4thcoming: Slay In Your Lane

The 4thcoming series is all about introducing you to our authors.  If you’ve ever wondered what your favourite 4th Estate author is currently reading, listening to or what their writing ritual is, then we’ve got all those answers for you.

Name:
Yomi Adegoke
Elizabeth Uviebinené

Occupation:
Y: Journalist
E: Brand Marketing Manager

What you’re reading:
Y: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
E: The Multi-Hyphen Method by Emma Gannon

What you’re listening to:
Y: Cardi B – Invasion of privacy
E: Vroom – Yxng Bane

What you’re watching:
Y: Sky’s Nollywood channel, ROK
E: The Handmaid’s Tale

Favourite word(s):
Y: ‘Mew’ – a word me and my friends made up at uni, which means reserved, crap, embarrassed and multiple things all at once
E: Thrive 

Favourite song:
Y: Impossible question!
E: My Girl – The Temptations

Living person you most admire:
Y: My sisters, Yemisi and Yinka
E: All the amazing women I have in my life

The trait you most deplore in yourself:
Y: Lateness
E: Laziness

The trait you most deplore in others:
Y: Sycophancy
E: Arrogance

The book you wish you’d written:
Y: Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
E: The Multi-Hyphen Method by Emma Gannon

The book everyone should read:
Y: The Terrible by Ysra Daley-Ward
E: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo Lodge

Writing ritual:
Y: Writing all my thoughts and witty one liners related to what I’m writing in notes on my phone on the tube beforehand
E: I always start jotting down my initial thoughts with a pen and notebook with an extra hot extra shot latte on the side

Best advice ever received:
Y: “Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.” – Zadie Smith
E: “Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper.” – Beyonce

If you could change one thing about the world:
Y: Universally free healthcare for all
E: No more wars

Think of something beautiful:
Y: Genuine self-acceptance – it’s gorgeous.
E: A child’s smile

The most memorable sentence you’ve ever read:
Y:“RIP Aunty… the evil you have done in this world is enough…”
E: It has to be the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

If you weren’t writing:
Y: I’d be painting
E: I’d still be working in marketing – I love seeing my ideas come to life!

Who would play the main characters in a film adaptation of your book?
Y: Me and Elizabeth of course! Or Yvonne Orji, who kind of looks like us both
E: What Yomi said!

Best place to write?
Y: At home, in a bed, in front of a muted TV
E: In my local coffee shop

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