Olumide did her PhD straight after an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East London. It was titled Fishing for Naija: Border crossing as framework for language and literary form and comprised a critical theoretical section and her original novel When We Speak Of Nothing. She was one of the first creative writing PhD students at the university and spent much of the first two years, with the support of two great supervisors, reading, thinking, and exploring critical theories so that she could identify and validate the intellectual worth of her practice-based doctorate.

After finishing at UEL in 2015, she taught creative writing for a short while at Goldsmiths, as maternity cover. She then started a family and found that working to her own timetable suited the new lifestyle, giving her much-needed flexibility. She has continued lecturing on hourly contracts which she enjoys but has found ways to teach outside of academia on various courses of her own making. Olumide believes that artistic and creative work performed outside the academy still involves critical thinking and research – universities do not have the monopoly! She has found that having the doctorate has provided her better access to resources such as funding opportunities and higher rates of pay at speaking engagements.

Olumide is the initiator and leader of the Arts Council-funded mentoring scheme for emerging LGBTQ+ writers, The Future is Back.

Links:

https://www.olumidepopoola.com/

https://thefutureisback.wixsite.com/tfib

https://cassavarepublic.biz/product/when-we-speak-of-nothing/