Lois Antwi

@t22felton I love this song! I just needed to post something to it🥹

on repeat 🎶🎶

Member of the council for the Sudan Peace Talk Simulation

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As Rigby said, once you do the hard stuff, it becomes not that hard! In the past year, I have met and learned from and had the privilege to work on some great project of continental significance! @nanakwamebediako_cheddar @plolumumba @elijah_ftimpong

Having dared mighty feats,having won glorious triumphs checkered by failures, I toast to this opportunity to be invited to present at UNECA Conference on Land Policy! If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! - Rudyard Kipling!

Thank you LIOT for this publication! Laura is such an amazing editor and I absolutely enjoyed working with her! Her keen attention to detail and pursuit for excellence birthed this piece. Kindly read it here: /publications/foreign-policy/the-commonwealth-in-a-post-concensus-world

“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, /But make allowance for their doubting too; .... And lose, and start again at your beginnings / And never breathe a word about your loss.“ If by Rudyard Kipling After the release of the @cwfcreatives shortlist, I have been congratulated and celebrated so much. However, they had been potential platforms for congratulations that i hoped and anticipated yet ended up disappointed. I am glad I kept going. It is a great victory and I am grateful for the resilience have had and the encouragement I have been given.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt I have strived. I have doubted my skill, my person but I never doubted my story or the truth it holds. And while I stumbled and wavered in faith, I submitted one last one, then came triumph. I am honoured and humbled to share that I have been shortlisted for the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. This one is for everyone who kept writing when it felt pointless. For everyone who submitted anyway holding out the faith that someone would see the fire that brew while you typed away. @cwfcreatives #CommonwealthShortStoryPrize #Shortlisted #Ghana #NativeWrytes #DareGreatly

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.  @cwfcreatives Commonwealth Foundation, thank you for this incredible opportunity and honour. I am truly overjoyed and grateful. This recognition is both humbling and timely. Congratulations to all the other writers. I have had the privilege of seeing some of your titles and I look forward to reading your work. I hope we can connect and even collaborate in the future. This is a time for the pen. We must write fiction to inspire, challenge, and excite our minds, and non-fiction to inform, educate, and equip. Congratulations to every writer who had the audacity, creativity, and courage to write and submit. And to those shortlisted, this is a well-deserved feather in your cap and a testament to your work and creativity. CreativesProject undefined Boakye D. Alpha Thank you for the publicity

First post in a long time, I am back😅

Ghanaian, Kenyan, Nigerian and South African writers represent the Africa region on this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist. ‘Orchard of Blackbirds’ is Lois Akoma Antwi’s (@skill_pro_lab_ ) first internationally recognised work. Narrated by a teenage girl in a Bosnian town on the edge of war, the story reflects Antwi’s interest in giving voice to those sidelined by history. Set in Kenya, ‘The Runner’s Gift’ follows Mercy, a gifted distance runner contending with inherited scars, family survival and the hidden cost of excellence. Ken Odak Odumbe (kodakodumbe) brings 19 years of experience in international development to his writing. Dawn Immanuel (@dawnimmanuel ) is a Nigerian writer and editor based in Ibadan. Her debut short story, ‘The God under the Bed’, explores a young girl coming of age under rigid rules and the governance of an unseen god in her home. She is also the founder of Patchwork Quilt, an end-to-end book production studio. Hussani Abdulrahim (@hussaniabdul4 ) was longlisted for the Prize in 2023 and has previously won the Writivism Prize and the Toyin Falola Prize. His story, ‘Arewa Girls’, explores the shared experiences of Northern Nigerian women navigating patriarchal and religious-cultural norms. In ‘Shock Me I Shock You’, two siblings play a mischievous game that allows them to navigate family dysfunction and personal identity. Ola W. Halim (@ola_w.halim ) was previously shortlisted in 2021 for ‘An Analysis of a Fragile Affair’. Nigerian-born Oluwatoke Adejoye now lives and works in Vancouver. Published in Harvard’s Transition Magazine and The New Quarterly, her story ‘New Things’ is set during Nigeria’s transition to democracy, centring on a teenage boy navigating a new guardian and a rapidly evolving country. ‘Me and Ma’am’ unfolds over the course of a single day, capturing the complex relationship between a domestic worker and her employer. Its writer, Lisa-Anne Julien (@lisaannejulien ), is the author of ‘If You Save Me’, which won the University of Johannesburg’s 2022 Debut Prize for Fiction. Learn more about this year’s shortlist: /short-story-prize/