An interview with Damore Alli. Read our review of her poetry book, Birdsong here.

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

Damore: Some may know me as the short black girl; others, as ‘me’ from Miniscule Diary; some as Rofiatu, and some as Damore. I have called myself a lot of names across the years, but it’s funny how Damore has stuck. So apart from being a short black girl, who has a sometimes-vivid, sometimes-absent sense of herself, I am an Accountant by profession, a writer by incidence, a talker, and a recluse with the attention span of a fly. I enjoy quiet moments but growing up in Lagos or Nigeria, you realise your quiet is not your own. If it’s not the shouting neighbours, it is the power sirens, or the croaking generators. I often miss all the quiet moments I may never have.

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

Damore: I am a tax consultant by day, an editor when the need arises, and a writer when the muses speak. I am looking to delve into the literary world fully, sometime soon.

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

Damore:  I started writing sometime in 2008, because of a boy. I had loved him for so long, done everything to accommodate him and his excesses but it soon dawned that all he would ever be good for was hurting me. Writing helped me choose myself.

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

Damore: Nothing new for now. Apart from making reprints of Birdsong with more illustrations.

LE: Lastly, what are your hobbies?

Damore: Reading, seeing a movie, eating good food, travelling to beautiful countries and cities and spending all vacation days sleeping in the loftiness of my hotel room.

Birdsong is Damore’s debut book.

She is on Twitter and blogs here.