ABOUT
THE WHO AND THE WHY BEHIND SOO WRITES
THE WHO
Hi there, I’m Sophia Obianamma Ofuokwu, pronounced as seen.
Don’t worry about butchering the name—that is how you learn. In short though, my initials make SOO, so that is the who behind this website. If you are a fellow potato who would prefer to know the person rather than just the name, stick with me.
I write fiction about black people, especially Nigerians, and I line edit all kinds of fiction—even those about talking animals and dancing socks. If you want to know how I came to do this, read my brand story.
My work revolves around family, friendship and love—the things that make you all warm and hopeful—but be careful because surrealism and horror are always lurking in the shadows.
You know why you’d love me? You’d love me because I am just a girl who has worlds in her head and stumbles on her own feet when people stare at her too long. You’d love me because I am like you, and I create magic just by being. And daydreaming an unhealthy number of times. And procrastinating, then writing something awesome and wondering how I managed to do that. See? Like you!
Here, I rant about writing, and, once in a blue moon, about how I juggle being a writer with being a registered midwife. I’ll drop tips along the way and call for collaborations because I would love to get to know you. I hope to spread warmth through my words and show you from within the pages of a book that anything really is possible.
I hope to reel you in hook, line, and sinker, and have you ugly crying at the characters I create. I promise you I won’t laugh too hard from behind my screen.
When I am not working on a short story or telling a fellow author to cut a sentence in half, I’d most likely be sleeping, or writing content for Cyforce Holdings—a tech company that pays me to write about technology in easy-to-understand words—, or writing midwife-y stuff for health and wellness sites, or just, you know, shooting shots to guest-post on blogs that talk about anything ‘writing’. Or being a hypocrite and writing long sentences because they sound like rap on my tongue.
Have a look around, grab a copy of my free short story if you’re thus inclined, or send me a cutesy message. I love getting those!
Have a blast!
THE WHY
Or as I like to say, ‘my brand story’
Why do you think? Because tattoo parlours got all the fancy names. Duh. But really, writers engrave stuff too.
Anyway, most of us literary babies grew up on Western/European Literature. I grew up on George Orwell’s Animal Farm and a host of others, then I stumbled into Wattpad where I doubly fell in love with characters having blonde wavy hair and blue eyes.
Saul Bellow once said something profound. A writer is a reader moved to emulation. I emulated, and for years since my first story I wrote strictly Western stories. I wrote about winter and blizzards like I had felt the chill of snow on my tongue. I wrote about silky hair and loose buns like my hair wasn’t so tough and brittle it cut the aunties who tried to plait it into submission. I wrote about detention and prom like I had ever bought a gown to dance in a hall with my beloved classmates whom I would miss. (I am laughing hard at the image)
I did quick google searches on whether there are cinnamon-flavoured bagels, even though I had never tasted bagels and didn’t really know what cinnamon tasted like.
I wrote about experiences this body didn’t live because I lived them through the pages of the books I read. And most of us do this. No judgement here; it is all we knew.
In 2021 I found African Literature, and I was blown away by the people in the stories. For the first time, I saw people who talked like me and people who looked like me. All in the pages of a book.
I started with short stories—Caine prize winners (I surrendered to the bittersweet story of Kwame and Adwoa in Nana-Ama Danquah’s When A Man Loves A Woman), then moved to Chimamanda because I had heard so much about the Nigerian writer and her damned Purple Hibiscus that I still cannot tell if I’ve read or not. I fell in love with stories about black people and set out to read everything I could access.
I have read enough African Literature to have been moved to emulation. Now, whenever my fingers are poised to move across my keyboard, they spin stories of the ilk of people I see every day.
This is why I created SOO.
There are dozens of BIPOC magazines and websites dedicated strictly to African Literature, but there aren’t as many individuals saying ‘yes, I write about black people and my website was made specifically for black people who write about black people’. Unashamedly.
If you fall into this rare group or have been thinking about niching down to this, hello fellow visionary, this website was made with you in mind.
If you are only just hearing about African Literature, I hope you fall in love with it through the magic I show in this space. I hope you see the power in local, see the beauty of our expressions and learn the tastes of our dishes like you are tasting them for the very first time. I hope you read my stories and the stories of other African writers and are moved to emulation. The world needs your story.
Mission
To create a space where African creatives who write about Africans feel seen and find the answers to their unique struggles.
Vision
To become the go-to place for black creatives searching for someone who gets it, and for readers hoping to understand African Literature.
Ready to Elevate Your Writing Experience?
Connect with me now and discover how I can help bring your writing vision to life while offering dry jokes.