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Otoniya J. Okot Bitek is a poet and novelist. Her 100 Days (University of Alberta 2016) was nominated for several writing prizes including the 2017 BC Book Prize, the 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. Her second collection, A is for Acholi (Wolsak and Wynn 2023), was shortlisted for the 2023 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the 2023 Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. It won the 2023 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her most recent collection of poetry Song & Dread is published by Talonbooks. Her first novel, We, the Kindling, (Alchemy 2025) was longlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize and was a finalist for the 2025 Writers Trust Atwood Gibson Fiction Prize. It won the 2026 Trillium Prize. Otoniya lives in Kingston, Ontario, on the land of the Haudesaunee and the Anishinaabe people. She is an associate professor of Black Studies, joint appointed in English and Gender Studies at Queen’s University.