Interviews

Making music is a typically a heavy process for mau from nowhere. The Kenyan multi-hyphenated artist has made a name for himself with an alternative sound to go along with his tender exploration of the heart centre. His handiwork reflects the intensity of the process, as the majority of his released music is immensely vulnerable- “vintage mau,” he calls it. 

Talia Hibbert is growing bolder in her love for romance. “I take so much pride in telling these stories,” she earnestly shares towards the end of the interview, before adding, “and because of the support of readers who have told me what these books mean to them, I have become much more open about the things that I really care about.” The young romance author is steadily building her own romcom universe of sexy and diverse novels, featuring often misunderstood, passionate and unwittingly funny characters of colour. We caught up with her to discuss her writing journey, character building and the spicy sex scenes that have become a staple of her work.

In Tomi Oyemakinde’s The Changing Man fear is to be conquered as much as it is to be embraced. The novel follows a precocious and lonely teenager, Ife Adebola, as she navigates settling into new boarding school Nithercott, and the adventures that follow her investigation of the school’s elusive urban legend. This debut offering joins the ever growing canon of YA speculative thrillers that combine a horror-esque pace, and the levity familiar to the young adult fantasy genre- although it is arguably at its best when the focus is on the latter. In The Changing Man, this explorative prose in anchored by a protagonist whose Nigerian roots form not only the casing for her character, but also for the novel’s motivations.

Multi-hyphenate and self-proclaimed Bookish Babe, Hena Bryan occupies an interesting space in the book world. With a publishing house that specialiSes in children’s books and a Booktube dedicated to raving about literature, Henna has such rich insight to offer. I catch up with her to talk about books, youtube, the mechanics of publishing its many intersections.

Poet and screenwriter Thara Popoola’s career has been a slow and steady climb. Poem after poem, then short after short, and more recently one script after another, earning her a seat at the season 4 Sex Education writers’ room, where she got her first TV credit on the award winning show’s final episode. We caught up with her to talk what it’s really like to write for a living, Sex Education and her artistic sensibilities.