One thing I do in my practice and in my daily life is meditation or visualisations to keep calm. It helps me to stay on track if I am undertaking any tasks…
Category: Blog
Sigh-lingual: being a multilingual writer in the UK
‘Tapping the play button on this video was just another attempt on my part to learn more about the squiggles that are capable of creating universes in my mind, especially since – as much as I’d enjoyed reading the alternate paper in my undergrad English lit degree – a part of me regretted not studying literary theory.’
My Edinburgh: A Tale of Two Cities
‘Edinburgh wasn’t one of those impersonal cities where you felt like a stranger … the town centre offered a gateway to possibilities – so much of what happened tapped into a wider world, leapfrogging Britishness, straight into Europe and beyond.’
The politics of being a writer: In conversation with Saffanna Al Jbawi
Below is my interview with Glasgow-based Syrian poet. She came to the UK in 2013. Before com-ing to the UK, she worked as a teacher. Her work up to now has two stages, the poetry in Arabic that she wrote back in Syria about her experiences as a woman and the beautiful things that sur-rounded her, and the poetry in Arabic and English that she has written in the UK
Between Two Worlds
From an early age, my parents have always made me chant something along the lines of: “My name is Amanda Ihunanya Amaeshi, and I come from Amaimo in Imo State in Nigeria.” But it hasn’t really meant much to me. After all, I have lived in Britain my whole life (6 years in England, and 10 years and counting in Scotland) and have only visited Nigeria a few times for no more than a few weeks each visit. Even though I sometimes wear Nigerian attire, listen to Nigerian music, and eat non-spicy Nigerian food, I honestly don’t feel much of a connection to Nigeria, or at least not as much as my parents do.
How Writing Helped Me Connect To My Identity
“We’re asked to split ourselves in two, to align ourselves with one side more than the other. Truthfully, I never felt like I could claim any of these identities. I felt I had to prove myself and this I think, stems mostly from the desire to be accepted.”
A Moment in Lockdown (Again)
“I couldn’t help but wonder if these people had spent their whole lives in a first-world, peacetime society, and if so, could they ever in their wildest, dreams imagine what a wartime lockdown is really like? Living through a wartime conflict is something that I have actually experienced, so let me tell you what it’s like.”
Support Black-owned Organisations
4+ A spotlight on businesses and organisations founded by Black creatives Thank you to Black artists sharing on Twitter, Project […]
Names Like Mine: Weirdness, Whiteness, and Playing Pretend
“For those of us born of immigrants, born of brown faces, our ‘world’ is not the default world of whiteness. Our worlds require constant creation even in the realm of the imaginary.”
Black Lives Matter, a Protest Speech
“I speak to you today from a place of deep grief. I speak from a place of anger and of tiredness. We have said: Racism is here, Racism kills. Patriarchal violence, and class violence, kill. We see it with our own eyes; the systems that killed George Floyd are being used all over the world.”