As the Imodoye Writers Enclave opens it’s doors for the 2023 edition of its annual Writers Residency, four participating Writers have already checked in.
This disclosure was made in a statement released by the residency manager and sighted by Rextun City Updates.
According to the statement, the writers will be there for three weeks and an optional extra one week.
The release gave the names of the four writers as Tares Oburumu, Ruth Chidera Echewe, Sadiq Mustafa and Taiye Ojo.
Tares Oburumu is a Bayelsa State-born poet and essayist, based in Warri, Delta State, Nigeria. He’s the author of 6 published chapbooks. Tares Oburumu won the GAP poetry prize in 2018 and his chapbook ‘origin of the syma species’ won The Sillerman First Book prize for African poets 2022, to be published by Nebraska University Press, U.S., in fall 2023. Tares had been nominated for the Pushcart prize with Woven Tales Press 2019, and Ice Floes International literary journal 2021.
Tares Oburumu is in Imodoye residency to work and expand his three chapbooks: Erasure, Chatham House and Red: the love story of Annie Ernaux.
Ruth Chidera Echewe, (Unbreakable) is a writer, editor, media personality and professional blogger. She is a graduate of English and Literary Studies from the Federal University Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria.
Ruth Chidera Echewe is in Imodoye to complete her work: Sisters Series, prose, dealings with humans, certain bonds that sustained our existence and given us a different definition of life.
Ruth is motivated by her passion for creativity which has gone ahead to give birth to what she intends to manifest into a publishing, writing and editing firm in the nearest future.
Abubakar Sadiq Mustapha is a poet, art curator, documentary photographer, and community developer. He studied Geology and Mining at Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, and currently rounding up his master’s program at the same University, Lapai, Niger State. Sadiq uses books, photography, and arts to drive social changes. He believes in the power of photography and how it can be used toward mental health.
He is in imodoye to complete his manuscript: Home is my Mother’s Tongue.
Ojo Taiye is a Delta state based Nigerian eco-artist and writer who uses poetry as a tool to hide his frustration with society. He won the Hay Writer’s Circle poetry prize, US, 2021; Calthalbui poetry prize, Ireland 2021.
In 2020 Taiye Ojo was selected to participate in Capital City Film Poetry Festival, in Michigan and Poetry Introductory Series, in Ireland. His commissioned works include Belfast Photo Festival 2021, Winnipeg Fringe Festival and Leeds Poetry Festival.
Taiye’s recent works explore neocolonialism, institutionalized violence and ecological trauma in the oil-rich, polluted Niger Delta. His themes deal with the effects of climate change,
homelessness, migration, drought and famine, as well as a range of transversal issues arising from
racism, black identity and mental health. Taiye Ojo is in Imodoye to complete his poetry collection: Scoping Map.
Established by Dr Usman Ladipo Akanbi, the Imodoye Writers Residency is a private initiative for writers and visual artists keen on completing their ongoing work in a conducive environment at no cost.
As part of giving back to the community, during their stay in the residency, the writers are expected to mentor Ilorin secondary school students in creative art/writing.
