Gisela Casimiro 

Writer in residence February 2025


T-YARD Writers Residency welcomes Gisela Casimiro as our sixth writer in residence in February 2025. Gisela Casimiro (b. 1984, Guinea-Bissau) is a Portuguese writer, artist, performer, speaker and activist, based in Lisbon. Casimiro works on identity, the body, memory, trauma, healing, anti-racism, post-colonialism, and everyday life. Her practice also involves curation, photography, installation, collage and sound.  She has a degree in Portuguese and English Studies from FCSH/NOVA. She is the author of Erosão(poetry), Giz (poetry), Casa com Árvores Dentro (play, directed by Cláudia Semedo), Estendais(nonfiction) and Privilégio Negro(antiracist manual, upcoming 2024). Casimiro translated Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider into Portuguese and wrote its preface. Her work has been featured in several national and international magazines and anthologies, and translated into Spanish, German, Mandarin and Turkish. Jornal de Letras did a profile on her writing. She coordinates the book club at Batalha Cinema Center with Teresa Coutinho. Casimiro is a founding UNA - União Negra das Artes member.



Photo by Filipe Ferreira.

Han Bo 

Writer in residence October 2024


T-YARD Writers Residency welcomes Han Bo as our fifth writer in residence in October 2024. Han Bo (China, 1973) is a Poet, artist, novelist, playwright and curator with a background in international politics and mass communication. He lives and works in Shanghai. He is an honorary writer of the University of Iowa of USA.  Han Bo has published Chinese poetry collection "Borrowing Deep Heart"，"The Western Days", "Temple of Arrival and Departure" and "Shanghai Wall", English poetry collection "The China Eastern Railway", Russian poetry collection "A banquet of knots", German poetry collection "China box", novel "A life or suite with three bedrooms, one living room and one dining room", and 7 travel literature books including “Following in the footsteps of Dionysus” and “Saints and Graffiti : Travel through heterotopia”. He won the Liu li’an Poetry Award in 1998, the DJS-Poetry East West Awards for Chinese & International Poets in 2012 and the international literary translation award of “Asymptote Journal” In 2019.

Eric Otieno Sumba

Writer in residence April 2024


T-YARD Writers Residency welcomes Eric Otieno Sumba as our fourth writer in residence in April 2024. Eric Otieno Sumba (Nairobi, 1989) is a writer and editor with a background in social theory, political economy, postcolonial studies and art criticism. His art and non-fiction writing has been published in Contemporary And, Griot, frieze, Sleek, Monopol, Gropius Bau Journal, Texte zur Kunst and Camera Austria, as well as in African Artists, from 1922 to now (Phaidon, 2021), among others. A shorter version of his Pushcart-Prize-nominated essay ‘Deep Afield’ (2022), first published on Lolwe, was subsequently published by The Guardian. He has also edited books including the O Quilombismo Album (Haus der Kulturen der Welt/Archive Books, 2023), and the poetry collection Rage and Desire (Spazio Griot, 2022). He lives and works in Berlin.

Photo by L. Kolloge

Writer in residence October 2023


T-YARD Writers Residency looks forward to welcoming Isabel Baboun Garib as our third writer in residence during October 2023. Isabel Baboun Garib (Santiago, Chile 1984) is an actress and writer, she currently lives in Santiago, Chile, where she teaches Literature and a Screenwriting Workshop. She began writing stories to have a deeper understanding of the characters she performed. She left Chile to pursue Creative Writing at New York University with the support of a Chile’s Government Scholarship. Afterwards, she earned a Phd in Latin American Literature with an emphasis in Performance Studies at UC, Davis. In New York she published a book of poems "Un cuarto un nombre" (New York, Pen Press 2011). Her work as a narrator grew in parallel. Her story "Yalaá" appeared in the magazine “Buensalvaje” in Spain (2016). "El Pablo" became a finalist in the short story competition by “Paula” magazine (Santiago, 2012) and was published in an anthology. Isabel’s short story "De Interior" was anthologized in the book “Abuelas Hispanas, desde la memoria y el recuerdo” under the Spanish publishing house Torremozas, and her book of poems “Todos los árboles” was published by Libros del Amanecer (Santiago, 2015). Isabel’s non-published novel “Thread Bodies” won a special recognition in Juegos Literarios Gabriela Mistral (2019). Additionally, her short story “Deberíamos estar todos muertos” won the first place in the short story contest Teresa Hamel (2020). The short story book “Un hermano muerto” appeared in 2018 under publisher Cuarto Propio. "La Tailandesa" is her first novel published by Tusquets Editor (2023).