Tolu Daniel is an essayist and photographer. He is an MFA Creative Writing graduate from Washington University in St Louis, where he is currently a PhD Student in Comparative Literature. He attended Kansas State University where he was awarded the Seaton Fellowship, the Popkins Scholarship, Peggy & Gary Edwards Scholarship and the Popkins Scholarship for Creative Writing. He is the curator of Ellipsis, a newsletter featuring diasporic voices on Culture, Migration, Displacement, & Literature via Personal Essays & Interviews. He also writes regularly on his newsletter Letters from the in Between. He was awarded the 2025 Isele Nonfiction Prize for his essay “Notes of a Nonresident Alien.” He won the 2022 Creative Nonfiction Award in the annual Graduate Creative Writing Award at Kansas State University for his essay “After the Arrest.” His essays and short stories have appeared on Catapult.co, Olongo Africa, The Nasiona Magazine, Lolwe, Prachya Review, Elsewhere Literary Journal, and a few other places. He was longlisted for the 2018 Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Nonfiction. His work has been supported by the Monson Arts Residency, Writivism, Goethe Institute Nigeria and he has been invited to speak at Ake Festival, Kuta Arts Foundation, AfroLitSan, Pagya Ghana. Cavan Kerry Press will publish his debut collection of essays Exodus (Spring 2027).
