Registration is currently open for workshops with Bernadine Evaristo, Kaveh Akbar, Itiola Jones, and Logan February at the fifth Lagos International Poetry Festival, #LIPFest19.

All workshops are limited to 25 participants. Here are the details of each workshop:

“Poetry Workshop with Itiola Jones”

Itiola Jones (I.S. Jones) is a queer American/Nigerian poet and music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and has held fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016. I.S. Jones is also a Book Editor with Indolent Books and Editor at Voicemail Poems, and freelances for Complex, Earmilk, NBC NewsThink, and elsewhere. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Kweli Journal, Winter Tangerine, The Rumpus, The Offing, and elsewhere. I.S. Jones was the 2018 Brittle Paper Award winner for poetry. She is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Date: Wednesday, 30th October, 2019

Venue: Freedom Park, Old Prison Ground, Broad Street, Lagos Island, Lagos

Time: 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Cost: NGN 3,000.

To register for this workshop, click here.

“Fusing Poetry and Fiction: A Workshop with Bernadine Evaristo”

Bernardine Evaristo is a Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, London. She is the author of eight books: the poetry collection Island of Abraham (1993); the novels-in-verse Lara (1997) and The Emperor’s Babe (2001); the novella Hello Mum (2010); the novels Soul Tourists (2005), Blonde Roots (2008), and Mr Loverman (2014); and the 2019 Booker Prize winning novel, Girl, Woman, Other (2018). Bernardine has also written for theatre, radio, print-media and for a multi-media collaboration Cityscapes with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and pianist Joanna MacGregor for the City of London Festival in 2003. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, and was awarded an MBE in 2009.

Date: Thursday, 31st October, 2019

Venue: British Council, 20 Thompson Avenue, Ikoyi, Lagos

Time: 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

Cost: NGN 5,000.

To register for this workshop, click here.

“In a Life of Want: A Workshop on the Poetics of Desire with Logan February”

Logan February is a poet and book reviewer at Platypus Press’s Weekend Review. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Raleigh Review, Yemassee, Wildness, Glass, Vinyl, Brittle Paper, and elsewhere. He is the author of How to Cook a Ghost (2017), Painted Blue with Saltwater (2018), and Mannequin in the Nude (2019).

Date: Thursday, 31st October, 2019

Venue: Freedom Park, Old Prison Ground, Broad Street, Lagos Island

Time: 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

Cost: NGN 3,000.

To register for this workshop, click here.

“Poetry Masterclass with Kaveh Akbar”

Kaveh Akbar is the founder and editor of Divedapper, a project devoted exclusively to featuring interviews with major voices in contemporary poetry. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Tin House, APR, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic (2017), and a full length-collection Calling a Wolf a Wolf (2017). Akbar has received a Pushcard and a Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and received the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation in 2016. He is currently a professor in the MFA program at Purdue University, Illinois, USA, and in the low-residency program at Randolph College, Lynchburg, Virginia, USA.

Date: Thursday, 31st October, 2019

Venue: British Council, 20 Thompson Avenue, Ikoyi, Lagos

Time: 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

Cost: NGN 5,000.

To register for this workshop, click here.

The festival can be followed on Twitter at @LagosPoetryFest, on Instagram at @lagospoetryfest, and on Facebook at “Lagos International Poetry Festival.”

Fans can follow its activities with these hashtags: #LIPFest19 #AWildBeautifulThing #Festivals #Poetry #Art #Culture #CreativeAfrica #Poetry #Poets #Writers #Artists #Conversations #Masterclasses #Parties #AMovement #AVibe.

For a full list of events, click here.