Olakunle Ologunro is one of the two writers awarded as the 2025–2026 Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in Fiction at Colgate University.

The Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship in Creative Writing is an annual fellowship established by Colgate University’s Department of English and Creative Writing. It aims to support emerging writers in completing their first book by providing a stipend of up to $58,800, an office space, and a literary and intellectual community. In return, the program expects fellows to teach one multigenre creative writing workshop per semester and give a public reading of their work.

This year, The Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship chose Olakunle Ologunro and Ziyuan Tang as the recipients of the 2025–2026 Fellowship.

The Deborah Rogers Award recently longlisted Olakunle’s book-in-progress, further establishing him as a remarkable writer. With this fellowship, Olakunle Ologunro joins past fellows such as Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees. Other past African fellows include Ajibola Tolase, Gbenga Adesina, Ndinda Kioko, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

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Who is Olakunle Ologunro?

Olakunle Ologunro is a writer from Lagos, Nigeria. He received his MFA from The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. His writing has equally earned him recognition and support from several institutions. He has received an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and a Juniper Summer Workshop Scholarship, including a nomination for a Pushcart Prize. The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), the Vermont Studio Center, and Aspen Words have supported Ologunro’s work, with Aspen Words naming him a 2025 Emerging Writer Fellow in Fiction. His stories have appeared in Story Magazine, Lolwe, the Queer Africa anthology, the Feel Good anthology, and other publications.

Visit Olakunle Ologunro’s Social Media page to connect with him.