We share six opportunities for writers to showcase their work and learn across the continent.
It’s a good time in the African literary scene with many opportunities for those who want to either learn the craft or share their work to the world. Dear African writer, here are a few opportunities for you to take advantage of.
- Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2020.
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2020 is accepting entries from 1 September to 1 November 2019. The competition is administered by Commonwealth Writers and is free to enter. The prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000–5,000 words). The five regional winners receive £2,500 each and the overall winner receives a total of £5,000. In addition to English, submissions are accepted in Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil, and Turkish. Stories that have been translated into English from any language are also accepted.
Deadline: November 1, 2019.
- JALADA 08: BODIES anthology.
From the Pan African collective Jalada comes the callout;
We want your body. . . of work! We seek short fiction, essays, creative nonfiction, poetry, visual art, and more that play with the very concept of the body and bodies. We want creative submissions that (re)imagine and (re)define bodies; pieces that look at bodies beyond flesh and bone; pieces that look at bodies in and through flesh and bone; that challenge our preconceived notions of bodies and spark conversations about how our bodies, and the ways we conceptualize them, impact our everyday lives and worlds. We are curious as to how bodies relate to gender, sexuality, sex, kink, disability, illness including mental illness, health, athleticism, religion, belonging, isolation, fetishization, body hair, fat, circumcision, shit, shame, pride, menopause, food, impairment, colorism, Blackness, race, identity, borders, nationality, art, pain, menstruation, violence, pleasure, death, birth, childbearing, sleep, consciousness, aging, non-human bodies, alien bodies, animal bodies, bodies of work, bodies of water, physical and metaphysical and conceptual bodies, and many other things that we’ll never know to be curious about without your piece.
Deadline: October 11th, 2019.
- ArabLit Quarterly’s Fall/Winter 2019 issue.
The ArabLit Quarterly’s Fall/Winter 2019 issue, The Eye, is now open for submissions. From our friends at Arablit the callout states;
We are looking for eye-themed writing, which means: the eye, the evil eye, the gaze, surveillance, attention, and more. We would love to find creepy noir as much as serious literature about the gaze, and we are particularly interested in discovering what’s new about the eye.
The previous edition of the anthology incidentally won the Best Microliterary Journal award at the Broken Pencil Zine Awards so you know that your work is in good hands.
Deadline: October 15, 2019.
- Rari Poetry Workshop.
Rari is a peer-learning community open to any poet of African descent fostering growth through carefully curated workshops and a platform to showcase beautiful poetry. Their goal is to promote underrepresented African voices in the global poetry landscape. They are currently accepting applications to their first online workshop which will be an intensive, craft-enhancing experience aimed at stimulating the creativity and productivity of participating poets. Over the course of six weeks, poets complete weekly writing assignments and receive constructive and dynamic feedback from other participants in a peer-learning model. Participating poets will also engage with existing African poetry as they read and discuss works by both established and emerging writers. Each writer will leave with a portfolio of finished works and the Rari team will offer individualized tips on publication and journal submissions. To participate, poets must submit 3-5 poems, submit a 250-word essay on either their favorite poem or their approach to poetry, and they must be of African descent.
Deadline: October 30, 2019.
- Colour Culture Arts anthology
Colour Culture Arts are calling for submissions for its first online anthology publication under the theme “Afronauts: Zambia Goes To Space”. You get a chance to be part of Colour Culture Arts’ ‘Writer’s Roundtable’ and be part of its content creators for future published works. All stories must be between 3000 and 5000 words while poems must have a maximum of 24 lines and should contain strong elements of fantasy or science fiction genres.
Deadline: October 20, 2019.
- Myaambo Writers Cooperative
The Myaambo Writers Cooperative, the Zambian publishers of the top-selling anthology, Alone and Other Zambian Short Stories is pleased to announce that it is now accepting unpublished fictional short stories between 3000 and 5500 words to be included in its 2020 themed short story anthology. The best 15 short stories will be selected from the submissions by a panel of seasoned writers. The theme for this anthology will be based on Gender-Based Violence, Early Child Marriage and Child Abuse.
Deadline: October 30th, 2019.
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