Subscribers to this blog can now show their financial support by making donations that will go a long way to ensuring the work gets out.

On April 24, 2013, I registered the blog JamesMurua.com to give visibility to African writers rarely covered by mainstream African media. Over the last seven years, I have covered literary news from a distinctly Africa-centric lens. That means reportage on book news, launches, literary festivals, author profiles, and more.

I have dedicated my time to travel to literary events in East, West, and Southern Africa, even crossing oceans, to give subscribers information about what is happening in African letters. There have been over 2,100 posts, averaging about 300 posts annually, which is a rarity in writing about African literature. The work has seen this undertaking with over 17,000 subscribers dubbed “the leading blog in African literature.” It was nominated for “Best Creative Writing Blog” for the 2018 Bloggers Association of Kenya Awards. I was also announced as Best Writer “Theatre, Art and Culture” at Kenya’s Sanaa Theatre Awards 2018 for work on this blog and listed as one of the top men in digital in Kenya in 2018.

Apart from the blog, I also set up a Literary Podcast to hear the voices of African writers nominated for Best Podcast in Kenya at the 2019 Bloggers Association of Kenya Awards. I have also set up a YouTube channel where you can regularly see the leading African writers in their element at events virtual or physical.

I am now making a call for donations that will allow me to invest more time in this project which I have now expanded to cover all Black writers of African origin alongside my usual continental African writing beat. I am not trying to become a rich man with this project. Any donation you give will ensure that I can pay rent, food, transport, health insurance and school fees. This will allow me to invest more time into this work that is so important now and will be even more vital for future readers, scholars, and other lovers of the written word. There are two options;

Mobile money

You can send money to my mobile money number whenever you can. The number is

+254-704-650-953

Patreon

You can support this project on Patreon starting at US$3 all the way to US$100 per month and for this you can get any amount of rewards. The tiers of patronage are named after the needs of a typical modern life so you can pay for a monthly coffee, a meal, electricity, groceries, and if you are feeling really generous even help with my rent. Apart from the support for the blogs which is really appreciated, we are introducing a monthly digest that allows you to keep up with any news from around African and Black writing that you might have missed out. Higher cost tiers also allow authors to be featured on the podcast and even on the YouTube channel.

You can also get access to advance reading of my writing projects. For 2020-2021, I am working on a catalogue of all the literary festivals in the African and Black world. You will receive information about ten different book fairs and literary festivals at the end of each month. At the end of the year, you will receive a collated version of these festivals.

If you find this blog useful either for your work (yes, I’m talking to you academics) or for your pleasure please consider supporting my work. A contribution as low as $3 a month will really mean a lot to what I am doing financially.

For information on the different donation categories, please click here.

Thank you,

James