The Speculative Literature Foundation is pleased to announce that Kanyinsola Olorunnisola is the winner of the 2020 Diverse Writers Grant and Tatiana Schlote-Bonne is the winner of the 2020 Diverse Worlds Grant.
Olorunnisola was awarded the Diverse Writers Grant for his work “How Dead Men Come Back Home.” He is an experimental poet, essayist, and writer of fiction. His work interrogates black histories, futures, identities and spirituality. He has been published in Popula, Jalada, Gertrude, Bakwa, The Account, Bodega, Kalahari Review, On the Seawall, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the 2016 Albert Jungers Poetry Prize, the 2017 Fisayo Soyombo National Essay Prize, the 2020 Speculative Literary Foundation’s Diverse Writers Grant and the 2020 K&L Prize for African Literature. He was a finalist for the 2020-2021 Glass Chapbook Series Contest and the 2019 Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Non-Fiction. He earned an Honorable Mention for the 2020 L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest and was longlisted for the 2020 Toyin Falola Prize and the 2019 Short Story Day Africa Prize. He has published a chapbook: “In My Country, We’re All Crossdressers” (Praxis, 2018). He is currently working on a full-length poetry collection and a dark fantasy novel set in colonial Africa. He is the founder of SprinNG, one of Africa’s foremost platforms dedicated solely to growing young literary talent, and the Fiction Editor at Kreative Diadem. He currently lives and writes in Lagos, Nigeria. Reach him at negrotheory@gmail.com.
Schlote-Bonne was awarded the Diverse Worlds grant for her work “The Afterlife Memoirs.” She is a 2nd year MFA candidate in The Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa. The Diverse Worlds grant will aid her in completing her work-in-progress: a young adult novel told from the perspective of Lucina, a mixed-race Japanese girl who’s awakened as a ghost and must resolve her unfinished business and learn how to haunt. Tatiana’s essays have been published in F(r)iction, Dogwood, Emrys Journal, and The Iowa Review blog. In her free time, she lifts weights and plays video games. Her website is www.tatiana-schlote-bonne.com
Awarded since 2014, the Diverse Writers grant is “intended to support new and emerging writers from underrepresented and underprivileged groups, such as writers of color, women, queer writers, disabled writers, working-class writers, etc. — those whose marginalized identities may present additional obstacles in the writing/publishing process.” The Diverse Worlds Grant is “intended for work that best presents a diverse world, regardless of the writer’s background.” The $500 awards support any purpose the recipients choose to benefit their work.
Previous winners of the Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds Grants include Carmen Maria Machado, Madhvi Ramani, and Gabriel Thibodeau; last year’s winner was Del Sandeen.
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Click here for more information on the Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds grants.
Questions about the Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds Grants process may be directed to our grants administrator, LD Lewis, at grants@speclit.org
