2022 Shortlisted Writers
Joshua Chizoma is a Nigerian writer. His works have been published or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Lolwe, AFREADA, Entropy Magazine, Anathema Magazine, Agbowo Magazine, and Prachya Review. His story, ‘A House Called Joy’ won the 2018 Kreative Diadem Prize in the flash fiction category. He won the 2020 Awele Creative Trust Short Story Prize with his short story “Their Boy” and was shortlisted for the 2021 Afritondo Short Story Prize. He is an alumnus of the 2019 Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop taught by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Joshua’s short story, ‘Collector of Memories’, has been shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize. Read ‘Collector of Memories’ here.
Hannah Giorgis is a staff writer at The Atlantic. The daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, she lives in Brooklyn by way of Southern California. Her criticism and reporting have appeared in publications including the New York Times magazine, The Guardian, and Pitchfork. Hannah's short stories have appeared in the Addis Ababa Noir anthology, the Lifted Brow literary journal, and SPOOK magazine. She was the recipient of the 2018 Yoojin Grace Wuertz Writers of Immigration and Diaspora fellowship at the Jack Jones Literary Arts retreat and the 2021 Writer-in-Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Most recently, Hannah co-wrote Ida B. The Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells, a dedication to the pioneering American journalist and advocate, with Wells' great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster.
Hannah’s short story, ‘A Double-Edged Inheritance’, has been shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize. Read ‘A Double-Edged Inheritance’ here.
Nana-Ama Danquah was born in Accra, Ghana and immigrated to the US as a child. She is the author of the memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression and editor of the anthologies Becoming American, Shaking the Tree, The Black Body and, most recently, Accra Noir. Her work has been widely anthologized and published in magazines and newspapers such as Essence, the Washington Post, the Village Voice, and the Los Angeles Times. She has taught at Otis College of Arts and Design; Antioch College; University of Ghana; and, NYU in Ghana.
Nana-Ama’s short story, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, has been shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize. Read ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ here.
Idza Luhumyo is a Kenyan writer. Her work has been published by Popula, Jalada Africa, The Writivism Anthology, Baphash Literary & Arts Quarterly, MaThoko's Books, Gordon Square Review, Amsterdam's ZAM Magazine, Short Story Day Africa, the New Internationalist, The Dark, and African Arguments. Her work has been shortlisted for the Short Story Day Africa Prize, the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship, and the Gerald Kraak Award. She is the inaugural winner of the Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa Award (2020) and winner of the Short Story Day Africa Prize (2021).
Idza’s short story, ‘Five Years Next Sunday’, has been shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize. Read ‘Five Years Next Sunday’ here.
Billie McTernan is a writer and artist who experiments with literary and visual art forms. She has an MFA from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, and has published many articles and essays from her travels in West Africa. As a storyteller, she is drawn to the ways that stories are manifested, be it through the body in dance and performance, or through literature, sound and visual arts. She has been published in TSA Art Magazine, ARTnews, Artsy, Financial Times Life & Arts, Contemporary And, ARTS.BLACK and other independent artist-run platforms. She is currently working on a piece that falls somewhere between a short story and a novel.
Billie’s short story, ‘The Labadi Sunshine Bar’, has been shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize. Read ‘The Labadi Sunshine Bar’ here.