LIPFest Craft & Development Lab – Faculty Announcement

Meet the Faculty

The LIPFest Craft & Development Lab brings together three of the most accomplished poets working in and from Africa today, each leading a dedicated module for our inaugural cohort of ten writers.

Romeo Oriogun

- July

Romeo Oriogun is the author of Sacrament of Bodies and The Gathering of Bastards. He is the winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature — the continent’s most prestigious literary award — and the recipient of the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, the Julie Suk Award, and the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. His work has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, his poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, and The American Poetry Review.

He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Florida Atlantic University.

Nick Makoha

- August

Nick Makoha, PhD, is a Ugandan-British poet, playwright, and founder of the Obsidian Foundation. He is the winner of the 2026 Cholmondeley Award. His collection The New Carthaginians (Penguin Books UK, 2025) was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. His debut, Kingdom of Gravity (Peepal Tree Press, 2017), was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and named one of the Guardian’s best books of the year. He has also received the Ivan Juritz Prize and the Poetry London Prize. His poems have appeared in The New York Times, Poetry Review, Boston Review, Callaloo, and Wasafiri, among others.

Titilope Sonuga

- September

The story of Titilope Sonuga’s emergence as a globally celebrated poet, playwright, and performer is a testament to the transformative power of storytelling. Through both page and stage, she crafts work marked by rootedness, vulnerability, and an unflinching exploration of womanhood, identity, love, and belonging. Her genre-defying practice has led to a vibrant career across literature, theatre, music, and public art. She is the author of three poetry collections, Down to Earth (2011), Abscess (2014), and This Is How We Disappear (2019), and three spoken word albums, Mother Tongue (2011), Swim (2019), and Sis (2024).

Beyond her literary work, Sonuga has brought her distinctive voice to campaigns and commissions for organizations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the White Ribbon Alliance. She also served as an ambassador for Intel Corporation’s She Will Connect campaign, advancing opportunities for women and girls through technology and education.

Her theatre credits include The Six, Naked, and Ada the Country. Her first libretto, Sankofa: A Soldier’s Tale Retold, commissioned by the Art of Time Ensemble, received a Dora Award nomination for Best New Opera. She also appeared in a lead role on the Nigerian television series Gidi Up.

In 2015, she became the first poet to perform at a Nigerian presidential inauguration and later served as the 9th Poet Laureate of the City of Edmonton from 2021 to 2023.

The Labs. October module will focus on professional development and mentorship. More faculty announcements will follow. 

Applications for Cohort 1 close this Friday, 3 July.

The program is free. It is virtual. It is for early- to mid-career poets, spoken word artists, and writers from Nigeria and the diaspora with active practices and projects in development.

All applicants will be notified by 7 July.

The LIPFest Craft & Development Lab is supported by Africa No Filter.