Why I’m passionate about writing.

Before I became a teacher and instructional designer, I was a writer. Recently, I’ve been reflecting on why storytelling means so much to me.

Frank McCourt, one of Ireland’s most famous writers, once said, “Everyone has a story to tell. All you have to do is write it.”

I love sharing mine.

My life story has been shaped by inter-continental migrations, and experiences of hardships, successes, joy and pain that made me who I am today and influence the childrens books and novels I write.  

I was born in the African rainforest during the three-year Biafran war: delivered by a German medical aid worker in a makeshift hospital while my relatives were fleeing from federal troops. I was lucky. One hundred thousand Biafran children died of malnutrition or starvation– a loss which lingers in the collective psyche of my vanquished people even till today. I have spent a minimum of ten years each in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and in North America, studying, working, creating memories, learning languages and experiencing cultures. I have waded in the Caribbean Sea, driven up the Rocky Mountains, stayed in the Arizona desert, camped in the English countryside and been flown by helicopter to an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Guinea. I’ve survived three earthquakes, two hurricanes and being burnt by lightening. I have caught malaria six times, covid once and was robbed at gunpoint by a uniformed Nigerian policeman. I have been a school teacher, licensed Financial Advisor and a care worker for a transgender person and for handicapped people as well as an instructional designer. But I have always considered myself, a writer. Writing is what I do and who I am. It’s about observing and experiencing the world around you and enrapturing it.

My writing is largely influenced by the commercial fiction I read in my mid-teens. I simply adore stories of well-developed but deeply flawed and conflicted characters like in John Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Richard Adam’s Watership Down, Harold Robbin’s 79 Park Avenue and everything written by James Hadley Chase. Reading Shakespeare in school, I also identified with such tragic protagonists as King Lear and Julius Ceasar.

Though I put my novel writing on hold to raise a family, I found time to be a weekly contributor to the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper. I count myself fortunate to be able to pursue a craft I truly love, and share it with the world.

This is my story. I share it in my blogs. Now, what’s yours?

Obi Ikeako

February, 2025