Her collection The January Children won a 2018 Arab American Book Award, receiving the George Ellenbogen Poetry Award,[13] the first Sudanese American author to win the award.[14] In 2018, she was also listed in Forbes Africa's 30 Under 30 in the category Creatives.[15] Elhillo received a 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.[16]