Ayotola Tehingbola
Ayotola Tehingbola
LL.B., Law | Obafemi Awolowo University 2015
B.L. (Qualifying Certificate) | Nigerian Law School Lagos 2016
M.F.A., Creative Writing | Boise State University 2024
Ph.D., English and Creative Writing with WGST minor | University of Missouri, Columbia (in progress)
Areas of Study:
- Creative Writing
- Literary Translation
- Women and Gender Studies
- The Yorùbá Empire
- History of the Portuguese and British in today’s Nigeria
Ayotola Tehingbola (she/her, b. ’93, Lagos) is a lawyer, writer, photographer, and translator. She works from the intersections of colonialism and empire, womanhood, social oppression, mythical and mystical realities, and alternate histories and futures. Her writing has appeared/is forthcoming in Witness, CRAFT, Passages North, Quarterly West, etc. Her novel manuscript was shortlisted for the 2023 Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize for Debut Novel and she is a three-time recipient of a Glenn Bach Award for Fiction. Her work has been supported by various organizations such as the Lagos International Poetry Festival, Hudson Valley Writers Center, GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing, Alexa Rose Foundation, Idaho Commission on the Arts, and Kimbilio for Black Fiction.
- Kimbilio Summer Retreat Fellow, July 2024.
- 2024 Presidential Scholar Award in Performance and Visual Arts (Boise State University's Graduate College).
- 2024 Outstanding International Student Award (Boise State University's Center for Global Engagement).
- 2024 Glenn Bach Award for Fiction (Boise State University's Creative Writing Department).
- Finalist for Graywolf Press 2023 African Fiction Prize for Debut Novel.
- 2023 Glenn Bach Award for Fiction (Boise State University's Creative Writing Department).
- 2022 Glenn Bach Award for Fiction (Boise State University's Creative Writing Department).
- Pushcart Prize / Nomination from Quarterly West, 2022.
- Best Small Fictions / Nomination from Quarterly West, 2022.
- Best of the Net Anthology Shortlist / Nomination from pidgeonholes, 2022.
- Karen Finley Scholarship for Women and Nonbinary Writers, Hudson Valley Writers Center, Winter 2022.
- because if something no right, you no suppose sit down and look - CRAFT, 2024.
- Sister, Sister - Split Lip Magazine, 2024.
- The Water Is Not The Faucet - Witness Magazine, 2023.
- H - Passages North, 2023.
- A Cord Around The World - Quarterly West, 2022.
- We Should Have Told Mother This - pidgeonholes, 2022.