My name is Kosisochukwu W. Ugwuede (b. 1991). I am from Enugu in eastern Nigeria and work as a reporter and essayist. Sometimes, photography informs or supplements my writing—in addition to being a creative outlet.
I have published work in several journals including A Long House, DIAGRAM, Lolwe, Psaltery & Lyre, The Arkansas International, Bloomberg CityLab and The Smart Set. In my essays, I am often preoccupied with notions of place, of home, the in-betweens and grays of spiritual convictions, the workings of religious ideologies within a family unit and larger society, as well as what photographs and films do.
My writing was awarded a Plentitudes Prize in Nonfiction (2024) and shortlisted for the Koffi Addo Writivism Prize for Nonfiction (2023). It has received Best Spiritual Literature and Best of the Net nominations.
My reporting has received a Society of Professional Journalists' Excellence in Journalism Award as well as the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association's Better Newspaper Contest Awards for business and government coverage.
I graduated Oregon State University's MFA in nonfiction writing program and earned an undergraduate degree in Microbiology & Biochemistry from the University of Nigeria.
I currently serve on the reading board of The Plentitudes and was prose editor for the eighth issue of Oregon State's literary journal, 45th Parallel.
In my downtime, I write a Substack newsletter called Immensities where I seek out experiences, sit with ideas and conversations as I understand them to be expressed in this phrase from Brian Doyle: "...that the small is huge and the tiny is vast..."