Writer, Artist and Researcher

I have been writing for as long as I can remember, and over the past five years, I have honed my skills in creative strategy, content marketing, research, community, social and project management. Alongside having my work published in reputable journals and magazines, both online and in print, I also run a personal blog where I write about literature, art, and lifestyle. Passionate about documenting women's stories, I explore how women are perceived and how they interact with the world based on the cultural landscapes they inhabit.
My debut chapbook, A Body in Spice has been accepted for publication by the African Poetry Book Fund in 2025.

My Work

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West African Writers Residency Video for the exhibition “litafrika – Abidjan & Accra” Strauhof Zurich 2024 “I think leaving home should not be something you have to grapple with just because you want to be a writer” - Roseline Mgbodichinma Anya-Okorie

Featured Writing

Read a featured selection of my work below.

Isele Magazine • 28th January 2025

Back to Base | Roseline Mgbodichinma

Editor’s Note: In partnership with The 2023 EIO Workshop, Isele Magazine publishes the works selected by the facilitator, Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo. Roseline Mgbodichinma’s “Back to Base” is one of the selected works.

Facilitator’s Note: In Mgbodichinma’s “Back to Base”, a story about a young woman who works as a costumed performer, we meet another character who refuses to go down without a fight. This story does everything right. First, of course, by giving the character a job (stories of c...

The Xylom • 24th November 2024

Perspective: Take the Green Pill, You Stay out of Wonderland

That day, I walk into the chemist’s shop only intending to buy Vitamin C, but upon seeing me, the chemist sighs, goes to the showcase shelf, brings out this weirdly packaged bottle and hands it to me, saying, “You need it. Many people like you are buying it.”I am tempted to ask what kinds of people he thinks are like me, but I don’t. I already know. Instead, I ask why the name of the pill is not on the bottle, and why the label is torn and haphazardly so.Seven days. I mark my calendar. Seven day...

The Xylom • 7th June 2024

Perspective: For This Desire, I Choose The Sun

Nchuanwu is so versatile it is easy to rediscover it. It went from being the leaf we used for pepper soup, a leaf that elevated the taste of porridge, made oil rice smell and taste like heaven, and was cooked and drank by my parents because they considered it medicinal to being the leaf we added to everything, Indomie, pasta, and beverages because it gave it more flavor.The optimal period for gathering Nchuanwu is during the early morning before the sun rises. After sunrise, a significant portio...

Illino: Truthful African Stories • 27th February 2025

Bush Baby — Illino: Truthful African Stories

I am waking up before the moon goes to sleep, stretching tired bones already accustomed to breaking. Are you watching me? I am standing with a log between my thighs, chopping firewood for my mother to fry cassava for breakfast, lunch and dinner. My limbs move like the hinges on a borehole: Up! Down! Krr! Krr! I am used to the sound of my suffering. I boil the cassava, wash, rinse and repeat like that. I fall asleep amidst the morning fog and the smoke from burnt ashes. A cock crows and wakes me...

27th February 2025

FFELIX TRANSLATED MY POEM " IN MY COUNTRY GIRLS DISAPPEAR" TO SHENG!

Felix: Sheng is a slang language that originated in the '50's in Nairobi' s Eastland suburbs/ghettos as a way for the young people to communicate amongst themselves without the older generation getting in on their discussions. The language which borrows words from English kiswahili and other ethinic languages in the country grew in prominence in the 90's through the local hip hop scene of the likes of Kalamashaka- a hip hop group - and is now mostly used by many youths in their daily communicati...

27th February 2025

TIME AND CHANCE: REFLECTING ON MY RESIDENCY AT THE LIBRARY OF AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

In my letter of motivation, I write, “I need time and space away from the noise, demand and familiarity of home to give my writing a new chance.” and I mean it. The year had been tough and I could not, as I had done in the past, mine this toughness into my writing. Everything around me had a stifling sameness and I wanted to do a new thing with my writing. I knew LOATAD; this brimming hub of books, culture, history and sheer African possibility was going to offer me this newness. You can imagin...

27th February 2025

Keep your heart safe and your writing spontaneous

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”What I am constantly thinking about are the ways in which I must tell these stories, especially since a certain kind of readership and relevance is important to me. It's been months since I last wrote on this blog. I created my blog spontaneously and it is this spontaneity that has sustained it ever since. Of all the 58 posts I have written on here, only few of them were actually ‘planned.’ There is a surge before any post is wr...

27th February 2025

NOT AN EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE EXPERIMENT - GOD'S AND GOD'S ONLY

ThJust two days ago, I sat down to examine the chaos that has been my life and it just dawned on me that I can name a thousand reasons why God should not make sense to me. I even saw a video on TikTok where a former fervent Christian itemized dozens of reasons why she stopped believing in God and I cannot lie to you, she made very valid points. I have seen people lose faith because of loss and pain. I have even had moments where I held my faith to light and questioned the potency of it. I don't...

Some of my Most Read pieces

Isele Magazine • 5th July 2021

Souvenir | Roseline Mgbodichinma

Prayer

My body went missing when I started to touch myself. It disappeared totally into the brim of darkness with my shadows fighting to be seen. It was before men knew me, even before I knew myself. I was mining my way through everything I could not tell Uzo. I found a cure for my loneliness on the atlas of my body.

My sheets smelt of saliva and raw emotions. I only washed them when my Chi sent moulds as a reminder that my prayers would choke before they reached the heavens. It was import...

Isele Magazine • 15th March 2024

Two Poems | Roseline Mgbodichinma

Roseline Mgbodichinma is a Nigerian writer passionate about documenting women’s stories. Her writing explores the intersection of nature, womanhood, emotion, bodies and desire, and how they exist and function in society. She is an alumni of the Library of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD) West African Writers Residency programme. Her writing has been published on Isele, The Willowherb Review, Agbowo, SprinNG, Native Skin and elsewhere.

*Feature image by Runze Shi on Unsplash

Roseline...

Book & Album Reviews

BellaNaija • 20th September 2024

BN Book Review: Face Me I Face You by Oyindamola Shoola | Review by Roseline Mgbodichimma | BellaNaija

In his essay “A Laughing Giant,” Wale Lawal writes, “What the grasp of a people’s humour measures is the ability to express oneself technically and, more importantly, socially.” This grasp is precisely what Oyindamola Shoola masters in her latest poetry collection, “Face Me I Face You.” The collection brings to life characters whose hilarious flaws reveal the chaotic beauty of everyday human interactions. Oyindamola, a true architect of words, crafts poems that are accessible, refreshing, and ri...

BellaNaija • 31st October 2024

BN Book Review: Little Words by Amife Sabatina | Review by Roseline Mgbodichimma | BellaNaija

The ability to bend language to capture feeling is an art Amife masters in her book “Little Words”. This hybrid collection of poetry and prose revels in truth, beauty, nostalgia and melancholy. There are eleven chapters in the book, each chapter categorised to show phases of the author’s life. Little Words reads like an honest cathedral of letters, where human emotions are assembled. Amife’s words serve as a comforting presence, pausing to share in collective uncertainties or pain, to say, me to...

BellaNaija • 7th December 2023

Blue Hour Notes by Faith Moyosore Agboola | A Spoken Word Poetry Review by Roseline Mgbodichimma | BellaNaija

It takes a poet present in time, honest and deeply attentive to deliver a spoken word album like Blue Hour Notes. A collection of poetry that delicately and audaciously weaves the dynamics of human emotion through the prisms of womanhood, language, mental wars, and yearning. Faith Moyosore Agboola, the brilliance behind this EP, is not new to the poetry scene. As a writer, cultural producer and founder of The African Writers, she has performed poetry on various stages and was awarded the fully-f...

Interviews

I am drawn to women and their stories—the interiorities of their lives, their humanity, and how they navigate the world. I began interviewing women in different parts of the world because this kind of representation and documentation matters.