl’s education, the development of urban child-friendly spaces, civil society management and capacity building.She is the immediate past chair of the Ghana Chapter of the Forum for African Women Educationalists .She was pioneering Co-Convener of the Ghana Culture Forum and is currently on the boards of Mmofra Foundation and the Forum of African Women Educationalists (Ghana) . She is a Subscriber of Star Ghana and chairs the Board of International Trustees of the PANAFEST Foundation. Her awards include Honorary Fellow of the College of Preceptors, UK, Honorary Dr of Letters, University of Education, Winneba, Excellence in Distance Learning from the Commonwealth of Learning, Ghana Civil Service Recognition Award for Meritorious services Rendered to Ghana Civil Service and the People of Ghana, and Tourism Icon from the Ghana Tourism Authority.

Esther Davis Eshun is a stage actor and entrepreneur based in Accra, who flourishes in bringing stories to life through live performance. Holding a degree in Theatre from the University of Education and also a 4 time performer at “Pa Gya” she is known for her expressive energy on stage.

Offstage, she channels her creativity into entrepreneurship, building meaningful ventures that reflects her artistic spirit.

Famia Nkansa is a writer and communications consultant whose work spans multiple genres. Her poetry collection Sabbatical was commissioned for the 2017 New Generation of African Poets Boxset, edited by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes. Her non-fiction essays have been published in journals worldwide, including As-Us Journal, The Sonder Review, and the Writer’s Project of Ghana Anthology The Sea Has Drowned the Fish. Her short stories have appeared in Fiction International, the 5th FEMRITE anthology Nothing to See Here, and Payback and Other Stories: An Anthology of African and African Diaspora Short Stories. She is currently working on multiple projects, including a novel about African women, lizards, love and madness; and a narrative nonfiction book about a community of kayayei in Railways, an urban slum next to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle.

I am a Ghanaian-Beninese poet and storyteller, fluent in English and French, and a graduand of the University of Ghana, Legon. I am also a member of the poetry community, IANJAP — I Am Not Just Another Poet. Beyond writing and performing, I love exploring creativity through crocheting, a skill I picked up out of curiosity.

Fernando Alvarado Valenzuela holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), during which he participated in an academic exchange at the University of Copenhagen. He later obtained a Master’s degree in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies from King’s College London, and has completed additional diplomas in human rights, history, and Latin American studies.

He began his professional career at the London-based political risk and security consultancy Allan & Associates, before serving as Advisor to the Undersecretary of Hydrocarbons at Mexico’s Ministry of Energy. He joined the Mexican Foreign Service in 2015 and has been posted to the embassies of Mexico in Jamaica, Colombia, and Ghana.

Since 2023, Mr. Alvarado has served as Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Mexico in Accra.

Francine Petrina Mamaa Kwarley Clerk (AJESO) is a Ghanaian screenwriter, playwright, and emerging film director whose work blends African folklore, grief, and womanhood into visually striking arthouse narratives. Based in Accra, she has written numerous plays staged by production houses such as Agape Arts Production and Konko Band, and produced two audio plays now streaming on Spotify. In 2021, her short film screenplay Mother’s Day was ranked among the top ten in the Ghana Film Foundation’s maiden screenwriting competition.

Currently pursuing an MPhil in African Studies at the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies, Ajeso draws inspiration from African oral traditions, Indian and Korean cinema, Japanese anime, and the music of Angélique Kidjo and Sona Jobarteh. "The Widow’s Dance", her directorial debut, continues her exploration of emotionally charged, culturally rooted stories. She cites Femi Osofisan, Peggy Oppong, and Girish Karnad as creative mentors, and aspires to one day lead Ghana to a historic win at the Oscars.

Frederick Emile Bondzie-Arthur is a Senior Software and Data Engineer at Fido, where he builds large-scale data systems, data applications and machine learning platforms that serve millions of users across Africa. With over half a decade of experience spanning fintech, e-commerce, and proptech, he has designed pipelines (batch, streaming and microbatch), backend applications, KYC & Scoring systems, orchestrated ML operations, and led engineering teams and projects to deliver products that expand access to finance and power digital growth.

Outside of engineering, Frederick serves as a Technology Liason. He focuses on onboarding, fostering team energy and culture and representing R&D in Ghana in global discussions. This combination of technical expertise and people leadership highlights his capacity to connect systems, teams, and ideas.

Beyond fintech, Emile also consults for Selar, one of Africa's leading creator-commerce platforms. There, he has built data pipelines, analytics systems, and insights dashboards that serve hundreds of thousands of merchants and affiliates—helping storytellers, writers, and digital entrepreneurs better understand their audiences and scale their creative businesses.

Emile is passionate about exploring the evolving relationship between technology and society, particularly as artificial intelligence reshapes how ideas are written, shared, discovered and implemented. He believes AI, when used thoughtfully, can be a powerful companion for all — unlocking new possibilities while keeping authenticity at the heart.

He is also a committed mentor, having guided aspiring engineers through Trestle Academy, FestMan Learning, and Data Science Buddy. He has spoken in communities such as GDG and IndabaX.

Image Credit: Steve Morris

Fui Can-Tamakloe is a fiction author, audio dramatist, and screenwriter based in Accra, Ghana. He is the co-author of Made in Ghana: A Collection of Short Stories, and has also written four children's books. Fui also co-wrote the audio drama Goodbye Gold Coast, and wrote They Have Drowned Our Land. His work has been featured in print and online publications. Fui writes in both English and Ghanaian Pidgin. He enjoys cold beers, great books, and traveling.

Dr. G. Edzordzi Agbozo is an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His research contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate connections between science, technology, culture, and communication. His poems have been published in the Journal of the Writers Project of Ghana, Kalahari Review, Dunes Review, Oakland Review, and elsewhere, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2019.

Gheysika Agambila is the author of the novels Journey, Emigrant and the children's books Solma and Nature Stories. He is also the author of three plays: The Mad Man of Bolga, Neighbours and Oh God, Give Me Another Life. He is also the author of The Shrinking Bowl, Bolga by Bus, and others.

Dr Gheysika Adombire Agambila was educated in Navrongo and Achimota Secondary School. He then continued his education in the USA at the Brandeis University (B.A.), University of Rochester, (M.B.A.) and New York University (Ph.D.). After working for many years in the USA, he returned to Ghana.

Dr Agambila has been a Deputy Minister of State in the Ghanaian government serving in the Finance and Economic Planning, Harbours and Railways, and Science and Environment Ministries. He was a Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School and Senior Lecturer of Public Finance at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), and worked in financial consultancy services in Seirra Leone and for the National Development Planning Commsion of Ghana. He was a member of Ghana’s Constitutional Review Implementation Committee. He has also been a Treasurer and Vice President of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW).

Winner of Poetry Magazine’s J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize, Henneh Kyereh Kwaku was born in Gonasua and raised in Drobo in the Bono Region of Ghana. He has received fellowships from the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD), Chapman University, and the Carolyn Moore Writing Residency. He is an interdisciplinary scholar with a Bachelor of Public Health (Disease Control), an MA in Health Education, an MFA in Creative Writing, and is pursuing a PhD with an emphasis in Health and Culture. His (public) health communication scholarship explores art-based approaches to addressing medical mistrust and vaccine hesitancy in Black populations. He’s the author of Revolution of the Scavengers (African Poetry Book Fund/Akashic Books, 2020) and the founder/host of the Church of Poetry. His poems/essays have appeared or are forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets’ A-Poem-A-Day, Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, World Literature Today, Air/Light Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, Poetry Society of America, Lolwe, Agbowó, CGWS, Olongo Africa, 20:35 Africa & elsewhere. He shares memes on Twitter/Instagram at @kwaku_kyereh.

Hondred Percent (born Paul Forjoe Jnr) is a spoken word artist, rapper, and cultural curator from Ghana whose work bridges creativity, performance, and community empowerment. Known as The Poet Rapper, he first made his mark on Ghana’s creative scene in 2011, fusing poetry and rap into a unique form of hip hop expression that continues to shape his artistry today.

Drawing inspiration from artists such as Jay Z (US), Worlasi (GH), Stogie T(ZA), Saul Williams (US), and even the iconic Mufasa (KE); Hondred Percent delivers performances that are rhythmic, thought-provoking, and engaging. His talent has earned him recognition on both national and international stages. He is a two-time overall winner of the Ehalakasa Slam (2014 & 2015), released his debut hip hop album WTF? in 2017, and published his first poetry collection Lorgorligi Locomotion: A Logologo Collection of Poems in 2021. Over the years, he has performed in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.

Beyond his work as a performer, Hondred Percent plays a vital role in Ghana’s poetry ecosystem. He is the Founder and Creative Director of Lorgorligi Locomotion, a cultural platform curating experiences in poetry and comedy. For the past two years, he has hosted Verse & Vibe, a monthly open mic at Kukun, Osu, and in 2025 he launched Sage Poetry, an initiative dedicated to curating Ghanaian poetry through live events and digital archiving. He also co-manages Ghana’s longest-running comedy club, Comedy Bar, alongside comedian James Brown.

A past President of the Poetry Association of Ghana, Hondred Percent designed and manages the association’s official website. Whether performing, facilitating, or curating, he continues to champion spaces that celebrate creativity and empower communities through the power of words.

Ivana Akotowaa Ofori is a Ghanaian storyteller. She is a weaver of words in many forms, including fiction, non-fiction and spoken-word poetry. An alumna of the Clarion West writing workshop, Akotowaa has been shortlisted for various awards, including the Miles Morland Writing Fellowship. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as Tor.com’s Africa Risen, Clinamen Editions’ Daring Shifts, and Flame Tree Publishing’s African Ghost Short Stories and Anansi. Her debut novella, The Year of Return, was published in 2024 by Android Press (USA) and Smartline Publishers (Ghana). The German language translation, Das Jahr der Rückkehr, was published in 2025 by InterKontinental. She was the curator of the 2025 African Book Festival in Berlin, themed “In Other Wor(l)ds”

Jacob A. Osae is an award-winning poet, screenwriter, and author writing in the genre of sci-fi and fantasy. His books include Oaks of Definition, A Walking Rainbow The Raven DNA: Origins and DNA: Alterhumans. Jacob is also also a science communicator and educator based in Accra, with a background in physics from the University of Ghana.

JayJay D. Segbefia, born in May 1982, is the author of Inviolable, Eat Not My Wife, and the Executive Hallucination series: Gods of War, Brains & Nerves, and Wheels of Justice. He is West Africa’s leading outdoor adventure operative. He runs a lacustrine, mountaineering and outdoor adventure guiding company in Ghana, his home country. He is a Mandela Washington Fellow of the US Government’s YALI Programme and an AGYLE Alumnus, the German government programme that seeks to strengthen African-German dialogue for cross-border economic cooperation.

JayJay trained as a journalist at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, now an Institute of the University of Media, Arts & Communication in Accra. He is an International Business scholar of the University of Ghana. When he isn’t running the jungle, he writes novels.

Jedidiah Henaku-Budu is a multidisciplinary creative thinker with interests spanning poetry, technology, and personal growth. Currently a student and an avid debater, he blends analytical rigor with emotional insight in his work. He’s committed to continuous learning, self-discipline, and meaningful expression across both digital and artistic domains.

Image Credit: Mark Hilringhouse

Jeffery Renard Allen is the award-winning author of six books of fiction and poetry, including the celebrated novel Song of the Shank, which was a front-page review in both The New York Times Book Review and The San Francisco Chronicle. Allen’s other accolades include the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for Fiction, The Chicago Public Library’s Twenty-First Century Award, the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, a grant from Creative Capital, a Whiting Writers'; Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, a NYFA grant, residencies at the Bellagio Center, Ucross, The Hermitage, VCCA, Monson Arts, and Jentel Arts, and fellowships at The Center for Scholars and Writers, the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He was a finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Allen is the founder and editor of Taint Taint Taint magazine and is the Africa Editor for The Evergreen Review. His latest books are the short story collection Fat Time and the memoir An Unspeakable Hope, the latter co-authored with Leon Ford. Allen is at work on several projects, including a memoir entitled Mother-Wit, a book of poems called No Borders, and the short story collection Try Me. Allen makes his home in Johannesburg and New York. Find out more about him at www.writerjefferyrenardallen.com.

Jessilyn Sulemana Stevenson is a medical doctor and currently resident psychiatrist. Since childhood she has always enjoyed the literary arts and recently discovered that she could write — poetry, but also, really short stories for kids, articles for the Melody Bulletin and research papers.

She draws inspiration from various sources, but especially from the style of poet “ATTICUS”.

She also loves nature especially the sky, moon and water.

She aspires to grow in the literary craft while establishing her own niche, and to make an impact in the field of writing.

Judith Opoku-Boateng is the head of the University of Ghana Archives (University Archivist), where she leads the development and coordination of the University’s archival systems. Until her nomination, she served as Senior Archivist and researcher at the Institute of African Studies, where she directed groundbreaking work in audiovisual and cultural heritage preservation. Her research and public engagements explore archival activism, community memory, restitution, and the Living Archives project, which bridges oral history and performance. A former Vice President of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA), Judith’s work continues to inspire dialogue on memory, identity, and the future of African heritage.

Katiuska Quiñones, known artistically as Kati Qui, is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist, poet, author, storyteller, and puppeteer from Curaçao. Her work explores the delicate balance between innocence and sensuality, weaving playfulness with emotional depth.

Kati began writing poems, stories, and theater scripts at the age of twelve and made her stage debut at fourteen. At nineteen, she co-organized her first poetry night, Entre Shelu i Tera (2009), blending poetry with live music. Over the years, her artistic journey expanded across poetry, visual art, and puppetry. In 2018, she founded Teater di Pòpchi Maletin, where she brings her handmade puppets—called Quiuppets—to life through storytelling performances that merge light, movement, and imagination.

Her written work appears in Potpuri Arte di Palabra, Creative Contradictions, Kaba ta Kuminsá, Esta’un Dushi Kabesura!, and most recently in Esaki sí t’un aventura! (2025). In 2025, she also debuted Poetry Undressed, an 18+ performance combining erotic poetry and puppetry. Her current project, Enchanting Threads, is a multidisciplinary puppet documentary and live performance series celebrating creativity, healing, and connection.

Kati believes that stories—like threads—can weave understanding across cultures, inspiring audiences of all ages to rediscover wonder.

Keilah Taylor is a twelve-year old form two student of Ghana International School. She is an avid reader with a strong passion for writing. Aside from writing for her school’s newsletter, 'The Voice', Keilah has a number of manuscripts on fiction and a published book titled The Ominous Life of a Camp Counsellor.

Away from writing, Miss Taylor loves art, adventure and adrenaline-pumping activities, such as roller coasters and spinning rides. In recent times, she has developed a liking for playing musical instruments – keyboard, saxophone and the French horn. Keilah enjoys participating in literacy-related activities, particularly those designed with the goal of supporting less privileged children.

Kobina Ankomah Graham is a lecturer, writer, cultural researcher, and DJ. A 2020 Miles Morland African Writing Scholar. He has been profiled by the likes of the BBC and Global Voices while his byline has featured in publications including The Guardian, Aperture, and The Africa Report.

His writing leans towards creative non-fiction, but he also explores the mundane through bizarre short stories in places like Litro Magazine and the Writers Project of Ghana anthology, The Sea Has Drowned the Fish. He was a finalist in the 2008 John La Rose Memorial Short Story Competition.

Kobina has an LL.B in Law and an MA in International Studies & Diplomacy, from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He is currently a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Ghana.

http://kobbygraham.com

Kofi Akpabli is a writer, journalist and scholar. He has a number of publications to his credit including Harmattan - a Cultural Profile of Northern Ghana, Tickling the Ghanaian - Encounters with Contemporary Culture, A Sense of Savannah -Tales of a Friendly Walk through Northern Ghana, Romancing Ghanaland - the Beauty of Ten Region, The Prince and the Slave (a PANAFEST Award Winning Play) and JOY: Biography of Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu. He is a two-time winner of the CNN Multichoice African Journalist for Arts and Culture as well as the Ghana Journalist Association best reporter in Arts, Tourism and Culture. He is a fellow of the Tallberg Forum, Sweden; XploreFrankfurt, Germany and the United Nations Department of Public Information, New York and a founding member of the Ghana Cultural Forum.As a scholar, his research areas include Ethnography of Communication, Black Atlantic Studies and Tourism Communication. He teaches courses in Communication Studies at Central University where he also heads the Centre for Creative Expression and Public Advocacy.

Bi-Lingual Poet, literary scholar, educator, cultural activist Kofi Anyidoho is Professor of Literature and Director, CODESRIA African Humanities Institute Programme, University of Ghana. He was the first occupant of the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies; Ag. Director, School of Performing Arts; Head, English Department. Well-known for his unique style of performance-poetry and audio-visual recordings of his poetry in English and Ewe. Has lectured and performed his poetry globally; published several books of poetry, journal articles, book chapters and edited major books on African literature and the humanities.

He was President of the US-based African Literature Association (ALA). Winner of several awards, including the 2015 Millennium Excellence Award (Literature Prize); Le grand Prix de poesie en langue nationale [Ewe], by RICEP Lome, Togo 2012; Distinguished Membership Award for outstanding service to the African Literature Association and for Contributions to Scholarship and Teaching of African Lit (2008); Golden Key of Smederevo Award (Republic of Serbia’s Highest Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry 2022); Fonlon-Nichols Prize of the African Literature Association for Excellence in Poetry (2023).

Notable works of poetry include Elegy for the Revolution (1978); A Harvest of Our Dreams (1984/1985); AncestralLogic and CaribbeanBlues (1992), PraiseSong for The Land (2002); The Place We Call Home (2011). The last three collections come with audio recordings. Two other collections with Audio recordings – GhanaNya and Agbnoxevi – present Anyidoho’s poetry written in Ewe. GhanaNya features Anyidoho as poet and singer with his mother Abla Adidi Anyidoho, a singer-poet in the Anlo-Ewe oral tradition. Anyidoho has also written two plays for children: Akpokplo [in Ewe and English] and The Phone Call (2018). Video recordings of his poetry include He Spoke Truth Quietly; PraiseSong for TheLand, and Through the Stampede into SoulTime, Twin Brother, (English-Serbian bi-lingual selected poems, 2022), Africa, the Sad Tropical Continent-Selected Poems in Korean Translations by Lee Seok Ho, Seoul, 2012; Some of his poems have also been translated into Bengali, Chinese, Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

Kofi holds a PhD in Comparative Literature (Univ of Texas-Austin, 1983); an Honorary Doctorate (University of Glasgow 2022); an Honorary DLitt, (University of Ghana (2023), He is a Fellow and past Vice President (Arts), Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Kossi A. KOMLA-EBRI, a medical doctor and writer born in Togo, has been living in Italy since 1974. He has published several collections of short stories and the novel Neyla (Prato Città Aperta Prize 2019), which has been translated into English, French, and Slovenian.

His book Imbarazzismi was published in France (Embaracismes, Editions Laborintus 2016), in the United States (EmbarRACEments, Bordighera Press 2019), and in Arabic by Q Editions. He published the French short story collection

Avant que tombe la nuit (Editions Continents 2021) and, in English, Home (Bordighera Press 2022).In 2024, he published the poetry collection Neuf lignes pour jaillir du futur with Azur Editions, and in 2025 the novel Là dove il vento cambia (Cosmo Iannone Editore).

He receives the Paul Harris Fellow award from the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International as co-author of the manual “Africa – Illustrated Health Book”.

Winner of the Graphein Prize from the Society of Pedagogy and Writing Didactics in 2009, he is co-founder of El-Ghibli (an online magazine of migration literature), member of international editorial committees, part of the World Language Council of the Dante Alighieri Society, and emeritus president of REDANI (Network of the Black African Diaspora in Italy).

He is a prominent voice in migration literature in Italy. 

His website: www.kossi-komlaebri.net

Kristina Diprose is an emerging writer of short fiction, poetry and plays. She grew up on the Brontë’s favourite stretch of Yorkshire coast and now lives in Saltaire. Her shape-shifting writing explores ecological and mythological themes and our entanglement with the more-than-human world. Her work has appeared in Mslexia, Strix, and Northern Gravy. She won the Oxford Canal Festival poetry competition in 2024 and was a New Northern Poet with Ilkley Literature Festival in 2023. Her debut pamphlet, Thin Spells, published in September 2025 with Black Cat Poetry Press.

Kwabena Okyere is a talented and versatile actor with experience in theatrical performances and film and ads production. He is also a voiceover artist and a lover of puppetry. With a trained background from school , Kwabena has honed his craft through various performances.

Kwabena is dedicated to collaborating with fellow artists to create great and impactful productions.

Kwabena has worked with renowned directors and actors in theatrical productions by Fiifi Coleman productions, Image Bureau, April communications, Africa Arts Network, AIW, Foundspace productions, the National drama company of the National theatre of Ghana and also starred in voice over productions by Farmhouse Productions, innova, and others.

He is currently with the National Drama Company(Abibigromma) at the National Theatre of Ghana and continues on an artistic and creative journey to greater heights.

Kwesi Amoak is the Director of Alumni Engagement & Storyteller In Residence at the Africa-America Institute (AAI), a 72-year old New York based non-profit organisation that bridges Africa and its diaspora. He’s also currently a Mellon PhD Candidate at the Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ghana and as he was a Visiting Postgraduate Researcher at the University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education and Sport.

Kwesi has been a recipient of two Wellcome Trust small grant awards through University of Oxford’s Health Systems Collaborative and the Decolonisation and Global Health Research Exchange Network for his research on the ethics of indigenous healing and intellectual property rights among the Bulsa. And as part of his anthropological research on creativity in education, he recently completed a blacksmithing apprenticeship in Wiaga-Chiok in the Bulsa North district.

Kwesi is also an awardee of the Gurus and Griot Fellowship, an academic accelerator program at the IE University in Madrid, Spain.

Larada Lee-Wallace is an Ohio-born and raised storyteller, writer, reproductive justice practitioner, and advocate committed to decentering white pathology in sexual and reproductive health narratives. As an abortion storyteller and abortion doula, Larada draws from her own multiple abortion experiences to write with honesty and clarity about navigating health care as a Black American and about the broader systems that shape reproductive freedom.

Her writing has appeared on NPR’s It’s Been a Minute and BBC News, and in publications including The Nation, Essence, Elle, Teen Vogue, Rewire News Group, and the UCLA Journal of Gender and Law. In her Essence essay, What My Grandmother’s Death Taught Me About Black Women and HIV Stigma, Larada reflects on her grandmother’s life to examine how racism, stigma, and medical neglect continue to shape Black women’s health outcomes. She is also the curator and editor of Bloom How We Choose: Black Self-Managed Abortion Stories, a printed storytelling collection centering Black voices and abortion autonomy. Across her body of work, Larada uplifts abortion stories too often erased or pathologized—particularly those about self-managed abortion—centering Black resilience, truth-telling, and autonomy.

In her day-to-day work, Larada supports young people and college-age students as they build power through storytelling, campaign design, and advocacy. She develops abortion-centered campaigns, teaches inclusive sex education practices, and creates trainings on self-managed abortion, equipping communities with the knowledge and resources to safely and confidently care for themselves and others. She also writes historically grounded analyses that connect reproductive justice struggles to the larger fight for Black liberation.

Grounded in the belief that storytelling is both a tool for cultural transformation and a practice of collective care, Larada envisions a future where communities most impacted by reproductive injustice define health care, healing, and freedom on their own terms.

Lordina is a Human Resource Manager and a theatre practitioner, and the Managing Director of Foundspace. As a curious student and avid traveler, she draws inspiration from people, places, and performance to create spaces that connect and inspire.

Luke is a writer, broadcaster, historian and anthropologist specialising in Africa. He was born in Ghana and studied Archaeology & Anthropology at St Peter’s College, Oxford where he completed modules on ancient and medieval African history and African anthropology. He’s written for publications including BBC History Magazine and the Financial Times. He wrote and presented the documentary Africa: Written Out of History for History Hit and a podcast series on Mansa Musa for Sony’s This is History with Dan Jones. He was also a main expert contributor to the Netflix docudrama series African Queens: Njinga. He’s shared his expertise in various forums, including Hampton Court, The Rest is History podcast and the Chalke Valley History Festival. In January 2025, Weidenfeld & Nicolson published his debut book, Motherland: A Journey through 500,000 Years of African Culture and Identity.

Dr. Mamadou Abdou Babou Ngom is a Senegalese academic. He earned a doctoral dissertation back in May of 2012 on the fiction of the 2003 Nobel Prize in literature, to wit the South African novelist and essayist J.M.Coetzee. A high-school English teacher by training in a previous incarnation, Dr Ngom has authored a little less than thirty research articles published in such renowned international literary journals as the Canada-based Englisn Language and Literature Studies, the Hong-based Advances in Literary Study, the Sweden-based Cognizance Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, and Criterion: An International Journal in English. On top of that, Dr Ngom has written two novels in English, namely A Streak of Unfulfilled Expectations: Love, Politics, Betrayal (JustFiction Edition December 2018), and No Breathing Room for Rapists (The University of Ghana Printing Printing Press August 2024). Dr. Ngom's most important current research investigation project is an essay on the gender-oppression question in postcolonial African women's narratives, with five novels by Anglophone African novelists serving as primary sources. Dr Ngom was hired at the English Department of Cheikh Anta Diop University Dakar in 2016, and since then has been teaching there.

Mamle Kabu is a multi-genre Ghanaian/German writer, born and based in Ghana, who knew from the time she started reading fiction that she wanted to be a writer. Her short stories have been published in various anthologies and journals including Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience (W.W. Norton, 2006) and African Women Writing Resistance: Contemporary Voices (University of Wisconsin Press, 2010). In 2009, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing for her story The End of Skill. Her upcoming, first full-length adult novel is based on this story.

Mamle loves immersing herself in writing communities. She participated in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program in 2014, was a visiting Mellon fellow at the Creative Writing Department of the University of the Witwatersrand in 2023, and is one of the directors of the Writers Project of Ghana (WPG), and co-editor of two WPG anthologies, The Sea has drowned the Fish (2018), and Resilience (2021).

Photo Credit: Josimar Senior / Black Writers' Guild Marcelle Mateki Akita is an author, shortlisted for the 2018 Morland Writing Scholarships, and curator of joyful programmes celebrating African and Black literatures. She produces Bernie Grant Arts Centre’s Tottenham Literature Festival and Apples and Snakes’ SPINE Festival. She previously produced the Royal African Society’s Africa Writes at the British Library, worked with the Caine Prize for African Writing and co-founded Afrikult. Her short fiction is published in journals, and her children’s books are published by Rising Star (Hachette UK). She is completing her first novel and a children’s adventure series. Marcelle is represented by The Seventh Agency.

Michael Donkor studied English at Wadham College, University of Oxford and then undertook a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. The Observer named him as one of the UK's best debut authors for his first novel Hold (4th Estate) and he has been longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. His second novel Grow Where They Fall was published by Penguin in 2024. He regularly reviews for the Guardian.

Miriam Emefa Dzah is a writer, creative director and PhD researcher in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She holds an MPhil in Sociology of Marginality and Exclusion and a BA in Sociology and Political Science. Her research interests include racial capitalism, anti-colonial histories and decolonial feminism. Miriam is passionate about blurring the lines between sociological knowledge production and creative expression through writing and visual art. She co-founded and co-edits Pure Wata Zine.

Miriam Laryea is a Ghanaian actor and creative professional whose work bridges performance, storytelling, and cultural entrepreneurship. She is the founder of Act1 Cinema Productions, a creative house dedicated to producing stage and screen works that interrogate African identity, tradition, and contemporary social issues. She is also a co-writer and critic at literaturestudent.com, where she contributes theatre reviews and analyses of literary works in Ghana and beyond.

Miriam’s academic and artistic interests lie at the intersection of community theatre and performance as social intervention, theatre translation and adaptation, and acting methodologies in intercultural performance. She is also deeply engaged in exploring the use of artificial intelligence in storytelling. Through her YouTube channel, Tales from the African Pot, she employs AI tools to generate visual narratives that retell and reimagine African stories for global audiences.

Modupe Daramola is a lawyer, asset manager, and writer. She is the founder of Noisy Streetss, a start-up dynamic publisher dedicated to publishing young African stories and promoting authentic storytelling. Modupe is also the founder of The Mule, an investment collective aimed at empowering women and increasing their participation in the Nigerian economy and the global financial landscape. Her expertise in finance is further underscored by her CFA Level 1 Certification. Her work explores the intersections of literature, finance, and society, with a focus on justice, storytelling, and financial empowerment. Her love for travel, exploration, and diverse cultures continually inspires her creative and professional endeavours. Her essay, "What is Your Story”: Writing Romance in African Words, has been published in Brittle Paper.

Monica Awinbono Azitariga is a Ghanaian performing arts practitioner with a background in Theatre Arts from the University of Education, Winneba. With a strong passion for storytelling and stage performance, Awinbono has brought life to several celebrated productions, including 'Death and the King’s Horseman', 'Alomo Gyata', 'In the Chest of a Woman', 'one gallon, 4guns' 'catwalk', 'Tarkwa we dey' and 'Our Day'. Blending creativity with skill, Awinbono continues to contribute to Ghana’s vibrant theatre scene, using performance as a tool for expression, culture, and impact.

Mutombo Da Poet is a pioneer and one of the most influential voices in Ghana’s spoken word movement. Since launching his career in 2006, he has performed on renowned stages both in Ghana and internationally. In 2009, he won the inaugural Ehalakasa Poetry Slam and later became a resident poet at ‘Bless Da Mic’, further shaping the country’s spoken word culture. In 2012, he released his debut album, Photosentences, a landmark project in Ghana’s spoken word history. After a creative hiatus, Mutombo returned in 2025 with new work, reaffirming his enduring presence in the art form.

Beyond poetry, he is also an accomplished photographer, filmmaker, and beatmaker.

Dr. Nana Aba Kwenua Pobee is a medical doctor who appreciates both the clinical and non- clinical approaches to medicine and health, advocating for holistic well-being for all at all ages.

She is the Creative Producer and Festival Director of the Accra Arts and Health Festival (a satellite arts and health event in Accra, an international initiative of the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship to advance education, scientific research, and interdisciplinary practice of arts in health, creative art therapy, and community-based art engagements with focus on the Global South) and previously served as the Associate Festival Director of the Global South Arts and Health Week (GSAHW), Ghana Pavilion. She is also a Global Arts in Medicine Fellow and a member of its Council for Arts and Health.

Beyond her involvement in arts and health, she is a co-founder of Biology and STEM Skills (BioSTEMS), an NGO dedicated to bridging the gap between biology theory and practice in public second-cycle institutions in Ghana, equipping science students studying biology with the knowledge and skills for the evolving world of STEM.

Furthermore, she is a member of the Training and Development Team and the Brighter by a Book Project team of the Literacy Impact Programme — an organisation committed to empowering children in literacy, public speaking, critical thinking, and leadership through creative learning.

In addition to her medical practice, Dr. Pobee is an award-winning entrepreneur and a public speaker.

She serves in a number of organisations as a volunteer and a resource person.

Image Credit: Charles Lawson

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah is the author of Seeking Sexual Freedom: African Rites, Rituals and Sankofa in the Bedroom which is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster, and Dialogue Books in March 2026.

Her debut, The Sex Lives of African Women, was described by Publishers Weekly as “an astonishing report on the quest for sexual liberation” in their starred review. It was also listed by The Economist as the best book of the year.

Nana Darkoa is co-founder of Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, a website that publishes and creates content that tells stories of African women’s experiences around sex, sexualities, and pleasure. She is also a podcaster and co-curates an annual festival on sex.

In 2022, she was cited by the BBC in its list of 100 inspirational and influential women from around the world. In 2023, New Africa magazine listed her as one of 100 inspirational Africans.

Dr. Nana Efa Attafua is a real-life pharmacist and a children’s book author who loves helping kidsstay healthy and happy! She’s written two fun books—Everyone Brushes, all about keeping your teeth clean, and Is That Candy?, which teaches kids how to stay safe by not mistaking medicine for sweet treats.

When Dr. Nana Efa isn’t writing stories or helping people feel better, she’s busy traveling between the U.S. and Ghana, spreading health tips and big smiles wherever she goes. She’s also the founder of a group called The Santé Initiative, where she helps girls learn about health and wellness.

Dr. Nana Efa believes learning about your body and how to take care of it should be fun—and she’s here today to share stories, answer your questions, and show you how being healthy is something to be proud of!

Get ready to learn, laugh, and brush up on your health smarts with Dr. Nana Efa!

Nana S. Achampong, author of One Stone, One Bride and a Zombie, was born in Cape Coast, Ghana. He is a lifelong media professional and educator who has practiced in Ghana, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He has written over 30 books covering the different genres of poetry, play, for children, fiction, non-fiction, media, and anthology.

His most recent works of fiction are A Taste of the Serpent’s Kiss, The Mystery of the Treasure Keeper, and Nkyinkyim. Across these distinct yet thematically linked works, Achampong relentlessly probes the lingering challenges of post-independence Africa. He is an unflinching observer of the systemic corruption that permeates society, the often-disillusioning realities of governance, and the intricate dance between deep-rooted traditions and the encroaching forces of modernity. His narratives are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit amidst adversity, the unexpected wellsprings of connection, and the enduring quest for truth and justice.

He currently teaches at the African University of Communications and Business, Accra, where he is also the Director of the Ama Ata Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing, and Head, Department of Creative Practice.

Efe Agyeman is a Ghanaian based photographer. She has dedicated her artistic energy to capturing the African story, navigating through both the scientific and the creative lenses. With a stethoscope by day and a camera in her break time, she highlights her heritage, culture and the amazing personalities she encounters through her camera’s lens, documenting her country’s landscapes and the beautiful lifestyle of her people as they go about their daily journeys.

She lives in Accra, Ghana.

Nelly Ackay Adade -- a Pediatrician, child health advocate, and storyteller passionate about using knowledge as a tool for empowerment. With double college certification in Pediatrics, I work at the intersection of clinical care and community health, raising awareness on issues affecting children and families. Beyond the hospital, I am widely engaged in health advocacy on social media, where I try to simplify complex medical topics into relatable narratives that resonate with caregivers and the general public.

For me, literature is not only a means of expression but also a bridge between medicine, society, and culture. I believe stories shape perspectives, dismantle myths, and inspire positive change. Whether in clinical spaces, community forums, or digital platforms, I use storytelling and everyday hospital events as a form of advocacy to bring medicine closer to people’s everyday lives.

I am excited to be part of this year’s festival panel to share my reflections on health, humanity, and the power of narratives to transform the way we care for children.

Dr. Nikitta Dede Adjirakor is an educator and storyteller. Her academic research and teaching focuses on African literature. She is the founder of Yellow Mango Press which publishes multilingual children’s books for Ghanaian children and teens. Her children’s books include Black & Bold Queens: Women in Ghana’s History, What if it Rained Jollof Rice and Nii, the Kenkey Boy (English & Ga).

Noble Kofi Nazzah is a PhD research student at the University of Manchester and he is the founder of The Gourd Magazine.

Olivia Hains is Media and Project Manager at Aeon Media, the publisher behind Aeon and Psyche magazines, and oversees the project management of the writing workshop series. Over the past seven years, she has worked across Aeon and Psyche magazines, writing articles, curating videos and growing their international audiences. She is also guest lecturer at UCL and King’s College London and writes for The Telegraph newspaper's Health column as a freelance journalist.

PEPc - "Paul E. Pinnock" lives a life shaped by innovation, inspiration, and imagination. His journey is one of curiosity, creativity, and quiet determination. A Microelectronics graduate from Southall and Willesden Colleges of Technology in the United Kingdom, Paul began his professional career at Psion, the pioneering company behind the world’s first consumer Pocket Computer.

At Psion, Paul was part of a technological revolution that transformed how people interacted with their personal communicator. From those early days of handheld computing, he continued to evolve with the rapid advancement of smartphones, always focused on how technology could empower and enhance everyday life.

Though now semi-retired, Paul remains closely connected to the world of innovation. He is an active member of Planet Computers a London-based company working at the intersection of AI, modern keyboard smartphones, and computer game development.

In recent years, Paul has relocated to Ghana, where he is working to establish a ranch, reconnecting with nature, sustainability, and community. There, he also pursues a lifelong passion: writing poetry. His creative work opens a window into his inner world, blending rhythm, reflection, and emotion in equal measure.

As Paul beautifully puts it:

“Poetry is my beautiful escape.”

He is currently preparing to publish his first collection of sensual poems.

Pamm is a writer, reproductive justice advocate, facilitator, and community professional gatherer of people, ideas, and trouble (the good kind). She is passionate about women, agency, and pleasure, advocating for both through her work and writing.

Pamm firmly believes that prioritizing creativity and pleasure is essential for envisioning futures that foster both individual and community transformation. Her writing delves into themes of intimacy and personal desires, exploring their impact on social justice. Her essay on Reclaiming The Erotic for Personal Freedom & Power will be featured in the Cassava Republic Anthology Dancing with Jinns (2026). Pamm proudly identifies as a certified Romance Ninja—though she's still waiting for her black belt in love letters!

Pauline Jansen Van Rensburg is a South African writer, lecturer, and workshop designer based in Munich, Germany.

Her fiction blends realism with elements of the fantastic to grapple with themes of resistance, exile, and transformation. She is currently working on a novel set in 1960s apartheid South Africa, which reimagines the Karoo desert as a phantasmagorical literary space: haunted by its socio-political legacies, animated by speculative mythologies, and shaped by the struggle for freedom and belonging.

Her academic path began in France, where she earned a BA in French Literature and an MA in Applied Foreign Languages / International Relations. After working as a translator and interprète de liaison, she founded a Munich-based corporate training company that built bridges across languages and cultures, establishing herself as an intercultural mediator.

Shifting from translating words to conjuring worlds, she completed an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in the UK, where she brought her literary, linguistic, and intercultural background into dialogue with her creative practice.

For over a decade, Pauline has taught Rhetoric and Composition at the Technical University of Munich, launching the first creative writing courses in English and co-creating a STEM-themed short story competition that fuses science and storytelling, inviting students from around the world to experiment with speculative writing.

She believes creative writing should be a playground and a meeting place as much as it is a practice. Guided by this ethos, her teaching aims to open spaces for interdisciplinary inquiry, imaginative experimentation, and intercultural dialogue where writers can take risks, cross borders, and imagine other worlds.

At Pa Gya! 2025, she will lead Estranging the Ordinary: Speculative Technologies – Reprogramming the Social Machine, an interactive speculative fiction workshop blending theory, play, and creative practice, inviting participants to rewire the everyday and dream of new futures.

Peggy Kere Osman, writing under the pen name Selah, is a Ghanaian poet and author from Northern Ghana whose work explores the complexities of human relationships and emotions. Drawing from deep observation of the world around her, Peggy’s poetry offers a unique blend of cynicism and hope, delving into the coming-of-age experience with a keen sense of authenticity. Her collections, Portrait of a Blue Sun and Monarch Butterflies Over My Head reflect themes of love, grief, and growth, offering readers an introspective journey through life's most profound moments. Through relatable storytelling, Peggy invites readers to find solace in the rawness of her musings, making her a distinctive voice in contemporary Ghanaian poetry. She is currently a resident writer for a sci-fi Afrofuturism short story in the Wandering Imaginations project, a collaboration between Bradford UK City of Culture 2025 and Writers Project of Ghana.

Penboy is a talented spoken word poet from Cameroon, known for using his words to express his views on social and political issues, particularly the Anglophone crisis in his home country.

His real name is Taleabong Boris Alemnge and he started honing his skills as a spoken word poet in 2018 while studying law at the University of Buea. Penboy's poetry is not just about entertainment; he's also a voice for his generation, advocating for marginalized groups and promoting social change. He has written and performed for several events & institutions across Cameroon, released several digital poetry albums & singles, hosted several shows while acting as coordinator for the STAGE LIFE GROUP, an organization he cofounded with a vision to promote, foster & valorize oral literature in Africa. As a multi-award-winning poet, Penboy has received recognition for his work, including emerging winner of the World Bank Youth Act on Education Spoken Word Contest, Goethe Decouverte 2023, finalist and third-place winner of the National Artistic Competition hosted by the Conseil Nouveau Sommet Afrique France etc. Asides this, he is also a creativity coach, helping individuals and organizations nurture their artistic potential through trainings, workshops & private coaching.

Pfumo Collective is a ‘full circle’ literary endeavour registered in the UK, seeking to circumvent the major challenges facing the production and promotion of creative non-fiction from Africa by facilitating access to the mentorship and editorial support that more established literary economies afford.

Image Credit: Katlego Diseko

Dr Phillippa Yaa de Villiers lectures in Creative Writing at Wits University. She wrote Original Skin with Robert Colman, which explores her adoption and reunion with her Ghanaian biological father. Her poetry collections are Taller than buildings (2006), The everyday wife (2010) and ice- cream headache in my bone (2017). She co-edited The Poems of Keorapetse Kgositsile 1969-2018 for the African Poetry Book Fund (2023). Her fiction and poems appear in New Daughters of Africa (2019), Yellow Means Stay (2019), Relations (2023) among many others, including the journals Botsotso, Stanzas and New Coin. Her scholarly work has appeared in Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on South African Poets (2019), Notes from the Body: Health, Illness, Trauma (2023), The Creative Arts: On Practice, Making and Meaning (2024), and Fragments d’un temps suspendu: 44 lettres d’ecrivains sur le confinement (2025).

Image Credit: Hemamset Angaza

Dr. Rachel Laryea is a thought leader who specializes in race and money, ethical entrepreneurship, and social good. After cutting her teeth on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs, she went on to receive her dual Ph.D. in African American Studies and Sociocultural Anthropology at Yale University. Her ethnographic research aims to understand nuanced forms of Black participation in capitalist economies. Dr. Rachel is the recipient of the National Science Foundation Research Fellowship award, and she received an honorable mention from the Ford Foundation for her research. She has held Adjunct Professor appointments at NYU Stern Business School, and worked as a racial equity investment strategist at JPMorganChase. Currently, she is an Asset Wealth Management researcher at JPMorganChase.

Dr. Rachel is the founder of Kelewele, a lifestyle brand based in Brooklyn, New York, that creates bespoke African travel experiences and vegan, plantain treats. Kelewele has partnered with The James Beard Foundation, Black Entertainment Television (BET), and has been featured in several global publications and media platforms including The New York Times, Forbes, MarketWatch, and CBS. She is the recipient of the Ghana UK-Based Achievement (GUBA) award.

Image Credit: Jan Rosseel

Raoul de Jong (1984) published eight books and wrote columns for multiple newspapers. His book Jaguarman, which was published in 2020, was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, the Boekenbon Literature Prize, the Boon and the E. du Perron Prize. In 2022, he received the Anna Blaman Prize for his entire oeuvre. In 2023, Raoul de Jong wrote the Dutch National Bookweek Essay Boto Banja, which entered the bestseller lists at number 1. His work is translated in German, French and English.

Richard De-Graft Tawiah is Ghanaian writer of poetry, spoken word and personal essays whose writing has appeared in CGWS, Nenta Journal, De Colonial Passage, Global Writers Project and Pure Wata Zine, among others. His work explores the environment, identity and the social impact of broken homes.

He is a 2025 Adinkra Poetry Prize finalist, a 2023 Nadéli Creative Cafe Bootcamp alumnus, a two-time performer on Don’t Let This Become Public, and the author of In My Diary Poetry, a monthly newsletter on Substack.

Rose Afriyie has served as a public interest technologist for more than a decade, including roles at Google and the White House. She is the co-founder of mRelief, the easy-to-use platform available online and by text messaging that helps people sign up for SNAP. Since 2017, mRelief has integrated AI into its tools, from using speech-to-text to reduce hold times for applicants to today’s tailored chatbot and streamlined document verification process. Through mRelief, 5.2 million people have accessed over $2.1 billion in government food benefits. Rose currently serves as board chair of mRelief, where she focuses on leveraging AI to drive operational excellence in ways that center ethics, privacy, and accessibility. She is committed to supporting the organization’s next milestone of enrolling more than 4 million people in social services.

Rose has leveraged her experience to support the social impact field. In 2024, Rose co-developed a Microsoft-backed curriculum and framework to help nonprofits draft AI policies and navigate ethical adoption of AI. Building on that work in 2025, she partnered with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to strengthen AI capacity across their grantee network.

Alongside her social impact work, Rose has served as a writer for two decades starting in print journalism in college. She has published non-fiction essays in Essence, Glamour and Wired. She also writes speculative fiction that explores the limitations and vast possibilities of AI for a more just world.

SaCut Akaabitono Amenga-Etego also known in his circles as Commandante was born and raised in Kandiga Upper East Region of Ghana. He went to Notre Dame seminary secondary school in Navrongo before training as a journalist at the Ghana institute of journalism. He also studied narration at the United POP Academy in Amsterdam, NL and strategic communication at the International university of languages and media (IULM) in Milan, Italy.

As a natural leader born to the chief of Kandiga as heir apparent, he naturally got involved in political activism at an early stage with influences from former President Jerry John Rawlings of Ghana. He was general manager of XFM 95.1. an urban radio station Accra where he hosted the “new voices”, debating democracy in Ghana. As an adventurer, he ventured into traveling abroad to satisfy his curiousity. This travel adventure took him to over 25 countries and with temporary residences in Amsterdam and Milan before returning to Ghana where he delved back into investigative journalism. He has broken every chain life and people have tried to impose on him over time, especially those that could have undermined his freedom of expression. He has authored two books: PANAFEST in the Dungeons – An experience of natural mystic and his current book Unchained.

In Unchained the story of his life is imprinted, from the beginning as a royal up to the days of an unlawful arrest and detention, passing through a very long career as an activist in the Ghanaian political and media field, love affairs, the corona virus pandemic which locked him down in Europe, and a part of his life spent abroad. He has made his voice heard in every possible way, mainly thanks to an intelligent use of social media where he’s a conversation starter, and now through Unchained.

Sam Dresser is Deputy Editor of Aeon Magazine. With over 13 years of experience at the magazine, he has edited hundreds of essays, several of which have been developed into full length books.

Seanchoíche (pronounced “SHAN-nah-kee-huh”) is a storytelling event platform founded in Dublin by Ciaran Gaffney (aka Gaff). It brings together ordinary people who share personal anecdotes, fictional tales, diary entries, monologues, or spoken-word pieces in an intimate, empathetic atmosphere. Seanchoíche isn’t about polished performances—60% of its storytellers have no prior public-speaking or creative experience. Instead, it celebrates authenticity: heartfelt storytelling that can move audiences to laughter, tears, reflection, and connection. Attendees frequently describe the atmosphere as safe, life-affirming, and magical — even therapeutic. What started in Dublin now spans across the world — with events held in London, Amsterdam, Belfast, Sydney, Melbourne, Cape Town, New York, and beyond. The platform continues to grow steadily.

If you are interested to speak at the upcoming event at Pa Gya festival, you can apply here: seanchoiche.com/tellyourstory.

Seth Avusuglo is the manager of the Library Of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD) in Accra, Ghana. He is responsible for the running of the institution's highly respected residency programmes, which have hosted over 70 writers-in-residence from across Africa and the Diaspora under LOATAD's core commitment to stimulating and facilitating knowledge production on and from the continent.

Setor is a lover of languages who teaches and researches languages. He loves speaking Ewe to people around him. He believes Ewe is a heavenly language with stops and gutturals that pose serious “challenges” to learners. However, a mastery of these prepares people towards any language adventure.

Sophia Amissah Laryea is a practising lawyer specializing in Intellectual Property Rights, with extensive experience delivering workshops and training sessions on Intellectual Property Law, IP Rights, and Policy across Ghana.

Sophia enjoys reading, writing, and music. She writes poetry and short stories as a hobby, and has presented her work on radio and at the Pa Gya! Literary Festival.

Her writings address themes such as life, love, travel, politics, and more. Under the pseudonym “Mz Lyrx,” she shares her poetry and short stories on social media, expressing her thoughts and opinions on national and international issues.

Sophia’s unique combination of legal expertise and creative passion makes her a valuable contributor to both the legal and literary communities.

Dr. Stephen Dziedzorm Dadugblor is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. He earned a PhD in English (concentration in Rhetoric) from The University of Texas at Austin. His research and teaching specialties are in cultural rhetorics and public deliberations about democracy. An avid reader of Ewe stories, Stephen is committed to the belief that there is immense value in using African languages to promote African epistemologies.

Image Credit: Babs Daly / Grace Photography

Stephen James Smith, born in Dublin, is an Irish poet, writer, performer, playwright, and educator. Their short poetry films have captivated millions, earning them the opportunity to perform alongside notable names like Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), Patti Smith, Bono (U2), Imelda May, and Glen Hansard. With close to 1,000 gigs worldwide over the past 20 years in locations from Ballydehob to Bangkok, and significant performances at venues like Glastonbury, the Radio City Music Hall, and the Nuyorican Poetry Café (New York), the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris), and the Barbican and Palladium (London). Stephen has demonstrated a commanding presence on the stage. As a recording artist, Stephen’s work has been lauded both nationally and internationally, leading to Stephen being dubbed “Dublin’s unofficial poet laureate." His creations have been extensively published, translated into eight languages, and have received numerous awards and nominations. Stephen also makes regular contributions to Irish TV and radio cultural programmes. Acknowledging that success is a blend of luck, hard work, and subjectivity, Stephen invites you to form your own opinions about their work.

Tanya Zack is a South African urban planner and writer whose work has focused on urban regeneration, contemporary migration, informal work, urban policy and affordable housing. Her writing in Wake Up This Is Joburg (Duke University Press, 2022) has been lauded for being amongst the freshest and most original material on an African city. It was included in the longlist of the 2024 Sunday Times/Exclusive Books Literary Awards. Her curiosity and compulsion to collect stories have broadened the scope of her intrigue to personalities who inhabit the spaces not often exposed in literature about Johannesburg. The products of her professional practice in Johannesburg's inner city, including an inner-city transformation policy, and a study of cross border shopping, are recognised as ground-breaking interventions. She grew up in a working-class suburb on the edge of the inner-city.

Temi Oh wrote her first novel, DO YOU DREAM OF TERRA-TWO?, while studying Neuroscience. It won the American Library Association’s Alex Award in 2020 and was an NPR Best Book of the Year in 2019. Her second novel, MORE PERFECT, was published in 2023 by Simon & Schuster to critical acclaim. She has recently completed her third, NOT WITH A BANG, which will be published in spring 2026.

In addition to these books, she has written stories for Marvel's Black Panther, Dr Who and Overwatch. She has written on the Netflix TV series CASTLEVANIA: NOCTURNE and the CBBC series SILVERPOINT. Her first short film, MURMUR (Sky Arts and BFI) won the Broadcast Digital Award for Best Short-Form Scripted.

Most recently, she has been working with Four:8 Productions on a sci-fi short film called UNCANNY DEVICE.

Terry Mante is an author, publisher, and consultant with a growing catalogue of nonfiction titles on faith, leadership, work culture, and personal development. His books engage the heart and challenge the mind. In July 2025, he released a bold fiction trilogy that explores power, religion, and society in contemporary Africa. A gifted storyteller and facilitator, Terry crafts narratives that fuse imagination with hard-hitting realism. As a consultant, he advises individuals and organizations on leadership, strategy, and personal growth, helping them unlock potential and achieve lasting impact.

Tessa Leuwsha, who lives and works in Suriname, South-America, writes fiction and non-fiction for various media and makes documentaries on Dutch colonial history. She connects the big history to an often deeply personal story. Her first novels De Parbo-blues - recently reprinted - and Solo received rave reviews and were nominated for several awards. Her literary family history Fansi's silence, about the life of her grandmother in colonial Suriname, is considered an iconic work within the genre and was also nominated for a literary award. From this book she drew inspiration for her documentary ‘Mother Suriname-Mama Sranan’, which received a Special Mention in the category Best Dutch Documentary at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA). The film screened internationally, was broadcasted on PBS USA, and won the Dutch Chrystal Award. For her latest book ‘Boni’, on Suriname’s 18th -century freedom fighter against Dutch colonial rule by the same name, Leuwsha traveled throughout Suriname, French-Guyana and Ghana to reconstruct his life, using oral history and myths. The book received raving reviews and is nominated in the Netherlands for the best political book 2025.

Tracy Arthur a self-taught digital artist, illustrator, and writer, holding a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in the University of Ghana, Accra.

With a passion for creativity and storytelling through visual media, she reimagines Ghanaian culture and traditions with a fresh, contemporary perspective. Some of her notable works include book cover illustrations and character art in the publishing field for “The Kelewele Connection” by Kwatemaa Tweneboah, as well “Resort to Romance” and “Love Undercover” by Kacey Sophia. She has been featured in Spark Magazine for her insights on art and technology, and has collaborated with creative platforms like NewComma, as well has had her fiction writing published in literary magazines such as The Carried Away. Tracy Arthur When not immersed in her own creative process, she can be founding reading and writing book reviews, and assuring herself it's definitely not because she's procrastinating.

Ursula M. Abanga is a Ghanaian artist whose work explores the delicious intersections of feminism, sexuality, and community building. Her erotica revels in the textures of desire, tenderness, and rebellion, inviting readers to sit with pleasure as a radical act and center the sensual as a language for freedom and intimacy. Off the page, you can find her tending to her cat and plants, bingeing anime, and drinking entirely too much tea.

Velma Otchwemah is an avid reader of books authored by African writers. She was born and raised in Accra, Ghana. Since childhood, she has dreamed of being a novelist and has grown to be a self-trained one, taking inspiration from Chimamanda Adichie, Ama Ata Aidoo and the likes. Working towards being a writer at the age of 13, she went on to publish SACROSANCTUM at the age of 20.

Despite being a lady of multiple interests, Velma is carving a niche for herself as a writer and a law student. Currently, she is pursuing her LLB degree at the University of Ghana, School of Law. She is also an old student of St. Rose's Senior High School, Akwatia where she offered Geograph, Elective Mathematics, Economics and French as electives. She is a Christian and Catholic by denomination. Her interests are reading, writing, watching movies and cooking. Also, she has dabbled in a number of public speaking events. Her desire is to be an excellent lawyer and a prolific writer in some years to come.

Image Credit: Tunakin Studios

Dr Wale Okediran is a Nigerian Medical Doctor, former Member of Parliament and award winning author of 14 novels many of which have won local and international awards.

In 2010, he established the Ebedi Writers Residency in Nigeria for the free use of writers in need of a conducive environment for the free use of writers. The facility has since inception, hosted about 350 writers from 12 African countries.

One of his award winning novels, Tenants of the House which was adapted into a movie has just completed a two-year screening on NETFLIX Global.

Dr Okediran was the Chair of the Jury of the 2024 CANEX Publishing Prize, established by AFREXIM Bank for excellence in African publishing and the promotion of literary talent across the continent by awarding prizes to books printed and produced in Africa

Dr Wale Okediran who was the National President of the Association of Nigerian Authors between 2006 and 2009, is currently the Secretary General, Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) based at the Headquarters in Accra, Ghana.

I am Wilfred Zaglale Bormeh. I am a pedagogue, author, biographer, poet, spoken word artist and a philanthropist. I hail from Nanyaare, a suburb of Lawra in the Upper West Region but currently reside in Bolgatanga where I work as a professional pedagogue. I have degrees in Political Science, Law and Development Management (MSC).

I have written on topics affecting society ranging from politics, negritude/ black empowerment, women empowerment, child streetism, law, a number of oral biographies, a book on Government as a discipline for Senior High Schools amongst others.

I blend local instruments such as the kologo or the two-stringed guitar with other instruments as well as mellow beats as soundtracks to my spoken word poems.

Yaw Atuobi (they) is a writer and an independent researcher whose work sits within the nexus of fiction, criticism and visual culture. A co-curator of littoral zone[s], 2025 writing fellow at A Public Space and the former critic-in-residence at the inaugural Black Atlantic Residency (2024) of the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD), Yaw is committed to emphasising the generative and constitutive role of criticism in the production of both visual and literary culture within continental Africa and its diaspora. Their fiction, conversations, criticism, translation (into Akan) and other projects can be found or are forthcoming in A Public Space Magazine, PARSE Journal, Za! Magazine, Jalada Africa, AKO Caine Prize for African Writing Anthology, Reading Ecologies: Transforming Publishing in Africa, and elsewhere.

Yejide Kilanko was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. She writes novels, short fiction, poetry, and children’s picture books. Kilanko’s 2012 debut novel, Daughters Who Walk This Path, was longlisted for the Nigeria Literature Prize. Her short fiction, “This Tangible Thing”, was shortlisted for the 2023 Caine Prize. Her latest novel, In Our Own Ways, is scheduled for release in 2025. Kilanko lives in Canada, where she also practices as a social worker.

Yibor KOJO Yibor (Sir Black) is social servant by day and a Verballist by night. Co founder of Ehalakasa, the premier spoken word and poetry slam community in Accra, co director of Haduwa Arts & Culture Institute in Apam-Ghana and the Africa coordinator for Framewalk a cross-culture exchange project between Germany and Africa. He coordinates around organizing and curating youth development projects in schools and communities in collaboration with local, international and cultural institutions. His work explores the notion of self-examination within three dimensions, looking from within, without and the rest. Questioning what was, what is and what is to come. He is an African currently living in Ghana.

From high school teacher to homeschooling mom to cultural storyteller, Yowome Williams has been passionate about nurturing young minds through an African lens.

Her deep connection to her African heritage blossomed during childhood trips to Ghana’s Volta Region, and today, she shares that love of cultural immersion with her son—through travel, stories, and shared discovery across the African continent. Her desire is to carry along many more young ones on their adventures through immersive storytelling.

Easter Along the River is her debut novel, a joyous tribute to Ewe heritage — a richly woven tale featuring sibling adventures, rich traditions, personal growth, and historical resonance. Crafted for readers aged 8–16, the story invites them to journey through Ghana’s Volta Region, where sumptuous food, a festive river crossing, local customs, and familial bonds come to life in a beautifully grounded narrative.

Ọbádélé Kambon is a Linguist and lecturer at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. He is fluent in multiple African languages and has won many research and teaching awards throughout his career.