Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a Ghanaian writer and Senior Editor at flipped eye publishing. A 2007 recipient of Ghana's national ACRAG award for poetry and literary advocacy, he is a former International Writing Fellow at the University of Southampton and writer-in-residence at California State University, Los Angeles. In 2009, his short story, 'Socks Ball', was highly commended in the Caine Prize for African Writing, and his novel 'Tail of the Blue Bird' (due for release in the US in winter 2010) was shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Nii Ayikwei writes for children under the name K.P. Kojo and spends most of his time in Ghana and the United Kingdom with regular visits to the United States for readings.