Coffee With Ella

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Coffee With Ella

Autor: Ella Achola

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Coffee with Ella is an intimate conversation series with Black women authors, tastemakers, bookworms and those shaping literary culture, exploring creativity not just in what we make, but in how we live. Hosted by writer and founder of Espresso Press, Ella Achola, each episode goes behind the work and into the creative life itself — the choices, experiments, detours and ordinary days that shape who we become, on and off the page.Ella Achola

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Ella Achola: Not that kind of girl

Oct 6 2026

What happens when you stop letting old ideas about who you are decide who you’re allowed to become?For this bonus episode of Coffee with Ella, we’re doing things a little differently. After a season spent asking other women about their creative lives, my very first guest, Giselle La Pompe-Moore, returns to turn the microphone around on me.For a long time, I divided the world into people who were creative and people who were academic. I was firmly in the latter camp. I wasn’t a creative kind of girl. Or a sporty kind of girl. Or a nature kind of girl.Except, of course, the creativity was always there. I just didn’t know how to recognise it.Together, we trace the breadcrumbs of my creative life: from growing up in Berlin and moving to Louisiana at 16, to writing, building a Black feminist collective at university, living in Barbados and eventually founding Espresso Press.We talk about the stories we absorb about who we are, following what pulls us even when we don’t know where it leads, the things that look like false starts until we see them in hindsight, and learning to trust and back ourselves along the way.And, on an ordinary Tuesday, we talk about the life I’m trying to build now: more spaciousness, fewer milestones for milestones’ sake, time in nature, good coffee, work I care about, lying completely horizontal before preschool pick-up — and enough room to inhale before I exhale again.Because perhaps a creative life isn’t about becoming a particular kind of person at all. Perhaps it’s about giving ourselves permission to keep discovering who else we might be.In this episode, we talk about:Seeing creativity as a state of being rather than something you doThe childhood creativity I didn’t recognise as creativity at the timeThe stories we absorb about what “kind of person” we areMoving to Louisiana at 16 and beginning to understand how much agency we have in shaping our livesFollowing breadcrumbs without knowing exactly where they’ll leadBuilding an evidence log for things that once felt impossibleWhy I think of writing, podcasting and Espresso Press as different forms of world-buildingMoving from a milestone-driven life towards the ordinary TuesdayBoundaries, people-pleasing and learning that “I don’t want to” can sometimes be enoughFollowing curiosity for the pleasure of it, without demanding an outcomeBuilding Espresso Press and learning to back myselfAbout Ella AcholaElla Achola is a Mother-Writer, host and founder of Espresso Press, a literary non-profit for Black women writers.Born and raised in Berlin and now based in the UK, her work explores creativity, identity, motherhood, belonging and what it means to build a life that feels like your own. She writes Essays for My Daughter, a collection of personal essays documenting motherhood and the woman she is becoming alongside it, and hosts Coffee with Ella, an intimate conversation series exploring creativity not just in what we make but in how we live.Mentioned in this episodeEspresso PressEssays for My DaughterThe Oxford Reading TreeMedia DiversifiedThe Black feminist collective Ella founded at universityThe National Writers’ ConferenceBBC Radio 1Xtra and Nadia JaeInsecureGilmore GirlsVictony’s SlickEspresso PressEspresso Press is a new literary non-profit for Black women writers where we publish and platform our stories, craft and authorship, so we can exist in our own way, on our own terms.We’re right at the beginning of building this world. If you’d like to help us bring it to life, you can quite literally buy us a coffee. Every coffee helps us create more opportunities for Black women writers.Espresso PressInstagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@espresso.press⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠espressopress.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy us a coffee: ⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com/espressopress⁠⁠⁠⁠ConnectElla AcholaInstagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@ellaachola⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ellaachola.com⁠
Rozwiń Zwiń

55 min

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Lọlá Ákínmádé: Have you met my mother?

Sep 29 2026

What happens when you refuse to let other people decide the limits of who you can be?In this episode of Coffee with Ella, I sit down with award-winning travel writer, photographer and international bestselling author Lọlá Ákínmádé to talk about a creative life that has never fitted neatly into one box.Long before she became a writer and photographer, Lọlá was a child in Nigeria tearing people out of magazines, sticking them onto notebooks and inventing stories about their lives — eventually running a miniature lending library from her dorm room.But becoming a professional creative wasn’t a straight line. Lọlá moved to the US and built a career in IT while following her curiosity on the side. A volunteering opportunity eventually began a five-year transition from technology into travel writing and photography.We talk about making that transition without romanticising the financial realities of creative work, pitching with audacity, surviving rejection and knowing why you’re making something in the first place.Lọlá also shares how travel writing taught her to tell stories through the senses, why the story itself dictates whether she reaches for photography, fiction or another medium, and how experiences of belonging and isolation have shaped her work.And then we arrive at what it means to fully inhabit your own life.For Lọlá, part of that is allowing her daughter to see a mother still creating, dreaming and showing up as her whole self. So when the world tries to tell her daughter how much space she is allowed to occupy, she has a different reference point:“Well, have you met my mother?”In this episode, we talk about:Writing stories as a child and running a mini library from her dorm roomMoving from Nigeria to the US and building a career in ITThe expedition in Fiji that changed the direction of her creative lifeTaking five years to transition strategically into full-time creative workWhy audacity matters when you’re starting without experienceStorytelling across travel writing, photography and fictionBeing a Black woman in Sweden and holding multiple truths about belonging at onceLọlá’s Afro-Nordic photography project and representing identities that refuse easy boxesRejection, redirection and the importance of knowing your “why”Motherhood, self-actualisation and letting children see the whole person raising themGiving yourself permission to play with new genres and formsAbout Lọlá ÁkínmádéLọlá Ákínmádé is an award-winning travel writer, photographer and international bestselling author. Born in Nigeria, educated in the United States and based in Sweden, her work has appeared in publications including National Geographic, The New York Times, BBC, CNN and The Guardian.She is the author of Due North, Lagom: The Swedish Secret of Living Well and the novels In Every Mirror She’s Black, Everything Is Not Enough and Bitter Honey. Across photography, travel writing and fiction, Lọlá uses different forms of storytelling to bring people closer to lives, cultures and perspectives beyond their own.Mentioned in this episodeIn Every Mirror She’s BlackEverything Is Not EnoughBitter Honey Travel writing and photography Lọlá’s Afro-Nordic photography project U2’s Mysterious WaysEspresso PressEspresso Press is a new literary non-profit for Black women writers where we publish and platform our stories, craft and authorship, so we can exist in our own way, on our own terms.We’re right at the beginning of building this world. If you’d like to help us bring it to life, you can quite literally buy us a coffee. Every coffee helps us create more opportunities for Black women writers.Espresso PressInstagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@espresso.press⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠espressopress.org⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy us a coffee: ⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com/espressopress⁠⁠⁠ConnectLọlá ÁkínmádéInstagram: @lolaakinmadeWebsite: akinmade.comElla AcholaInstagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@ellaachola⁠⁠⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠ellaachola.com⁠
Rozwiń Zwiń

41 min

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Katie Mantwa George: The art of noticing

Sep 22 2026

What if creativity begins not with making something, but with paying attention?In this episode, I sit down with Katie Mantwa George to talk about creativity, identity, work and the art of noticing what your life is trying to tell you.Katie takes us from a childhood in Eswatini where making things was simply part of everyday life — painting, sewing, making jewellery, creating rather than buying — to the fifteen years she spent building a successful corporate career in London.Along the way, we talk about writing as a way of processing the world; the poems Katie has kept since childhood as a kind of archive of her life; the very unexpected story of London Cupcake Tours; and the moment she realised she had stopped feeling excited about the next rung of the corporate ladder.We talk about what happened when redundancy created space for a different kind of life, writing Meadow and Marley’s Magical Mix, training as a meditation teacher, and learning to pay attention to what her body, her energy and the people around her were already telling her.And we come back, again and again, to noticing: what expands us, what drains us, what other people consistently see in us, and what becomes possible when we create enough quiet to hear ourselves clearly.In this episode, we talk about:Creativity as noticingGrowing up in Eswatini in a family where making things was part of everyday lifeWriting poetry from childhood as a way of processing emotion and experienceLooking back at those poems as an archive of Katie’s lifeThe creative side projects that helped Katie stay connected to herselfThe wonderfully unexpected story of London Cupcake ToursReaching a point where the next promotion no longer felt excitingLearning to notice what her body was telling herRedundancy, gardening leave and the space to rethink her lifeWriting Meadow and Marley’s Magical MixMeditation, identity and remembering who you are beyond your job titlePaying attention to what other people repeatedly reflect back to youBuilding a portfolio career around leadership, meditation, writing and human connectionMaking space for solitude, honesty and whatever wants to emerge nextAbout Katie Mantwa GeorgeKatie Mantwa George is a leadership guide, speaker, certified meditation teacher and author whose work centres on helping people navigate the complexity of being human.With a background in psychology and more than sixteen years of leadership experience, she works with individuals, teams and organisations through Being Human Well, supporting meaningful personal and cultural change through human connection, compassionate leadership and meditation.Katie is also the author of Meadow and Marley’s Magical Mix, a children’s book inspired by her South African and British heritage that explores identity, belonging and growing up in a mixed-heritage family. She has been writing poetry and stories for almost thirty years.Mentioned in this episodeMeadow and Marley’s Magical MixBeing Human WellPoetry and journallingLondon Cupcake ToursMeditationMixed-heritage identity and representation in children’s booksPortfolio careersEspresso PressEspresso Press is a new literary non-profit for Black women writers where we publish and platform our stories, craft and authorship, so we can exist in our own way, on our own terms.We’re right at the beginning of building this world. If you’d like to help us bring it to life, you can quite literally buy us a coffee. Every coffee helps us create more opportunities for Black women writers.Buy us a coffee: ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com/espressopress⁠⁠Find out more: ⁠⁠espressopress.orgConnectKatie Mantwa GeorgeInstagram: @cheekymantwabooks / @beinghumanwellWebsite: beinghumanwell.comEspresso PressInstagram: ⁠⁠⁠@espresso.press⁠⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠espressopress.org⁠⁠Ella AcholaInstagram: ⁠⁠⁠@ellaachola⁠⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠ellaachola.com⁠
Rozwiń Zwiń

41 min

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Coffee With Ella

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Coffee With Ella

Ella Achola: Not that kind of girl

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Lọlá Ákínmádé: Have you met my mother?

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Katie Mantwa George: The art of noticing

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