It all started with a dinner invitation I didn’t know I couldn’t afford. As your typical Igbo guy newly settling into Florida, I had long heard of the infamous American tipping culture—a capitalist romance between customers and service workers where one party does all the work, and the other is guilted into subsidizing their paycheck….
No one told me we lived in a ghetto. I only realized it when I visited my cousins during the holidays, first in Ejigbo, then in Iyana Iba. It was in the way they said it—half amusement, half pity—how they wrinkled their noses and called my home “Ajegunle,” with the kind of finality that needed…
Every evening, Bunmi Adeyemi boards the 6:15 train from Manhattan to Queens, surrounded by the same tired faces, the same predictable routine, the same quiet loneliness.
But one night, a chance encounter with a stranger—a poet with knowing eyes and a charming smile—shakes the rhythm of her commute.
In a city where connections are fleeting and love feels like a mirage, can a conversation on a crowded subway change everything?
If you think you’ve fully assimilated into American culture just because you’ve eaten a burger, filed your taxes, or yelled “Let’s go Cowboys!”, think again. If you’ve not yet experienced the DART bus and train system in Dallas, your American initiation is incomplete. Forget Hollywood’s shiny portrayals of America; the real raw, unfiltered, and sometimes…
Think you’ve experienced everything modern dating has to offer? Read this woman’s story about loss, rediscovery, and the absurdities of contemporary dating.
Look, I get it. You’re tired. Tired of picking up another Nigerian novel only to be hit with colonialism, civil war, poverty porn, or some combination of all three. Don’t get me wrong – these stories matter. But abeg, sometimes a babe just wants to read about two people falling in love without having to…
They say everything’s bigger in Texas, they didn’t lie. As I sit here writing this, a bundled human burrito, my thermostat is doing its best to convince me that 12°F (-11°C) is “cozy,” while my electricity meter keeps climbing higher. As a writer—one who calculates rent between commas—I am keenly aware of these things. Anyway,…
When the invitation landed in my inbox to contribute to the “Call Me” multi-author series—a collection of standalone novels chronicling the lives of Africans studying abroad—I felt an immediate mix of excitement and sheer terror. Why? Because I hadn’t traveled much. Therefore, writing about a place I’d never been to felt like dancing on a…