Elinam Agbo

Elinam Agbo is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program and an AB from the University of Chicago. A 2021-2023 Kenyon Review Fellow, she guest edited Black Estrangement, a special online issue of Kenyon Review featuring emerging Black writers. She has also received recognition and support from the Hawthornden Foundation, Anderson Center at Tower View, Aspen Words, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and elsewhere. Her work has appeared in Transition, Apogee, American Short Fiction, the PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018, and other publications. She was born in Agona Swedru, Ghana, and grew up in Sterling, Kansas. 

Education

• M.FA., University of Michigan
• B.A., University of Chicago

Faculty Research Interests

• Creative Writing (flash fiction, the short story, the novel)
• Speculative Fiction
• Transnational Literature
• African Diaspora Literature
• Coming-of-age Narratives

Current Projects and Research Interests

My current projects include a novel about shapeshifting mothers and a collection of speculative short stories about girlhood in Ghana and in diaspora.

Recent and Representative Publications

"Debt Stays," a short story in Transition Magazine

"Black Enstrangement: An Introduction," Kenyon Review

"The Liar's Tongue," flash fiction in Apogee Journal

"The Hen," flash fiction in Waxwing

"Capture," a short story in American Short Fiction

"Sorry for your loss," a short story in The New Territory

"Schools of Longing," a short story in Nimrod International Journal

"1983," a short story in Baltimore Review and PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018