Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström on the Heart of Storytelling
Oftentimes, the source of our pain or discomfort is where we begin to find the semblances of our voices.
Scrolling through Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström’s Instagram feed, you won’t find many of those big, high-contrast landscape shots that are so pervasive in the travel vertical. Lọlá gets up close and personal—not just in her photos, but in the way she captures the world through storytelling, both written and photographed.
Lola’s work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Travel + Leisure, Slate, Travel Channel, Adventure.com Magazine, AFAR, Lonely Planet, Fodor’s, and many more. She’s also the author of DUE NORTH, the winner of the 2018 Lowell Thomas Award winner for best travel book.
And somehow, amidst all of this work, she still finds time to be incredibly generous with her knowledge of everything that goes into the passionate pursuit of stories and turning that passion into a career.
Lola’s annual work updates are an incredibly informative overview of her pitch process and work outcome. It’s the most comprehensive breakdown I’ve ever seen offered by a freelancer who is making it work, and it’s so helpful to see the ratio of acceptances to rejections and how she pieces it all together, year after year.
And now, Lola has distilled her decade of storytelling experience into several online courses. I have not had a chance to read through them just yet, but if you know Lola’s work, then it’s safe to assume they’re brilliant and inspiring. Two of them (How to Find Your Niche and The A-Z of Pitching Publications) are totally free.
Now let’s hear from the storytelling legend herself…
Were you a writer or a photographer first?
I was a writer first and always return to writing when I need to fully express myself. I started out as a fiction writer before branching into creative nonfiction and travel writing. I am now adding fiction back to my portfolio and have some exciting news to share soon about a very special fiction project.
As for photography, I was an oil painter first and used photography as a way to capture and paint scenes once back home. Then I started exploring photography as another form of expression.
It seems like you do SO MUCH. From books to photography to online courses for storytellers. How do you decide which projects you want to pursue?
As a storyteller first, everything else is the platform I choose based on what fits the story I want to tell best. From writing and photography to social media and my newly launched academy. I decide which projects I want to pursue based on what platform I feel is the most effective for telling that story or communicating that project. I am also continually working smarter, not harder and will be focusing more on projects that generate passive income.
Photo by Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström
Do you struggle with balancing your many interests and ambitions?
It is a struggle sometimes in that I have so many ideas and visions, but not enough hours in the day to try to accomplish them all, so I am very good at focusing on a handful of projects at a time and seeing them to completion before moving to the next one.
You offer a one-hour session to help writers find their voice. Can you tell us a little bit about how you found yours?
Oftentimes, the source of our pain or discomfort is where we begin to find the semblances of our voices. For me, I have been isolated beyond my control a lot and so my mission is to fight isolation in all its forms within my sphere of influence through my work. And this thread manifests itself as connection, cultural understanding, acknowledgement, and bridging differences through both my writing and photography.
You have some really impressive accolades—one is your book Due North being awarded Gold for Best Travel Book from the SATW Lowell Thomas Awards. I think many writers and photographers aspire to those kinds of awards as a sign that they've made it and then all the work will come to them! So can you tell us if/how your career changed after winning that award (or another one that felt significant)? Was it all suddenly so much easier?
I am an advocate for entering competitions and awards if your budget can sustain it and within reason. The importance of awards (even though the judging is as subjective as ever) is that it begins to show that your work is at a level that demands industry-wide attention. That you've started developing a very distinct voice that makes others stop and notice. Especially for photographers, oftentimes, we're the worst judge of our own work, but if we put it up in competitions, we begin to see if our visual voice and style is being communicated fully and not getting lost in the crowd of other photographers.
What inspired you to build these new online courses for writers?
I've been running lots of sessions and workshops at different conferences and clients all over the world over the last couple of years and people have been asking when I will create my own online courses. So with COVID-19 and being locked down, I used the opportunity to finally work on them.
I officially launched my academy on June 29 with the first batch of three courses, plus access to one-on-one coaching sessions with me. The courses are for beginners to intermediate level, though my storytelling class can also bring in more advanced storytellers. We will be launching a wide range of courses for all skill levels.
The first three courses are:
How to become a better storyteller (paid)
A to Z of pitching publications (free)
How to find your niche (free)
What do you think is unique about your personal approach to teaching the topics you cover?
The whole tagline of my academy is putting the heart back into the craft. I am a very passionate person with deep convictions and this comes through in my work. My style of teaching is all about connection and communicating my expertise in a way that feels approachable, intimate, and down-to-earth.
What is something you see even experienced writers struggling with when it comes to storytelling?
Even the most experienced writers get bogged down by too many flowery descriptions. So much so that it comes off as inauthentic and forced. My mantra is to get to the point of your story with enough description to visually set the scenes, but not with too much description that it keeps derailing the reading experience along the way.
How has the pandemic impacted your work as a travel writer and photographer? Are you worried about the industry and where do you find hope?
Since my travel is limited at the moment, most of my travel photography assignments have been postponed but ironically, I have filed a couple travel-related stories so far as well as some personal opinion pieces. The industry will slowly roar back to life, but it has to do so in a way that's sustainable, less about over-tourism, and become strong enough to weather the next global storm such as the pandemic.
Can you tell us about a time when either writing or reading a story impacted your life in a big way?
I have so many of those moments, but a more recent experience was traveling to Greenland in the footsteps of Tete-Michel Kpomassie who was the first African in Greenland in the 1960s and who published this book.
Not only did I file the assignment for National Geographic Traveller here, I also wrote about a personal transformation I underwent in Greenland for Panorama Journal.
(And as always, it would mean so much if you shared this newsletter on social media or sent it to a writer friend.)