Tolani Akinola

Born in 1993 in New York, USA.

Tolani Akinola (she/her) is a fiction writer. Her debut novel, Leave Your Mess at Home, was published in 2026 by Pamela Dorman Books/Viking (USA), Jacaranda Books (United Kingdom), and Masobe Books (Nigeria). She has also published essays and articles in the Pittsburgh Review of Books and the Observer. She is currently working on her second novel.

Her writing has been supported by MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Bergman Estate, and Reese’s Book Club.

Akinola previously worked in public health, conducting research on sexual and reproductive health equity and designing health communication materials. She holds a master of public health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, USA, and a bachelor of arts degree in biological sciences from the University of Chicago, USA. She currently lives near Atlanta, USA.