We are very excited to announce that the Nigerian speculative fiction writer, editor, and publisher Oghenechovwe Ekpeki will be joining the Future of Being Human initiative as a 2023 Visiting Fellow, in collaboration with the Arizona State University Center for Science and the Imagination.
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer, editor, publisher, from Nigeria. He has won the Nommo award for best speculative fiction by an African, twice, for short story and novella, along with the Otherwise and British Fantasy awards. He’s also the first African to have won the Nebula award for best novelette with his climate fiction story O2 Arena, for which he’s also a BSFA, BFA and Nommo award finalist. In addition the anthology Africa Risen, which was co-edited by Oghenechovwe, is a NAACP Image award finalist.
Oghenechovwe is the first African to be a Hugo award best novelette finalist, the first African editor to be a finalist in the Hugo award best editor categories, and the first POC to be a finalist in the Hugo award editing and fiction categories in the same year. He’s a finalist in the WFA, Locus, BSFA, Sturgeon and This Is Horror awards. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in and are forthcoming in Tordotcom, Asimov’s, Uncanny Magazine, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Galaxy’s Edge, NBC and more.
Oghenechovwe founded Jembefola Press and the Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction. In addition to being a Visiting Fellow with the Future of Being Human initiative, he is a 2022 Can*Con guest of honor and 2023 ICFA guest of honor.
Oghenechovwe will be visiting the ASU tempe campus at the end of March, where he will be engaging with initiative communities, participating in meetups, and talking about his work and it’s connection to how we think about being human in a technologically advances future in a number of venues.
For further details, please sign up for updates on events etc.
You can read more about and follow Oghenechovwe’s work at odekpeki.com and on Twitter, and
We’re very much looking forward to engaging with Oghenechovwe.