ayo deforge

 Back in May 2020, during the first global lockdown due to the Covid-19 crisis, AFREDA proposed The Pen Pal Project on their Twitter account. The aim was to 'promote human connection in a time of isolation'. My writer friend Angel suggested participating and so we did. © AFREADA I wrote a letter to a stranger. On June 1st, 2020, AFREADA exchanged the letters. I received one from my pen pal, a 28-year-old woman from Tanzania. Rehema received my letter as well. Three months later, we moved from email exchanges to WhatsApp messages.  Today, over a year later, Rehema and I are still friends, despite our busy schedules. I cherish our friendship and hope we will be friends for a very long time.

 I've always enjoyed reading AFREADA's Friday newsletters, so when they asked for contributions from their readers, I thought to myself, 'Why Not?'.  I didn't immediately get an idea of what I should write about, so it slipped my mind for a while. One night, after dinner, I came across the email and decided to give it a shot. A few minutes later, I had scribbled down 350 words. I read through it quickly and submitted it before I could change my mind. It felt too personal because I had shared a part of a private letter I was writing to my daughter, Deborah. Sometimes, when I feel overwhelmed  with grief, the only thing I want to do is to put my feelings into words. Sometimes, I hold back because I feel like I am 'flogging' my loss. Sometimes, to be free, I set the words free. Because I didn't get any confirmation email from AFREADA, I had thought that the submission had failed until I received an email from Nancy Adimora, the founding editor. My intro had...

  After Litro Magazine published my 300-word flash fiction back in July, everyone I know who read it  asked me to turn it into a novel. I have been toying with the idea and although I do not have a story plot yet I am looking forward to taking up the challenge someday soon.  I wrote the story in one sitting back in 2017. It's about a woman whose brother died at the 2016 Nice attack and who contemplated a lethal pact she made with her brothers some 27 years back. I had initially written the story for a writing competition that was later cancelled.  For a long time, I didn't want to send it out to magazines as I didn't want to sadden my husband. My father-in-law and his girlfriend, Sylvie, were amongst the 86 people who died during the attack when a terrorist drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. You can read my short story here .