Akosua Zimba Afiriyie-Hwedie is a Zambian-Ghanaian poet who grew up in Botswana. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan. She is the author of Born in a Second Language (July 2021), winner of Button Poetry's 2019 Chapbook Contest. She placed 3rd in Palette Poetry’s 2020 Emerging Poet Prize and is a winner of a 2019 Hopwood Award and a 2018 Meader Family Award. She is a finalist of The 2020 Narrative 12th Annual Poetry Contest, The 2020 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, The 2020 Palette Poetry Spotlight Award, The 2020 Furious Flower Poetry Prize, Wick Poetry Center's 2019 Peace Poem contest and received a 2020 Best of the Net Nomination. Akosua has received fellowships from Tin House, the Helen Zell Writers' Program, Callaloo and the Watering Hole. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, PANK, Kweli, Obsidian, Birdcoat Quarterly, Wildness, The Felt and elsewhere. She is currently working on her first poetry collection.