Draft:Kanyinsola olorunnisola

Kanyinsola Olorunnisola is a Nigerian writer, editor, filmmaker, and community organizer. He is the founder of Sprinng, a literary nonprofit organization dedicated to African writers. He was the Nonfiction Editor of Black Warrior Review.

Work

Olorunnisola is the author of two chapbooks, In My Country, We're All Crossdressers and Shakespeares in the Ghetto, the latter of which won the 2022 Outwrite Chapbook Prize for Poetry. His writing, often political, has appeared in print and online platforms such as Al Jazeera, FIYAH, Georgia Review, Open Country Mag, Sahara Reporters, Isele Magazine, Brittle Paper, Lolwe, Agbowo, Tampa Review, Bakwa, and Folio by CNN.

He was the recepient of 2020 K&L Prize for African Literature and the Speculative Literature Foundation's Diverse Writers Grant. In 2022, his short story, "Some Things are Most Beautiful in the Dark," was included in Sundress Publication's coveted Best of the Net anthology. He also won the Outwrite Chapbook Prize. In 2023, he won the Don F. Hendrie Prize in Fiction and the AWP Intro Journals Award for Creative Nonfiction. That same year, he was a finalist for several prestigious awards, including the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship, Evaristo Prize for African Poetry (formerly the Brunel African Poetry Prize), and the Loraine Williams Poetry Prize judged by Hanif Aburraqib. His work has been referenced or profiled in Africa in Dialogue, Guardian, PEN America, Smooth FM, Gyroscope Review, TELL, and the Johannesburg Review of Books.

In 2024, having received a grant from the Levitetz Leadership Program, he made the film Chiaroscuro, which premiered at the Rising Tide Film Festival.