Mekiya Outini is an author, freelance editor, and co-founder and managing editor at The DateKeepers, an international media platform.
His short story "Baptism by Earth" won the 55th New Millennium Award in Fiction in 2023, and his work has appeared in Chautauqua, The Coachella Review, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. The first two chapters of his novel, Ashes, Ashes, can be read at The West Trade Review. He holds an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
At MacDowell, in addition to assisting with the finalization of his wife, Itto Outini's memoir, Blindness is the Light of My Life, Outini drafted four new essays, revised three existing essays, and left MacDowell with a nearly finished manuscript of his own. His collection recounts his upbringing in what might be called a cult if his parents weren't the only two members. In 2024, one of these essays was selected as a finalist for the Disquiet Prize.
