2020 SprinNG Women Authors Prize: Meet the Judges

The SpringNG Women Authors Prize (SWAPng) is an annual literary prize organised by SpringNG to promote Nigerian books authored by women.

This year’s seeks to award their winner with 100,000 Naira and also distribute, market copies of their book Nation-wide through their sister literary websites and events they collaborate with.

Submissions are still open for the prize. See here.

The submissions received will be reviewed and judged by a four-woman panel, including Mona Zutshi Opubor, I. S. Jones, Eketi Edima Ette and Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu.

The Judges’ Profile:

Mona Zutshi Opubor

​Mona Zutshi Opubor is an Indian-American and Nigerian short story author and memoirist. She received her BA in English Literature from Columbia University and her MA in Creative Writing from Boston University. She is currently pursuing an MSt in Literature and Arts at the University of Oxford.

​Mona has received numerous writing fellowships, including The Farafina Workshop (now Purple Hibiscus Trust Workshop) and the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa. She works as the featured columnist and editor of Lost in Lagos Magazine.

​Her work has appeared in international magazines and literary journals, both in print and online. Mona lives in Lagos, Nigeria, with her husband and three children. She enjoys cooking, taking walks, traveling, and working to improve childhood literacy.

I. S. Jones

I. S. Jones is a queer American / Nigerian poet and music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. I.S. hosts a month-long workshop every April, called The Singing Bullet.

She is a Book Editor with Indolent Books, Editor at 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, freelances for Complex, Earmilk, NBC News Think, and elsewhere. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, The Rumpus, Hesperios, The Offing, The Shade Journal, Nat.Brut, Puerto Del Sol, and elsewhere. She is the co-editor of the Young African Poets Anthology and is currently guest-editing for Lolwe.

​Her work was chosen by the 2020 Madison, WI Poet Laureate as the winner of the Bus Lines Poetry Contest. She is an MFA candidate in Poetry at UW-Madison as well as the inaugural 2019-2020 Kemper K. Knapp University Fellowship recipient. She splits her time between Southern California and New York.

Eketi Edima Ette

​Eketi Edima Ette is a gifted storyteller, writing coach, and the author of Chinda Ella, a Nigerian parody of the popular Cinderella folktale. She has also co-authored books like Beyond the Corner, and I Wish I Knew This Before I Was Fourteen.

A digital marketing and social media enthusiast, she also freelances as a content creator and has worked with several local and international brands.

Eketi is the co-founder of Meet A Need Empowerment Initiative, a non-profit whose goal is to empower, educate, and alleviate the severe lack amongst the underprivileged. She is also a mental health advocate and volunteers with Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative.

In her spare time, she travels, reads compulsively, sniffs new books, and admires red sunsets.

Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu

Hauwa Shaffii Nuhu is a poet and essayist from Nigeria, whose work has appeared on Popula, Ake Review, Lolwe, Arts and Africa, After The Pause journal, Bitter Oleander, 20.35 Africa, Memento, and elsewhere. She is a 2018 fellow of Ebedi Writers Residency.

She has an LLB from Bayero University, Kano, and is currently at the Nigerian Law School. A two-time shortlistee of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize, she has been a guest at literary festivals and panels such as the Ake Festival and the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival.

Passionate about northern and women representation and amplification, in 2018, she was an associate producer of season 4 of the popular Hausa TV show “Haske Matan Arewa,” a program that aired on Arewa24, interviewing and showcasing exceptional northern Nigerian women and their work to the word.

She lives in Minna.

Culled from SWAPng website.