Harry Slyvester Bird
I finished re-reading Harry Sylvester Bird, the second novel (and third book) from Nigerian-American writer Chinelo Okparanta published in July 2022. At the center of this satire is an unlikeable character Harry, a white man from Pennsylvania who believes he is black. This first-person narrative tackles racism and how ingrained white behaviors perpetuate systemic oppression. […]
Fifteen Lango Folk Tales
One of the birthday gifts I received on July 11: a first edition, 1958 copy of the book Icina Me Laŋo Apar Wi Abic (Fifteen Lango Folk Tales). The tales were compiled by M.J. Wright, a district officer in colonial Uganda, and published by Longmans. In the contents section, the list of stories are in […]
How I handle rejection
I published my first poem “Home is a Woman” in The Southern Review in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. Before that, I sent the piece out to literary magazines 27 times for two straight years before getting an acceptance. There’s something extremely humbling about getting out of an MFA program, head fat with […]