There are always tonnes of writing opportunities available for African writers and even non-Africans writing stories set in Africa and we would love to see more Ugandans participate! We’ve done the hard part of putting together a list of a few of the ones available. Check them out, apply and keep a keen eye out for more. (All links are in titles.)
1. Art Noise Residency Travel Program
Are you a visual artist (in the broadest sense of the term)? Able to take of three months and travel, learn and create? This one might be yours. It is open for ages 18-35 years and the dead line for application is 11th May 2018. Click here for more details.
2. Opportunity for African Writers | Africa Book Club’s Short Story Competition
This one is for all the home-body writers! Submit that short story and stand a chance to win. Stories submitted must be set in Africa or be by African authors. The deadline for submissions is 30th June 2018. Click here for the submission form.
3. The 2018 Writivism Short Story Prize
Our very own Wrtivism also has an opportunity for all African short story writers! For this one you must be an unpublished writer, resident in an African country. See the link for guidelines.
4. Kachifo Limited Manuscript Call out
Nigerian publisher Kachifo Limited (publisher of Chimamanda Ngozi’s Purple Hibiscus and Lesly Nneka Arima’s What it Means When a Man Falls Down From the Sky) is looking for manuscripts! Answer the call. Click here for submission guidelines.
5. Type/Cast Literary Journal Open Submissions for Fifth Issue
Type Cast in Cape town, South Africa is looking for fiction, non-fiction and poetry work, to be submitted by 16th March. The best thing about this one is you get to be edited by a phenomenal poet Koleka Putuma! Click the link for more submission details.
6. The TSSF (The Single Story Foundation) Journal
As long as you are of African descent or association with a knack for poetry and/or short stories, you qualify! The dealine for this one is April 30th. Click the link for more information on guidelines.
7. Ambit is open for poetry submissions; fiction submissions open 1 March
The british magazine, Ambit is open for fiction submissions until 1st April 2018. A little late for the poetry writers, but all fiction writers should fall in! Click link for more submission information.
8. Submissions open for 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry
Poets, there’s still opportunities for you! Submit your contemporary pieces by March 17th. All poet submitting must be between 20 and 35 years. The competition is open to both published and unpublished poets. Click the link for more informotion on submission guidelines.
9. Bristol Short Story 2018 International Writing Competition
An interntional opportunity here. As you long as you are a writer you qualify! You may submit as many stories as you like, but there is a submission fee so be sure to read the guidelines carefully.
10. The Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship
This opportunity doesn’t open for application until the 30th of June, but if writing a full novel is something you have considered for a while the this one is for you. They provide you with what would have been your ‘monthly salary’ so that you can sit and dedicate yourself wholly to writing. Check the link for appilication and submission guidelines.
11. Babishai Poetry Prize 2018
Another opportunity by our own Babishai Poetry Intiative, open to all African, unpublished poets. The deadline for submissions is 26th May 2018. Check the link for all submission information.
12. The Miles Morland Foundation African Scholarship
The Miles Morland Foundation, in conjunction with University of East Anglia is offering postgraduate scholarships in the fields of Literature, Drama and Creative writing. The scholarship is open to all nationals of African countries. Click link for eligibility and application guidelines.
13. Granta #MeToo Essay and Fiction Submissions
The #MeToo hashtag is one that has taken the world by storm. Read below to see how to add your writer’s voice to the dialouge.
Granta 144, Summer 2018
The patriarchy is crumbling… or is it?
As I write, #metoo has gone viral. Women and girls, and some men, are revealing the sexual abuse they have encountered. Many of the people who are now speaking out took sexual violence or inappropriate conduct for granted when it happened. When I was young, being touched up by strangers in a crowded carriage was normal. Wolf whistles from builders, too. Men exposed themselves in parks, and women were routinely belittled by male doctors and other professionals. Women in short skirts were seen as fair game – if a woman was anything other than modest and sober, she had it coming, people said, in compassion or contempt. Culture turns on a dime, we know that. Hopefully for the better, quite possibly for the worse.
This issue of Granta is about gender, about patriarchy, and about all the ways in which the culture is now creakily changing. It’s about empowerment, trigger warnings and activism. Who runs the discourse, and who is excluded and why? Is trial by public opinion ever right? Are we seeing a form of mob rule? What about innocent until proven guilty? Is #metoo a flash in the pan? Will compassion fatigue set in? Will there be a backlash, and what might that look like?
This issue is about what it means to be a woman in this world; it’s about feminist values and wit, what it means to be born a woman, and to become a woman.
We welcome submissions – fiction and non-fiction – from authors who are keen to think about these questions with us.
Deadline for submissions: Monday 2nd April 2018
Please contact editor Sigrid Rausing srausing@granta.com with ideas, submissions and proposals, copying in editorial assistants Eleanor Chandler echandler@granta.com and Josie Mitchell jmitchell@granta.com.
Best wishes,
Sigrid Rausing
Editor Granta”
Grab the bull by the horns storytellers!