Instructor

Vanessa Walters is thrilled to join the Writopia Lab in Brooklyn, teaching creative writing across all age groups. She is a novelist, playwright, poet, and journalist with an LLB in Law and French Law from the University College of London. Her published books are Rude Girls, Best Things in Life (Pan Macmillan, UK), Smoke! Othello! (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea), and The Lagos Wife (Simon & Schuster US, Penguin RandomHouse, UK). Vanessa has also had several plays staged, most recently Michael X (Almeida Theatre, UK). She has previously been a journalist for Thomson Reuters, The Financial Times, and The Guardian Nigeria. She has fellowships from Tin House and The Millay Colony. She has previously taught creative writing workshops to children via The Arvon Foundation in the UK and as the Writer-In-Residence for The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. She has also, as part of the self-founded Hidden Country collective, delivered free online weekly writing workshops to the community since 2020. Vanessa is on the Pen Parentis board and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music advisory council. Atria Books will publish her forthcoming novel, Black Excellence, in 2026.  In her spare time, Vanessa plays Mom to her two children and tends to her out-of-control TBR in Brooklyn.