Ukamaka Olisakwe

Call for Submissions: Rituals “This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul t…

Submissions are now open for our next quarterly!

For this quarterly issue, we are seeking submissions that explore rituals – both the quiet, personal habits that shape our days and the communal, cultural ceremonies that bind generations.

Read here:

iselemagazine.com/2025/06/02/c...

For our first quarterly issue of the year, we explore the fleeting beauty of life’s impermanence.

Featuring Victor Forna, Solomon Peabo, Doreen Masika, Kabubu Mutua, Lucy Zhang, Celeste Colarič-Gonzales, and more.

Read our Ephemeral Moments issue:

iselemagazine.com/ephemeral-mo...

Not Like Other Boys | Josiah Ikpe Editor’s Note: In partnership with The 2023 EIO Workshop, Isele Magazine publishes the works selected by the facilitator, Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo. Josiah Ikpe’s “Not Like Other Boys” i…

iselemagazine.com/2025/01/28/n...

My Grandma’s Memory Box | Mariam Oyewunmi Tijani Editor’s Note: In partnership with The 2024 Abebi Award in Afro-Nonfiction, Isele Magazine publishes the winner, the runner-up, and the notable essays selected by the curators of the award. Ma…

Mariam Oyewunmi Tijani's "My Grandma’s Memory Box" has won the 2024 Abebi Award in Afro-Nonfiction Prize! #TheAbebiInstitute

Read her winning essay here:

iselemagazine.com/2025/01/17/m...

Some Seasons I Have Known | Kemi Falodun OWO The days got colder and drier, lips chapped and dust settled on everything. We cleaned the tables and railings, discarded old, musty clothes. We scrubbed the floor, rearranged the sofas, and ga…

“Traditions demand our attention. They need time to become and remain a thing. The last time I saw Sister Bisi, she expressed how proud she was of my writing and journey. She died…and the carol died with her. A thing falls apart to reveal whose labour pillared it.”

iselemagazine.com/2024/12/06/s...

Editor’s Choice: 25 Most Anticipated Books of 2025 Last year, we published a list of books we were excited to read and eventually enjoyed. The list featured Chigozie Obioma; Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond; ‘Pemi Aguda, whose debut collection, Ghostroots, w…

Featuring new titles by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Chika Unigwe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo and many others, here are our 25 Most Anticipated Books of 2025.

iselemagazine.com/2025/01/03/e...

Autumn Smoke | Janis La Couvée Smoke permeates my bedroom walls, seeps in through cracks around the windows—I know it’s there the minute I wake up. My family is noted for our good noses, sniffing the air at the faintest whiff of…

Thank you @iselemagazine.bsky.social for publishing my non-fiction essay "Autumn Smoke" in the themed edition "The Air We Breathe". What a happy way to end the year. iselemagazine.com/2024/12/30/a... #writingcommunity #amwriting

honoured to be featured in this quarterly edition of @iselemagazine.bsky.social themed on "The Air We Breathe"

The Air We Breathe TABLE OF CONTENTS Fiction Sports Ball | Nathaniel Krenkel Storm at the Crossing | Great Opara Clucking | Victor Ola-Matthew They Flap Arown | Amanda Yskamp Burning Questions | Susan L. Lin Nonficti…

thankful to @iselemagazine.bsky.social for including Sports Ball in their new issue…
#shortfiction

iselemagazine.com/the-air-we-b...

For our last quarterly issue of 2024, we present works that revolve around air pollution and the resilience of life forms living in polluted environments.

Featuring Nathaniel Krenkel, Great Opera, Sumedha Shukla, Moseka Ole Ntiyia, Alobu Emmanuel and more.

Read:

iselemagazine.com/the-air-we-b...

Top Ten of 2024 | Nonfiction From Tolu Daniel’s “Notes of a Nonresident Alien” to Kemi Falodun’s stirring piece, “Some Seasons I Have known,” check out our top ten most popular essays of this year. Heartwood …

From Tolu Daniel’s “Notes of a Nonresident Alien” to Kemi Falodun’s stirring piece, “Some Seasons I Have known,” check out our top ten most popular essays of this year.

iselemagazine.com/2024/12/23/t...

I really am happy with this new project. It’s taken me to unexpected places.

Flowers in Bloom | Lucia Edafioka That was quite intense, wasn’t it? so good! Tunde says, smiling and panting. He lies on his back in an oversized bed, talking to Ròrie, who is also on her back. She is not smiling or panting. She l…

Read Lucia Edafioka’s new short story:

iselemagazine.com/2024/12/06/f...

This issue is really special. I’m so moved by the quality of work we continue to publish at Isele, despite the challenges and all.

Isele will be here for a long time and this special issue proves it.

Please read and share.✨

New paperback in the mail.🥺

My Nigerian publishers are so thoughtful; they sold out the previous prints and returned with a new cover.

I’m so lucky to have them.

I didn’t leave X because people there had different opinions and ideologies, I left because it stopped being fun. I get on social media to chat with people who think thinking is fun. X stopped being a place where that was true.

It’s finally Christmas on my street !✨🥺 They just lit the lights🎉

For the first time I wasn’t subjected to interrogation about Nigeria. Just long hours spent with an amazing family, eating and drinking and playing games. The world faded into the background and I didn’t want it to end.

This year’s Thanksgiving was, unarguably, my best since moving to the US.

Read Flora Nwapa’s Efuru again (for the fifth time) and my life is truly and utterly changed.

Kamran Javadizadeh: "Ahead of Time" "Before a person dies, you talk to them. They die, and you still want to talk to them."

Read Kamran Javadizadeh’s essay two weeks ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it ever since.

yalereview.org/article/kamr...

Thank you, Fatima!

Anyway, I am so excited about our next issue coming up at Isele Magazine. The stories, the essays, the poems? They are some of the best we’ve gotten this year!

Opinions is now out in paperback! bookshop.org/p/books/opin...

Okay, I think this place really is home. That former place is no longer recognizable.

Watching Ex Machina for the fifth time and it feels new each time.