Biographies

Imaikop Anne Abugu is a banker and a writer who was born and raised in Nigeria. She currently lives there with her husband and three boisterous boys. Her passions lie in poetry and fiction. She is passionate about words being used as a vessel to heal and letting one’s emotions out. She sees her words as a voice for the voiceless and the socially awkward. She has co-authored an anthology, Sun Cycle: celebrating the World's Seasons, along with other Instagram poets. Her work has been influenced by the works of the great Wole Soyinka and Chimamanda Adichie. She thoroughly enjoys writing romance and fiction and is currently working on her first novel. Her other passions include baking and swimming.

Since October 2019, Ismet Diab began posting her poems on Instagram and is known as @shespeaksyoursilence in the poetry community. Poetry set her free and she chose this pen name because silence to her was like a pandora's box. The day she found the courage to unlock, it gave her the freedom to release pent-up feelings, untold stories and residing torments from her heart in waves. Poetry gave her inner voice a home and helped her reveal the parts of herself that she could not speak about. She is deeply empathetic of other people and finds herself sailing within their oceans and writing about their stories of silence as well. Currently, she works as an oil crude market analyst and researcher at a petroleum company in Alexandria, Egypt. She lives with her two children—Adam and Jeanna and a wee dog named Alvin.