The Writivism Initiative celebrates a decade of existence with awards, mentoring, a literary festival, outreach events, and a podcast administered by Tramaine Suubi.
Writivism, the project of writing as activism, was started by Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire, Naseemah Mohamed, and Kyomuhendo A Ateenyi of the Centre for African Cultural Excellence in Kampala, Uganda in 2012. They conducted several activities such as an annual literary festival, a literary prize for both fiction (starting in 2013) and nonfiction (starting in 2016), anthologies, mentorship for young writers, and loads more.
Writivism Prizes have been won by Resoketswe Manenzhe and Frances Ogamba (2019), Chisanga Mukuka and Mbogo Ireri (2018), Charles King and Munachim Amah (2017), Yvette Tetteh and Acan Innocent Immaculate (2016), Pemi Aguda (2015), Saaleha Idrees Bamjee (2014), and Anthea Paelo (2013).
After its festival in 2019, the initiative went on a hiatus. It returns this year with activities that include awards, mentoring, a literary festival, outreach events, and a podcast. All these activities will be hosted online.
Center for African Cultural Excellence co-founder Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire said, “After Writivism’s three-year hiatus that started after our literary festival held in Kampala in August 2019, we are transferring our work to an exclusively digital plane and expanding eligibility for the prizes to include the African diaspora. This can be partly explained by direct personal experience of the increasing insecurity in Uganda that makes it difficult to guarantee the safety of staff and everyone involved in our activities. It is not a boycott of the country because nobody can boycott home, but an acceptance of the inability to sustain our work in the current environment.”
The new prizes and other related activities will be administered by Tramaine Suubi, in the role of Managing Editor. Born in Uganda and based in the United States, Suubi is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a past contributor at the Tin House Summer Workshop. Their forthcoming book debut is a full-length poetry collection, titled “phases” and will be published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins. Their poems have been published in Solstice Literary Magazine, Prompt Press, Protest Through Poetry, Kiwi Collective Magazine and other spaces.
“I am deeply grateful to join Writivism and build upon such beautiful and important work. I look forward to serving our Pan-African community and empowering our writers,” Suubi said.
The program will relaunch three prizes to mark the tenth year anniversary. The new awards’ categories are short fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry in translation. Winners of each category will take home $1000 (USD) while shortlisted writers will each walk away with $50(USD). The guidelines for submission of stories, essays, and poems, alongside publishing partners, judges, and a timeline of activities related to the prizes will be announced in the coming weeks.
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