Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean sarungano. Her debut short story collection Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky) won the Cornell University 2023 Philip Freund Prize for Creative Writing, shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin Prize for Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Collection. Her novel manuscript-in-progress was selected by George R.R. Martin for the Worldbuilder Scholarship.

She earned her BA at Cornell University and her MFA at UMass Amherst. She is the Newhouse Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wellesley College and has taught at UMass Amherst, Clarion West online, and the Juniper Institute for Young Writers. She is the co-founder of the Voodoonauts Summer Fellowship for Black SFF writers.

Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Miles Morland Foundation, Tin House Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, Clarion West, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute.

Fayssal was born and raised in Algeria. He is a novelist, short story writer and academic. He holds a PhD in Critical and Creative Writing from Cardiff University, UK.

Fayssal is a Fellow of the Oxbelly Fiction Writers Program. He is also a Miles Morland Scholar. He was educated at Constantine 1 University (C1U) and graduated with an MA degree in Anglophone Literature.

His novel, The Couscous Western, was the runner-up for the 2023 Graywolf African Fiction Prize. His short story, ‘The Last Shot of Ahmed Bey’s Cannon’ won the inaugural 2020 Toyin Falola Prize, and ‘Citizen Sarah’ was longlisted for the 2023 Afritondo Short Story Prize.

Fayssal is one of Algeria’s most prominent writers who write in English.