ABOUT DAMILOLA ONWAH

Damilola is a Nigerian writer and culture critic whose work explores identity and belonging, unconventional family structures, the struggles and triumphs of the underdog, and how faith is gained and lost. Music inspires her creative techniques, as she is also a singer and an R&B enthusiast who spends a lot of time thinking of and tinkering with translating the genre’s cultural relevance, emotional resonance, and fusions into literary form.

Damilola’s essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Brittle Paper, The Bangalore Review, and elsewhere. Her novel in progress has received support from Hedgebrook, Monson Arts, and the Writers’ League of Texas. Uphill Toward Home, her evolving collection of essays about migrating to the United States, was a finalist for the 2024 Kenyon Review Developmental Editing Fellowship.

She moved from Nigeria to the United States in 2014, and holds an MBA and a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, where she was awarded a Booth 1898 scholarship and a PEO International Peace scholarship. Upon graduation, she worked as a technology product manager at Amazon and Whole Foods Market until fall 2023, when the full-time writing bug bit her. Damilola lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and longs to move back to Chicago, her adopted US hometown.