Otoniya J. Okot Bitek

Otoniya J. Okot Bitek is a poet and scholar. Her collection of poetry, 100 Days (University of Alberta, 2016), was nominated for several writing prizes including the 2017 BC Book Prize, the 2017 Pat Lowther Award, the 2017 Alberta Book Awards and the 2017 Canadian Authors Award for Poetry. It won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. A is for Acholi (Wolsak & Wynn, 2022) was also nominated for the Pat Lowther Award and for two BC Book Prizes. From the fall of 2020 to the spring of 2021, Otoniya had the privilege of being the Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence and one of the SFU Jack and Doris Shadbolt Fellows. She lives in Kingston, Ontario, on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe people. Otoniya is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University, Kingston.