A Nigerian-British London-based writer and single mother, BUNMI OGUNSIJI began writing (initially poetry) as a reticent teenager and in her twenties found her way to the stage as a Performance Poet, reciting to audiences across London. In 1999, writing took a back seat to parenting but a passion for learning, cinema and ‘story ’ led to an MA in Screenwriting at UAL. In 2016 she took a leap of faith and left her job as a Helpline Adviser for the Alzheimer’s Society to focus full time on writing. ‘Towards a Short Story Collection’ – a week long Arvon course, proved to be a significant step change in her creative journey. Her story, ‘Blessing’ was commended in the 2016 Bath Short Story Award and in 2017 ‘Things Carried Over’ was awarded 3rd prize in the Bristol Short Story Prize. She is currently working on her first collection and a memoir.

ELAINE WILLIAMS hails from Sheffield, where she spent her late teens writing and performing plays with the Crucible Youth Theatre. She moved to London in the eighties and has lived here ever since. Her long and varied CV includes a proud history of work as a freelance writer for Calabash – a once seminal platform for African, Caribbean and Asian writers. A graduate of the National Film and Television School, Elaine worked as a freelance sound recordist on independent film productions and as a sound designer in the computer games industry. In 2008, she produced the documentary feature ‘The Man Who Was Bojangles’ for BBC Radio 4. Elaine is an English teacher and tutor and works in special needs education. She began writing Dad, Black Women and Girls Talk About their Fathers in 2009, after gaining a place on the MA in Narrative Non-Fiction at City University. In 2016, Dad was shortlisted by Penguin Random House WriteNow mentoring programme. Her short story ‘Night’ is published in the Common People anthology (Unbound, May 2019), edited by Kit de Waal.