Dr. Nnedi Okorafor

Writer Judge – Biography

Nnedi Okorafor

Dr. Nnedi Okorafor is a speculative fiction novelist of Nigerian descent. Her novels include Who Fears Death (winner of the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel), Akata Witch (an Amazon.com Best Book of the Year), Zahrah the Windseeker (winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature), and The Shadow Speaker (winner of the Parallax Award). Her children’s book Long Juju Man won the Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa. Her short story “Windseekers” was a Writers of the Future Contest finalist in 2001 and was published in Vol. 18.

Dr. Okorafor holds a PhD in literature and is a Full Professor at the University of Buffalo, New York (SUNY). She became a Writers of the Future judge in 2013.

“The Writers of the Future experience played a pivotal role during a most impressionable time in my writing career. Everyone was so welcoming. And afterwards, the WotF folks were always around when I had questions or needed help. It was all far more than a mere writing contest.” —Nnedi Okorafor

Find out more at: nnedi.com