Rongo Art Residency: A Conversation with Testimony Odey
- How did you feel when you got accepted for the Rongo Art Residency?
I felt elated! I really had my fingers crossed after I applied, and when I didn’t get a response for weeks after the application deadline, I felt anxious, nervous and discouraged. So, getting the acceptance email just felt like a breath of fresh air and joy.
- What’s your favorite moment at the residency?
One of my favourite moments has to be when my fellow residents and I sat around a table and played the story chain game, where we told stories continuing from where each of us left off. I swear, I laughed so much. It was the best time ever!
- What is the most important thing you learned from your facilitator during the residency?
The importance of writing sentences that have souls, of telling without telling, of rewriting again and again, of creating stories that become houses of silences.
- After this residency, what next?
For me, it’s putting all I have learned into practice, improving my craft, connecting with other amazing writers and publishing more of my work.
- How has the residency impacted you as a writer?
I think it really expanded my horizon in terms of knowledge about craft and friendship with other writers. I learned so much from both the facilitator and my peers. The residency also created spaces where we bonded and read our works out loud and that radiated the brilliance of good writers being in one space, and reminded me of the importance of a writers community.
BIO:
Testimony Odey is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist exploring the intersections of various art forms. With publications in several magazines, she has been shortlisted for the African Human Rights Short Story Prize, Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize, and global Writing Ukraine Prize, and is a recipient of the Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors, African Teen Writers Awards, HIASFEST Star Prize, Wakaso Poetry Prize, and JCIN UNIBEN Ten Emerging Leaders and Legacy Award. She just concluded her time at the Rongo Artist Residency and is a member of The Ugly Collective, a literary circle of change makers.
