About Contributors

1. Ajise Vincent is an Economist based in Lagos, Nigeria. His works have appeared in Jalada, Ake Review, Saraba, Bombay Review, and Birmingham Arts Journal, among others. He is a recipient of the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize 2015 and Akuko Poetry Prize 2022. He loves coffee, blondes, and turtles.

2. Ann Nziku is a 24-year-old Nairobi, Kenya based poet whose work explores on themes of identity, vulnerability and emotional resilience. Her other poems 'Hope lingers' is published on borderless journal and 'little things' in the anthology ocean of words.

3. AbdulSamad Jimoh is a writer and a lawyer based in Abuja, Nigeria. He’s drawn to literature that delves into the complexities and intricacies of human existence. His work has appeared in Lolwe, Writer Space Africa and Reedsy. He is the winner of the TEBEBA School of Writing Challenge 2024.

4. Adegoke Adeola is a journalist, political commentator, and poet whose work engages themes of gender identity, equality, race, and violence. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Novel Afrique, Caucasus Journal of Milton Studies, Kind Writers Literary Magazine, Literanation, Praxis Magazine, and BN Magazine among others.

5. Alabi Miracle Mezabo is a Nigerian poet and educator based in Edo State. After earning his Law degree from Ambrose Alli University, he transitioned into the classroom, where he teaches English and Literature. His writing is informed by both the rigor of legal study and a passion for literary analysis.

6. Audrey Neema is a Kenyan writer.

7. Babajide Olusanua

8. Benjamin N. Amakobe is a Kenyan literary scholar, poet, writer and educator aged 23 with passion in the power of the pen. He is currently a student at The University of Kabianga, Kenya pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Education. He has published literary works with various anthologies including "Wheelsong Poetry Anthology 7" and others.

9. Blessing Ojo is a Nigerian poet based in Abuja, where he spends most of his time teaching creative writing, crafting poetry, and guiding children to literary and art festivals. His poems have appeared in Frontier Poetry, The Shallow Tales, Cọ́n-scìò, The Poetry NND Column, The Deadlands, and elsewhere. He coordinates the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation, Abuja. He is the recipient of the 9th Korea-Nigeria Poetry Prize (Ambassador Special Prize), the 2024 Eugenia Abu/Sevhage International Prize for Creative Nonfiction, the 2025 Golden Award for Art Administrators, and the 2026 Visual/Experimental Poetry Award.

10. Chiamaka Ogiji writes from Abakaliki. She is Igbo-Ibibio. She loves to read and is sometimes completely lost in books. If she weren't busy chasing her dreams of becoming a lawyer, she'd be in the Caribbean sipping coconut water and writing stories, assuming, of course, her account balances properly. Her works have been published in Odd magazine, Kalahari Review, Shuzia Campus, Reformers of Africa, and The 7th Chinua Achebe Anthology. She was longlisted for the ZODML prize and the Blessing Kolajo Poetry Prize 2024.

11. Celestine Kenechukwu Onah is a graduate of Mass Communication, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He grew up in Enugu, in the Eastern part of Nigeria. He is a lover of literature. He is 24 years old and though has written many poems, has only been published once.

12. Chidebelu Emmanuel Nnazoba writing as Deb Angel, is an emerging poet from Igbo, Nigeria, whose verses weave culture, emotion, and imagination into compelling art. Rooted in African heritage, his poetry explores identity, resilience, and human experience, crafting lyrical expressions that resonate deeply and celebrate the beauty of words.  

13. Chiemeziem Everest Udochukwu's work has appeared in EVENT Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, The Evergreen Review, Lolwe, Peatsmoke Journal, Efiko Magazine, Naira Stories, and elsewhere. He won the EC Michaels' Short Story Prize and has been a finalist for The Black Warrior Review Non-fiction Contest, the Quramo Writers Prize, the Kikwetu Flash Contest, and the Nigerian NewsDirect Poetry Prize.

14. Damilola Oyedeji is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and literary critic. Her work explores intersectional discourses of Black bodies experiences. Damilola is the author of the forthcoming chapbook Blue Scapes, with Thirty West Publishing House, PA.  A Best of the Net nominee, as well as recipient of the 2026 William Walker Excellence in Critical Writing Award, the 2025 Robert Henigan Critical Essay Award, and the C.H. Gelin Graduate Fellowship Award, her works have appeared in LLIDS Journal, Lolwe, Orange Blossom Review, The Shallow Tales Review, Brittle Paper, The Nigeria Review, Talon Review, Belfast Review, Poetry Journal, the Sprinng Writing Fellowship 2023 Anthology, and elsewhere. A past fellow of the Sprinng Writing Fellowship herself, Damilola mentors emerging writers in creative nonfiction through the Sprinng Writing Fellowship. She is a PhD student in Creative Writing at Texas Tech University and holds a master’s degree in English from Missouri State University.  

15. Denoo Edinam Yawo is a Ghanaian poet/writer, community builder, researcher, and creative strategist with a soft spot for stories that heal and disrupt. She is passionate about amplifying voices on the margins and using storytelling as a tool for both tenderness and resistance.

16. Ethan Bramwell is a 31-year-old poet, entering his third poetry competition. This entry is especially meaningful as it honours his late father who passed away last April.

17. George Zulu is from Lusaka Zambia.

18. Halima Raji writes about the inner worlds of African girls for whom a classroom is a dream, and a dowry is a destiny. Her work explores how tradition, poverty, and gender collide to close school doors—and how the desire to learn survives in whispers, in folded cloth, and in mothers who refuse to pass on the same sentence. She believes poetry can hold both the wound and the vow.

19. Henry Opeyemi is a writer, storyteller and a performance poet, who wants to someday sell out the 02 Arena as a performance poet. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks 'Autopsy of Old Fractured Wounds' (Ghost City Press 2024) and 'The Volume of Constant Screams' (Cat Courtyard Press 2025). His work has appeared on Poetry Column-NND, Ghost City Press, One Poem Only, Voice of Africa Literature and elsewhere. ‎When he is not writing, he is teaching hearing impaired kids how to play chess. 

20. Hyginus Ekwuazi is Nigerian. He has published five collections of poetry and won multiple ANA Awards: [2007; 2007; 2008; 2010]. He has been longlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature [2009; 2017; 2024]. He was the Director of the National Film Institute, Jos, the Managing Director of Nigeria Film Corporation, Jos. He is now a Professor of Broadcasting & Film at the University of Ibadan and an adjunct professor at Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos.

21. Imole Olusanya‎Imole Olusanya is a Nigerian writer and poet exploring themes of self, family, and society through memory, satire, and everyday life. His pieces have been featured across several literary platforms, including Oriire, The Poetry Journal, The Kahalari Review and international anthologies.

22. Isah Qulsum is a Science Laboratory Technology student at Nasarawa State University, Nigeria, discovering the world of poetry.

23. Ishaq Isa El-Qassim, PhD, is a lecturer in the Department of English and Literary Studies at the Federal University Wukari, Nigeria. He teaches language and communication skills. His research and creative interests include contemporary poetry, contemporary realistic fiction, literary analysis, media studies, crisis communication, and affective resonance communication, with a focus on documenting everyday human experiences. He is the author of the novel Delayed Letters.

24. Janine Milne is a Literature and Creative Writing graduate from UNISA. Her poetry has appeared in Sol Plaatje European Poetry Award anthologies and Stanzas and won the 2017 MacGregor Poetry Prize. She has published short fiction in Short Sharp Stories, Bloody Parchment, and Lemonwood Quarterly. 

25. Joanita Richter from South Africa is the author of two books. She has always had a passion for writing and started writing at a very young age. Her books were published in 2022 by Malherbe Publishers.

26. Jive Lubbungu holds a PhD Lit., MA Lit., MBA in Project Management, Cert. -Monitoring &Evaluation, Cert. Project Consultancy, Cert.- Climate Change AI, Cert. Development Economics. He is a lecturer, author, and researcher and an Assistant Dean at the Postgraduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Kwame Nkrumah University, Kabwe, Zambia.

27. Jonathan Ampofo is an eighteen-year-old Ghanaian poet.

28. Kauser Parveen works in healthcare and uses reading and writing poetry as a means of expression.

29. Linda Sparks is a lecturer and researcher at the University of the Free State, South Africa, who assists students in acquiring academic writing and reading skills. She has published articles in various academic journals, and before this, a few poems in literary journals, including Hudson Review.

30. Magauta Nicole Sapho is a student poet from Limpopo, South Africa. She writes to examine belonging, resilience, and the quiet violence of everyday spaces like classrooms. OUTSIDER is her first poetry competition entry. When she isn’t balancing science textbooks, she documents the world in lines and fragments.

31. Mariam Yussuff is an English Education student and a prolific poet focused on nature, peace, and emotional vulnerability. Mariam’s work has been featured in Poetry and Art News, following a published interview in April 2026. This consistent creative practice aims to capture the subtle and complex truths of the human experience.

32. Marvel Essien is a Christian and performance poet, raised in the Southern part of Nigeria. Her artwork is an intentional blend of faith, control, and memory. Her work interrogates the sacred—where it heals, where it wounds, and what it leaves behind. From personal and inherited narratives, her poetry ignites beauty in mundane things.

33. Marvinci Bobbylex-Oduali is an emerging poet from Rivers State in southern Nigeria. Co-winner of an ‘Honourable Mention’ in the 2025 The World in Us writing competition, he has works published or forthcoming in cataloguing poetry magazine and La Rotonde Review. He tweets @marv1nci.

34. Michael Excel Chinagorom is a Nigerian poet and creative writer living in the suburbs of Aba. His works have been published on various literary journals like the Brittle Papers, Afrocritik, Ekstasis, Yellow House, Fiction Niche, Pawners Papers, Paradise Gate House, Fivers of Mind, Poemify Publisher, The April Centaur, Afrilhill Press and elsewhere. He's the author of Girls Are Roses— a collection of poems published by the Poemify Publisher Inc (2022). He was a runner-up for the Pawners Papers Maiden Award in 2024 and second place winner for Paradise Gate Healing Contest, 2025.

35. Mosimiloluwa Dorcas Kupoluyi is a 19-year-old published author and spoken word artist from Lagos, Nigeria. Her work features in the 2026 Lady Dynamique African Anthology. She is a Gold Award Winner of the Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition 2023 and studies Geology at the University of Lagos.

36. Mercedes Ovis is a poet whose work explores gender-based violence, relational trauma, memory, and survival. Through intimate and unsettling imagery, her poetry examines the body, language, and domestic spaces as sites of control, fracture, and resistance. She is the author of A Monologue of Love and Madness.

37. Nailah Tataa (penname Nailah Moon) is a ritual-based writer, artist, and facilitator in Kjipuktuk. They are a Black futurist and educator who uses mixed mediums to explore themes of alienation, immigration, Afrofuturism, and identity. A multidisciplinary artist, her goal is for all of us to find freedom in dissidence and liberation through unconventional methodologies.

38. Neo Samunzala is an Information Systems analyst who lives and works in Francistown City, Botswana. She loves the art of creative thinking, writing and reading. Her poem, ‘My lover appears,’ in Silhouettes of Love by Abdulafeez Adesokan from Lagos, Nigeria. ‘Love’s tale’ poem is featured at: www.poeticous.com

39. Nas Jolaade studied at the University of Ibadan. His work has appeared in Bracken Magazine, New Nottingham Magazine, WriterSpace Africa, Brittle Paper, Poetry Sango-Ota, Okiti Literary, and others. He was a finalist for the 2024 Kofi Awoonor Poetry Prize. He tweets @thejolaade.

40. Ocheni Kazeem Oneshojo is a Nigerian poet, musician, and editor. A Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the Literature Padi 2025 contest, his work appears in ANA Review, Everscribe Magazine, and elsewhere. He is the author of The Man Who Should Die and Other Poems. He is an Aspire Leader with the Aspire Leaders Program. He tweets @kazeemocheni.

41. Oratilwe Mahlangu is a South- African young woman from Cape Town and is currently a student at the University of the Western Cape. Growing up, she always knew that something in her had an urge to create stories and poems. She finds joy in the unknown world of words.

42. Phyllis Oniopusaziba Akpoti is an emerging writer from Nigeria. She is interested in using literature as an expressive tool for saying the things her tongue may be timid to express. Although she is currently unpublished and still honing her skills, she continues to make efforts to get her voice out there, daring to speak her truth in the best way she can.

43. Rachael Ajisafe is a 2nd-year law student at Olabisi Onabanjo University and an award-winning writer. She's won the Witsprouts Storytelling Prize and placed in the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize, ZODML Poetry Prize, and Framefest Abuja. Her work appears in Lounloun Magazine, and she's passionate about inspiring others through storytelling.

44. Taofeek Ayeyemi "Aswagaawy" is a Nigerian lawyer, writer and author of a full-length collection "Aubade at Night or Serenade in the Morning" (FlowerSong Press, 2021). A BotN and Pushcart Prize Nominee, his works have appeared in Lucent Dreaming, Up-the-Staircase Quarterly, FERAL, Akitsu Quarterly, Banyan Review, Conscio, Agbowó, and elsewhere. He won the 2021 Loft Books Flash Fiction Competition, and 2nd Places in 2025 Octofest poetry contest.

45. Terry Egharavba’s poem was highly commended in The Annual Bridgette James Poetry Competition, 2025. He is a Nigerian banker who writes as if exhaling ache, his poems bruise softly, drawn from waiting rooms, broken clocks, and borrowed faith.

46. Toluwanimi Hannah Ajayi is a Nigerian poet.

47. Tshegofatjo Makhafola is a South African poet, writer, and award-winning spoken word artist based in Johannesburg. Known for exploring themes of Blackness and queerness, he won the Poetry Africa and Windybrow slam in 2023. His work appears in publications such as New Contrast, Poetry Potion, and bath magg, often highlighting deep, emotive storytelling.

48. Victoria Amune is an emerging writer and poet from Nigeria. She studied English language and Literature in the University of Benin. When she's not working as a teacher, she's either reading or writing fiction and poems. She aspires to write words that would reach hearts all over the world.

49. Victoria Kerubo is a writer and architectural designer based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her writing gravitates towards the absurdities of life. She currently experiments with different poetry forms. Her work has been featured in the Kalahari Review, Writers' Space Africa, Afrocritik, African Writer Magazine and elsewhere.

50. Victor Ukachukwu is from Ebonyi State, Nigeria. He writes in simple language with philosophical depth. His works explore the human condition as a moral duty, memory, and personal growth, using everyday experiences to examine how choices and responsibility define human existence. This is his first time participating in this competition.

51. Yuwinn A. Kraukamp is a bilingual writer from the coastal corner of Cape Agulhas, South-Africa. He’s a natural born creative, a former English— and Communications major at the university of the Western Cape, and a patron (saint) of everything that’s artistically unique and beautifully weird in this world. Yuwinn has worked as a freelance columnist for Network 24, and a freelance journalist for The Southern Post Newspaper since 2022. In 2024 he was the third-place winner of the Diana Ferrus poetry prize, and in 2026 he was the first-place winner of the Njabulo S. Ndebele-themed ‘Rediscovering the Ordinary’ poetry competition. Both his English and Afrikaans poetry has appeared on various platforms such as Litnet, PEN Afrikaans and Versindaba; and has been published within poetry anthologies such as Ons Kom Van Hier and The Avbob Poetry Project. He became a member of the Jakes Gerwel Foundation’s network of authors and artists, after participating in a writing fellowship in the Eastern Cape in Oct-Nov 2022. In that same year, he was one of two South-Africans whose writing was honourably mentioned and celebrated at The Future Feminist Awards in California. His writing focuses on political transitions, moral complexity, loss, grief, trauma and rebirth. A variety of his short stories have been published in magazines such as Huisgenoot and Kuier, and within collections such as the Short-Sharp-Stories anthology and FicSci. In 2024, he was part of a science-meets-creativity workshop hosted by the University of Stellenbosch and the South-African Research Chair; where he produced climate-change fiction that was published in an oceanic-research anthology in June 2025. In October 2025, he participated in a writing residency alongside six African writers at the Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Study (J.I.A.S), where they explored the political roles and responsibilities of poetry and short stories.

52. Zizipho Godana is a writer from South Africa. She holds a BA in Psychology and Criminology from the University of South Africa. Her passion for writing originates from my deep love of cinema. Her writing can be found, or is forthcoming, in African Writer Magazine, Writers Space Africa Magazine, West Trade Review, Frontier Poetry, and Brittle Paper.