About 

Born: October 2000, Ernest O. Ògúnyemí is a short story writer, poet and editor from Nigeria. His poems and short stories have appeared/ are forthcoming in magazines, including: Yemassee, Indianapolis Review, Litro Magazine, Acumen Poetry Journal, Lucent Dreaming, 34 Orchards, Mementoes: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry, Erotic Africa: The Sex Anthology, and Agbowo, amongst other places. 

 

An Adroit Summer Mentee and a COUNTERCLOCK Arts Collective Fellow, in 2018 he was awarded the Association of Nigerian Authors NECO/Teen Prize for Prose, and in 2019 he received an Arts Collective Grant, alongside Erin O’ Malley and Maria Gray, and in 2020 he was longlisted for the Awele Creative Trust Award.

 

He is a poetry reader at Palette Poetry and a prose reader at Counterclock journal, and is presently curating The Young African Poets Anthology.

When he is not reading, he is dreaming. You can find him on Twitter @ErnestOgunyemi.

​

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (POETRY)

Print:

• Rebirth, Acumen Poetry Journal, Issue 91.

• self-portrait as a house with dark rooms, Ink in Thirds, Vol. 3, Issue 2.

• unwanted bodies and poetry of blood, Ricochet Review, Vol. 7 the Identity Issue.

• how we love in the place where I come from, Canvas Lit Issue, Summer 2019.

• no place like home, Low Light Magazine, Issue 2.

• maybe I killed you, maybe I didn’t, Mementoes: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry, forthcoming.

Online:

• Running and Finding God, Burning House Press, 2019.

• a love poem after and a bird’s song is sin, Rising Phoenix Review, 2018.

• I sing of black boys, brown boys, sweet boys, Rising Phoenix Review, 2019.

• a conversation with my father, Agbowo Limits Issue, 2019.

• self-portrait as a ship welling itself into saltwater, Polyphony Lit Mag, forthcoming.

• a littering, Yemassee, forthcoming.

• the unbottling of hunger, the Indianapolis Review, forthcoming.

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (Prose)

Print

• The New Messiah’s Son, Litro Comedy Issue, December 2018 (was nominated for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2019).

• The Days that Came before the Days that took All that Was Beautiful, Lucent Dreaming Issue 6, January 2020.

Online:

• To Have a Heart and to not Have, the Kalahari Review, July 2018.

• The S-Word, Erotic Africa: The Sex Anthology, December 2018.

• Christmas Chicken, 34 Orchards, forthcoming.

 (Creative Non-Fiction)

• My Guide Up the Rock, Travel Writing, ktravula.com, February 2019.

• Home is a Boiling Pot of Soup, the Kalahari Review, April 2019.

• The Five-Second Kiss that Almost Ruined Me, ErosGospel, October 2019.

 

Photography & Poetry

• Lagos is a Metaphor, 2019 Arts Collective Gallery.

 

Workshops & Mentorship Programmes

• The Write with Style Workshop, Prose, taught by the critic Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, 2018.

• The Goethe Institut Afro YA Workshop, Fiction, taught by William Moore, in Lagos, 2019.

• The Adroit Summer Mentorship Program, Poetry, mentored by Sebastian Hassani Paramo, 2019.

• Poetry Masterclass with Kaveh Akbar, taught by Kaveh Akbar, 2019.

• Society of Books and Magazines Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN) Fiction and Nonfiction Editing Workshop, taught by a number of editors and writers, 2019.

​

​