Melatu-Uche Okorie was born in Enugu, Nigeria and has been living in Ireland for twelve years. She has an Mphil in creative writing from Trinity College, Dublin. Her work has been published in Dublin: Ten Journeys One Destination, Alms on the Highway (New Writing from the Oscar Wilde Centre), LIT Journal, College Green Magazine. Her debut collection, This Hostel Life, was published in May, 2018. She is currently working on a novel.

Does writing come to someone? I’ll say, yes, in my case it did. As a young teen, if I was asked to name a hundred things that I would become when I grew up, writing would not have made the list. But, I was a good storyteller. A great one even. I knew that from a young age, and I savoured my ability to come into a story from perspectives that are contrary to the norm. I never equated that to writing or thought that the two went hand in hand. Until my audience was only a new-born baby, then, I turned to writing for a new audience.

I write because I’m interested in people. The ways we change depending on external stimuli. I see the world as a big stage and we, humans, as characters in it. Sometimes we play the protagonist, the villain, the in-between, the pretender, the follower, the leader, the submissive, the stand-alone, the weak, the strong. Creating these conflicting characters is what I enjoy most about writing.