An interview with Tayo Aiyegbusi. Read our review of her poetry collection, Thoughts in the Dark: An Uncharted Expedition into Verse here.

LE: Hello Tayo, please tell us a bit about yourself.

Tayo: I was born in Ibadan, Nigeria but I’ve lived in Lagos since I was three or four years old. I studied Economics & Statistics at the University of Benin and hold an MBA from Lagos Business School, Pan African University.

LE: What you do for a living? Is writing your full time job?

Tayo: I wear two work hats: I get to work with SME owners in structuring their business operations and I also create and develop content.

LE: When did you start writing and what prompted it?

Tayo: It’s hard to say. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember with no deliberateness to it until fairly recently. It was (and still is) primarily a fun thing to do, a natural consequence of growing up around an extensive variety of books, enjoying my own company a little too much, indulging my imagination quite a bit and finding words that would agree to work with me.

LE: Are you currently working on any book and if you are, what is it about?

Tayo: I’m working on two, actually.

A book adaptation of a screenplay I wrote a while back. It’s about an unlikely friendship and the intentionality of serendipity. It should be ready-to-read by September (2019), as long as I stay on track.

Then also, a third instalment of the uncharted expeditions in verse series (since I’m still getting thoughts in that form, and in that resistant-to-mapping style) that’ll be out by late Dec 2019/early Jan 2020, fingers crossed.

LE: Lastly, what are your hobbies?

Tayo: Apart from reading, writing or vegging out in front of the TV? I’ll be good if there’s a jigsaw puzzle within reach.

Tayo has two published books:

Thoughts in the Dark: An Uncharted Expedition into Verse

…And With the Lights On: A Further Uncharted Expedition into Verse