Writing by C. I. Aki ( @soul_lit_writer )

Artwork by Harouna Ouédraogo ( @ harounaoart )

Translations byJackqueline Frost ( @_orphique_ )

C.I. Aki is a writer, editor, filmmaker, and educator based in Nashville, Tennessee. His work has been featured in Waxing and Waning literary magazine, The Denver Quarterly, The Nashville Scene, 34th and Parallel literary magazine, the Capital City Black Film Festival, Novus Literary Arts Journal, and Biocoastal Review. Aki’s debut collection of poems, The World Black, Beautiful, and Beast (April Gloaming Publishing), was released in April 2021 and ranked #3 on Readers Digest’s Top 14 Black Poets to Read in 2021. Aki’s work centers around the challenges of identity and place in the life of a second-generation Nigerian American

Harouna Ouédraogo was born in 1981 in Ouahigouya, in the north of Burkina-Faso, West Africa. An artist with an expressive and sharp style, Harouna experiences abstraction while giving himself freedom, gesture and movement. Harouna’s works are inspired by the society that surrounds him. The street, the human, the everyday life offer an infinite panel of subjects.