Elinam Agbo

Elinam Agbo is an Assistant Professor in the Creative Writing Program of the English Department. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. A 2021-2023 Kenyon Review Fellow, she is a graduate of the Clarion Workshop and co-founder of MQR Mixtape, an online imprint of Michigan Quarterly Review. Her writing has appeared in Apogee, American Short Fiction, Nimrod, the PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018, and elsewhere. She was born in Agona Swedru, Ghana and grew up in Sterling, Kansas.

Educational Background

• M.FA., University of Michigan
• B.A., University of Chicago

Teaching Interests

• Creative Writing (flash fiction, the short story, the novel)
• Speculative Fiction
• Transnational Literature
• African Diaspora Literature
• Coming-of-age Narratives

Current Projects and Research Interests

My current projects include a novel about shapeshifting mothers and a collection of speculative short stories about girlhood in Ghana and in diaspora.

Selected Publications

"The Liar’s Tongue," flash fiction in Apogee
"The Hen," flash fiction in Waxwing
"Capture," a short story in American Short Fiction
"Schools of Longing," a short story in Nimrod
"1983," a short story in Baltimore Review and PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018