Yarnz Magazine has unveiled the cover of its inaugural issue, featuring poetry, short stories, essays, visual art, photo stories, interviews, and cultural criticism from African creatives.
Yarnz aspires to serve as a bridge, curating African metaphors, music, memory, imagination, ideas, and meaning-making for audiences across the continent and around the world. In a time of growing political and social division, the magazine sees its role as creating space for essays and stories that help people understand and connect with one another.
The forthcoming issue offers readers a wide-ranging exploration of African life and thought. It delves into the lives of bronze makers in Côte d’Ivoire and journeys to eastern Nigeria, where high-rise mansions stand empty despite visible wealth. Elozino critiques the promises of capitalism while questioning the appeal of communism. Ajiboye reflects on the importance of ethnic names and why they must be preserved. Emeka examines the inner life of a relationship shaped by class difference, tracing the tensions within a young man attempting to adopt the feminist sensibilities introduced by his girlfriend. Through striking photography, Osei invites readers to reflect on the realities of profit-driven healthcare. These features form just part of what awaits the curious and creative within its pages.
Yarnz is an emerging literary and cultural magazine rooted in West African life, language, and imagination. It publishes stories, essays, poems, cultural criticism, and linguistic explorations, aiming to curate compelling stories, thoughts, and ideas from Africans at home and in the diaspora.
The magazine will be available in both digital and print formats at the end of February.
Readers who wish to be the first to know when it launches and possibly receive an invitation to the launch event can follow @theyarnzmag on Instagram and Twitter, or subscribe via Substack at @yarnzmag.
Sarah Adeyemo
Sarah Adeyemo is a poet, writer, editor, and spoken word artiste from Nigeria. She is a fellow of the SprinNG Writing Fellowship. Sarah has work published or forthcoming work in ANMLY Lit, D’Iit Review, The Fiery Scribe Review, Con-Scio Magazine, Sevhage Review, Okiti Literary, Synchronized Chaos Magazine, Pepper Coast Magazine, The Weeds Review, Akpata Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, The Muse Journal, The Weganda Review, Everscribe Magazine, Afrillhill Press, TV-63 Magazine, Poems for Persons Interest, Northern Writers Forum Journal, Eboquills, Rinna Lit. Anthologies, and elsewhere. Her works have been shortlisted for the 2025 Labari Prize for Poetry and longlisted for the 2025 Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize. She serves as the Managing Editor at Words-Empire Magazine, a Poetry Editor at Yarnz Magazine, PFPOI, and a News & Feature writer at the Journal of African Youth Literature (JAY Lit). She was a writing resident of the Rongo Artist Residency in 2026 and is currently a writing resident at the Ebedi International Writers Residency. She is a member of The Swan Collective. A dramatic poet who tweets @sarahinkspires.
