Meet the Facilitators

Tochukwu Okafor

Writing Workshop (14 May 2022)

Tochukwu Okafor is an MFA Fiction candidate at Emerson College and holds a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a 2021 Gish Jen Fiction Fellow, an alumnus of the 2021 Tin House Workshop, a 2018 Rhodes Scholar finalist, and a 2018 Kathy Fish Fellow. His work has appeared in the 2019 Best Small Fictions, the 2018 Best of the Net, and elsewhere. He has received awards, fellowships, and residencies from Aspen Words, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts (MASS MoCA), PEN America, Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, GrubStreet, Short Story Day Africa, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Jack Straw Writers’ Program, Bethany Arts Community, Worcester Arts Council, Exxon Mobil, Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, Fishtrap, Longleaf Writers’ Conference, Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference, Kundiman, Boston Writers of Color Group, and elsewhere. He lives in Worcester, MA.

Karen Jennings

Editing Workshop (4 June 2022)

Karen Jennings is a South African author. She has published five works of fiction (Finding Soutbek, Away from the Dead, Travels with my Father, Upturned Earth and An Island – which was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize) as well as a collection of poetry, Space Inhabited by Echoes. In 2022 she commenced a postdoctoral fellowship affiliated with the Biography of an Uncharted People project at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

TJ Benson

Writing Workshop (18 June 2022)

TJ Benson is a Nigerian writer and visual artist whose work explores the body in the context of memory, African Spirituality, Africanfuturism, mythology, migration, utopia and the unconscious self. His work has been exhibited and published in several journals like Harvard’s Transition Magazine, Iskanchi, Jalada, SSDA Migrations, Catapult, Bakwa Magazine and shortlisted for awards. His Saraba Manuscript Prize shortlisted Africanfuturist collection of short stories ‘We Won’t Fade into Darkness’ was published by Parresia in 2018. 

His debut novel ‘The Madhouse’ was published in 2021 by Masobe Books and Penguin Random House SA and his second novel ‘People Live Here’ is slated for a 2022 release. He has facilitated writing workshops, more recently teaching a class on magical realism and surrealism within the context of African literature for Lolwe Magazine. He currently lives in an apartment full of plants and is in the danger of becoming a cat person.

Doreen Baingana

Editing Workshop (9 July 2022)

Doreen Baingana is a Ugandan writer and arts manager. Her short story collection, Tropical Fish, won the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction in 2003 and a Commonwealth Prize in 2006. She has been shortlisted for the Caine Prize three times, most recently in 2021. Other awards include a Miles Morland Scholarship, a Rockefeller Bellagio Residency, a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant and a Tebere Arts Foundation Playwright’s Residency. Ms. Baingana has also published two children’s books as well as stories and essays in many journals including Agni, African American Review, Callaloo, Chelsea, Glimmer Train, The Guardian, UK, Caravan: A Journal of Politics and Culture (India), Chimurenga, Kwani?, Ibua and Evergreen Review. Ms. Baingana has adapted her stories for the stage, including the title story of Tropical Fish, which has been performed at the AfriCologne Theatre Festival and several times in Kampala, most recently in 2021.

Ms. Baingana has a law degree from Makerere University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland, College Park. She has worked at Voice of America radio and as managing editor of Storymoja Africa, and has been a chairperson of FEMRITE. In 2016, Ms. Baingana co-founded and is the director of the Mawazo Africa Writing Institute, based in Entebbe, Uganda, which trains creative writers across Africa. Find out more about Doreen.

Olumide Popoola

Writing Workshop (23 July 2022)

London-based Olumide Popoola is a Nigerian-German writer. Her publications include essays, poetry, the novella this is not about sadness (Unrast, 2010), the play text Also by Mail (edition assemblage, 2013), the short story collection breach, which she co-authored with Annie Holmes (Peirene Press, 2016), as well as recordings in collaboration with musicians. In 2004 she won the May Ayim Award in the category Poetry, the first Black German Literary Award. Olumide has a PhD in Creative Writing and has lectured in creative writing at various universities. In 2018 Olumide curated Berlin's inaugural international African Bookfest, Writing in Migration, which saw more than 35 authors come to the city. She created and is leading the creative writing and mentoring scheme 'The Future is Back' for emerging LGBTQ+ writers, which is funded by the Arts Council England. Olumide presents internationally as author, speaker and facilitator.

Her critically acclaimed novel When We Speak of Nothing was published by Cassava Republic Press in 2017 in the UK and Nigeria, and in April 2018 in the US. It will be published in Danish by Rebel with a Cause. Find out more about Olumide.

Emma Shercliff

Approaching Agents and Getting Published Workshop (6 August 2022)

Laxfield Literary Associates was founded by Emma Shercliff in 2020. Emma has over 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. She has worked for publishing houses in Paris, Melbourne, Abuja and London, and for the British Council in Nigeria and Iran. Emma was formerly Managing Director of Macmillan English Campus, and Head of Export Sales at Hodder Education. She was Sales & Right Director of Cassava Republic Press UK, an award-winning independent African publishing company, until 2019. She was Publishing Director for Ankara Press, an African romance imprint launched in 2014, and conceived and coordinated the acclaimed Valentine’s Day Anthology (2015), which featured contributions in multiple languages from authors and translators across Africa. Emma volunteers as a manuscript assessor for the African Writers’ Trust and sits on the Advisory Board for the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, University of Reading.

She lives in Suffolk.