Adedayo Agarau is the author of “The Years of Blood,” winner of the Poetic Justice Institute Editor’s Prize for BIPOC Writers (Fordham University Press, Fall 2025). He is a Wallace Stegner Fellow ‘25, a Cave Canem Fellow and a 2024 Ruth Lilly-Rosenberg Fellowship finalist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Agbowó Magazine: A Journal of African Literature and Art and a Poetry Reviews Editor for The Rumpus. He is the author of the chapbooks “Origin of Name” (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020) and “The Arrival of Rain” (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020).

Igbayilola Williams is a Nigerian artist influenced by African philosophy as reflected in his use of oil and acrylic to create textured effects on his paintings. His style encompasses elements of Expressionism, Postmodernism, Fauvism and figurative abstract. Igbayilola studied Fine and Applied Arts at Ladoke Akintola University Ogbomoso, Nigeria; and had his debut solo exhibition at AVPAI Art Gallery in Iragbiji. He worked under the tutelage of Muraina Oyelami, a major artist of the Osogbo School.