Adaeze Best Michael Nwadike is a Nigerian writer, poet, editor, teacher, human rights and environmental activist. She is the founding editor of Arts Lounge Literary Magazine, a thriving literary platform in Nigeria, through which she has established a lot of literary, educational and environmental projects. She founded The cradle Literary Prize for Secondary School Students in 2019, The Green we Left Behind Project in 2021, The Marked Anthology Prize in 2022, and The Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize for Literature in 2022.
She is the author of the poetry chapbook, Conversations with the Sea, a collection of poems that explores the struggles of Africans who travel to Europe through the Mediterranean sea. Her Work touches on the themes of migration, climate change, gender, endometriosis, childhood, education, health among others. Her works have appeared in Arts Lounge, Lolwe, Brittle Paper, Type/cast, Little Stone Journal and elsewhere.
Through The Green we Left Behind, her climate change awareness project, with the main goal of using Literature and the Arts as tools of awareness, education and all else, in climate change activism and environmental justice, she has carried out numerous national scale projects on climate change, which include:
1) The Green we Left Behind: A Collection of Creative Nonfiction Stories from Nigeria on Climate Change. Sponsored by The French Embassy in Nigeria, The French Institute in Nigeria, Cookingpot publishing, USA, AND edited by Unoma Azuah and Adaeze M. Nwadike.
2) The Green we Left Behind: Visual Narrative of the Climate Crises in Nigeria. Sponsored by the French Embassy in Nigeria, Brittle paper, and curated by Adaeze M. Nwadike.
3) The Green we Left Behind: A Collection of Inter-generational stories on Climate Change from Nigeria. Funded by UMIFund, supported by Parents for Future Nigeria and Our Kids climate, edited by Unoma Azuah and Adaeze M. Nwadike.
4) The Green we Left Behind: A Guide to Involving Children from the Global South in Climate Action developed by Adaeze M. Nwadike.
5) On going: The Green we Left Behind: Climate change Poetry Slam. In partnership with The French Embassy in Nigeria, The French Institute in NIgeria, Cookingpot publishing, USA and curated by Adaeze M. Nwadike
6) Scheduled: The Green Photo book launch, in partnership with The French Embassy in Nigeria, curated by Adaeze M. Nwadike.
She is a graduate of English Education from the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She teaches English Language and Literature at The Naowa College, Abuja, and on her Facebook page, English with Ada. She tweets at AdaActNow.
