Kemi Cole💫

I write fiction, articles & screenplays. Currently writing a dramedy set in Kampala and my debut novel.

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

Trying to send an international package in this country is like trying to launch a rocket to the moon. @dhl_uganda the queue had no order and it was just a guessing game who came first. The guys at @Posta_Ugand were surprisingly helpful though 👏🏾

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

@UEDCLTD Is this the WHOLE period or will it return daily in the evening then go in the morning?

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

Fallen head first into a random book I found in my parent’s house. Giving a Bukowski vibe. Think I’m the last one to jump on the Tom Robbins train.

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

Our parents are a lesson: either a cautionary tale or a valuable mentorship.

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

How to avoid snacking to death in the World Cup? All advice accepted and received with gratitude! Health matters but…might die of crisps before it arrives!

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

Cure to bloating: give up bread and wheat flour products. Try it for a 10 days and see how you feel. It works. I promise.

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Noah Hawley attended Jeff Bezos's private Campfire retreat in 2018. His wife broke her wrist. He told Bezos directly - not as complaint, just as human information from one husband and father to another. Bezos looked horrified, an aide materialized instantly, and he was whisked away.

No "I'm so sorry." No "do you need anything." Just escape.

Hawley's thesis in The Atlantic is not that the ultra-wealthy are evil. It is something more precise and more unsettling: that moral reasoning develops through consequences, and the environment of extreme wealth systematically removes consequences from a person's life. When you can buy your way out of any mistake, fire anyone who disagrees with you, and exist in a social circle entirely composed of people who need something from you - the basic mechanism by which humans learn that other people are real goes dark.

This is different from classic narcissism, which typically masks insecurity. What Hawley is describing is something rarer: a self-definition in which the individual has genuinely grown to the size of the universe and the universe has contracted to fit. Elon Musk calling empathy "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization." Trump asked about checks on his power saying the only thing that could stop him was his own morality. Peter Thiel concluding that freedom and democracy are incompatible.

These are not poses. They are the logical endpoint of a psychology shaped by years of operating in a world that never pushed back.

The Bezos encounter is the piece's sharpest detail because it is so small. He was not cruel. He was not contemptuous. He simply could not locate, in that moment, the impulse to respond like a person who understood that another person's wrist hurt.

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

@ucheomar Amen and here’s to much more success! 🙏🏾🥂

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

First time they publish a long list and I’m proud to be on it! We love to write another day! 🙏🏾

[Commonwealth Foundation Creatives @cwfcreatives]

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Following the announcement of the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist, we want to thank everyone who entered this year’s Prize.

With 7,806 entries, competition was high, with many excellent stories, and the judges faced an incredibly difficult task.

We also want to recognise the 200 longlisted writers, many of whose stories stayed with the judges long after reading. For the first time, their names and story titles are now available on our website.

We hope you will continue writing, and we look forward to reading your next story when the 2027 Prize opens in September.

View the longlisted writers 👇
https://t.co/KiV8PRwPon

[Commonwealth Foundation Creatives @cwfcreatives]

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Following the announcement of the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist, we want to thank everyone who entered this year’s Prize.

With 7,806 entries, competition was high, with many excellent stories, and the judges faced an incredibly difficult task.

We also want to recognise the 200 longlisted writers, many of whose stories stayed with the judges long after reading. For the first time, their names and story titles are now available on our website.

We hope you will continue writing, and we look forward to reading your next story when the 2027 Prize opens in September.

View the longlisted writers 👇
https://t.co/KiV8PRwPon

[Alan Kasujja @kasujja]

In 2022, my BBC team and I were travelling across the continent to popularise my podcast, Africa Daily, when we met Samuel and Esteri Tebandeke.

Ester was battling kidney failure and was being treated by the excellent team at Mulago Hospital.

What a powerful story of love it turned out to be.

Ester needed a kidney transplant, and Sam offered to donate his.

I teared up during the interview because of Sam’s deep commitment to his wife.

I saw their quiet determination to ensure that Esteri — an accomplished actor who had appeared in the acclaimed film Queen of Katwe — would pull through.

He loved her. She loved and deeply appreciated him.

They had raised half the money they needed and were struggling to find the rest — about $40,000.

I promised I would mention their case to President Museveni, whom I was due to meet a few days later.

When I met Mzee, I told him about them. Without hesitation, he instructed his then PPS, Kenneth Omona, to ensure Esther received the money she needed.

The cash was delivered. They travelled to India for the operation, and at first it seemed everything had gone well.

I stayed in touch with them, regularly checking on Esteri’s progress.

Yesterday, Sam sent me a voice note to say that his Esteri had passed away.

I am gutted.

Esteri was young, beautiful, and immensely talented. I wish she had lived much longer.

May she now rest peacefully after such a difficult few years.

I pray for Sam — one of the greatest men I have ever met.

May God grant him, and Ester’s family and friends, the fortitude they need to navigate these painful times.

[Luminous choice by FOLA @OlayemiKomolaf4]

TO ALL WOMEN OVER 25:
Your gut controls your hormones.
Your hormones control your weight, skin, mood, and energy.
Five foods. Not supplements. Foods.
Every single day.
Here's the list and exactly why each one matters for your gut.

[𝖆𝖓𝖓𝖆 @___adorn]

i don’t need to ever hear anything about literary fiction again. this is where danielle steel lives

[Natasha Crain @Natasha_Crain]

Last month, I shared a bit here about how my 17-year-old son has a passion for video game development and has spent hundreds of hours over the last 9 months creating his first game for release. Well, I want to let you know that Nitro Turtles is now out!

It's a party racing game (kind of like Mario Kart) and has 9 courses, a speedrun mode with online leaderboards, and split screen/online multiplayer. My husband and I played all 9 courses against each other last night and IT WAS SO FUN!

I'm so proud of him for the accomplishment. He has a really demanding junior year schedule of AP/Dual Credit/Honors classes, has straight As, and somehow managed to develop this all on his own out of pure passion. He started teaching himself programming in 3rd grade and just developed his skills from there. Nitro Turtles in the culmination of all the subsequent years of self-driven learning.

If you or your kids play computer games, I would love for you to check the game out on Steam!
https://t.co/RWf3885qFR

[Ber Anena @ahpetite]

The Weganda Review is looking for creative nonfiction for our next issue. We publish work on any topic highlighting Ugandans & Africans all over the world. If you have a solid essay, submit & we’ll consider publishing it. We pay. Check our website for #guidelines & how to submit.

[Interesting things @awkwardgoogle]

The Game of Thrones theme was composed by Ramin Djawadi, who is of Iranian descent.

Hearing this melody played with Persian instruments and the daf drum is absolutely beautiful.

[Vaibhav Sisinty @VaibhavSisinty]

Anthropic is valued at $380 billion.

For nearly a year during its fastest growth period, their entire marketing operation was one guy.

Austin Lau, a non-technical growth lead, was running paid search, paid social, email & SEO completely solo.

Just Claude Code & some insane automation he built himself without writing a single line of code.

Here's the exact workflow:

- Export ad performance CSVs into Claude Code
- AI flags what's underperforming
- Sub-agent 1 writes headlines
- Sub-agent 2 writes descriptions
- Figma plugin auto-swaps copy into 100 ad templates
- MCP server pulls live Meta data to close the loop

Output went up 10x.
Creation went from 2 hours to 15 minutes.

Conversion rates beat industry average by 41%.

This isn't AI helping a marketing team.
This is one person replacing what used to be a 50-person department.

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

@Spartakussug You can also experiment by forcing the accent and we see if it works!

[Kemi Cole💫 @iamkemicole]

@Rainmaker1973 🤔😆

[Patricia Cornwell @1pcornwell]

One of my very first book signings (no one came) 🫢