Writer Bio

I was born on October 4, 1975, in Ibadan, a sprawling university city in south-western Nigeria. One of my fondest childhood memories was staring at the projector screen as my father, a university professor, showed slides from his travels across Australia and New Zealand. How I wanted to travel the world!

Then I discovered faraway places by immersing myself in the pages of a book. Sometimes by squeezing my eyes tight, I saw myself walking down cobbled European streets or swaying a beaded waist to pulsating drum beats from the times when African warriors still ruled the Savannah plains.

My love for reading anything I could lay my hands on led to poetry writing when I was twelve. It was the best way I made sense of all those long, angst-filled teenage and young adult years.

In the year 2000, after our big, loud, African wedding, I joined my husband in Maryland, USA. Over that decade, I stayed home to raise our three children, moved to Canada, and went back to university to become a social worker.

Since 2009, I’ve been fortunate to work with children and their families as a child protection worker, a crisis counsellor, and currently as a long-term therapist in children’s mental health.

I live in Chatham, Ontario where I continue to write poems, short stories, and novels.