10 Open Opportunities for African Writers
Up to ₦3.5million, Print and Digital Publication, Contests etc
This newsletter is published every Wednesday at 5pm WAT.
If you’d like to share an opportunity on this newsletter please send an email to editor.afww@gmail.com.
1. Writers Space Africa: A Place I Call Home
Writers Space Africa (WSA) magazine is accepting submissions for its 104th edition edition (August 2025 Edition) under the theme: A Place I Call Home
Deadline: 15th June 2025 | Pay: Unstated
Creative Non-Fiction – 1,200 words maximum
Children’s Literature – 700 words maximum (illustrations may be attached and poems not longer than 24 lines)
Flash Fiction – 300 words maximum
Poetry – 1 poem, a maximum of 24 lines
Short Stories – 1,500 words maximum
Please edit your work and submit it to one category only.
Do include the title and category in your submission.
Editors will reach out to all authors by July 2025.
All selected and published entries will be uploaded to our website in the days after the magazine is released.
The author retains the copyright.
To submit, please click here.
2. The Republic’s Student’s Writing Competition
The Republic Journal, through funding from the Open Society Foundation (OSF), is launching a student writing competition under the theme: ‘Decolonizing Artificial Intelligence’. The contest is open to undergraduates in all
Deadline: 22nd June 2025, 12pm WAT | Prize: Total of ₦3.5million + more
Things to note:
They are looking for bold, original and critical essays (1,000–1,500 words) that engage with any of the following themes:
The cultural, political and economic impact of Africa’s growing tech ecosystems.
The rise of African-led innovation in fintech, agritech, edtech, AI and healthtech.
Gender, class and geographical inequalities in access to tech opportunities.
Surveillance, digital rights, and data colonialism and decolonization in the age of Big Tech.
Diaspora investment and the tensions between local ownership and global venture capital.
Diaspora investment and the tensions between local ownership and global venture capital.
Stories/profiles of local innovators creating meaningful change with or without venture capital backing.
Impact of technology on political and geopolitical engagement.
Urgent debates on Artificial Intelligence, around topics such as climate sustainability, artistic ethics, job security and labour exploitation.
This contest is open to undergraduates in public universities (excluding final year students). Postgraduate students in public universities with at least one year left in their program, and PhD students enrolled in public universities.
Only original unpublished work is welcome.
Six Laureates will be selected and awarded prizes.
Laureates will be appointed as Republic Campus Ambassadors for the 2025–26 academic year, with a monthly stipend, merchandise and opportunities to shape The Republic’s university chapters.
To access the form and submit your entry, you must register for an account on The Republic.
3. Naija Theatre: Call for Reviews
Naija Theatre was created to give Nigerian stories told on a theatre stage the necessary support. They are calling for reviews of Nigerian Theatre productions.
Deadline: 25th June 2025. | Renumeration: N50,000
Steps to submit:
Watch a Nigerian stage play
Write a review about it
In the designated form, kindly share your name, email address and paste your review in the box provided. Once you are done filling, click submit. A black checkmark is proof that your submission was successful.
If your review is selected, you will be contacted for your cash prize and to request images where necessary.
Click here to submit.
4. Pitch to Olongo Africa
OlongoAfrica is published twice weekly to give a platform to new writings from or about Africa. They publish fiction, poetry, literary criticism, journalist pieces, translations (to and from African languages) and travelogues.
Deadline: Rolling | Pay: based on word count
Things to note:
Read publications in your desired categories to get a sense of what they like.
Send pitch to submissions@olongoafrica.com.
5. Submit Critical Essays and Reviews to Wasafiri
Wasafiri is a peer–reviewed journal and listed in the Clarivate Analytics’ Arts & Humanities Citation Index. They are seeking conceptually rigorous, substantially researched, and accessibly presented articles and essays engaged with any genre of contemporary literature. The magazine particularly welcomes articles that position new critical perspectives within one or more broader contexts. They are also seeking book reviews.
Deadline: Rolling | Pay: From £125
Things to note:
Critical articles and essays: 6,000 – 9,000 words
Essay submissions must be made through this portal.
If you'd like to pitch a review, please email the Reviews Editor, Farah Ali: wasafiri.reviews@qmul.ac.uk
6. Call for Submissions: Planet Black Joy
Rosarium Publishing is inviting submissions for its speculative anthology Planet Black Joy to be edited by Chinelo Onwualu, Susana M. Morris, and Bill Campbell. The collection will feature about 20 to 25 short stories by women and non-binary folk who identify as Black, African, or of Afro-descendent heritage exploring and celebrating Black joy.
Deadline: 1st July 2025 | Pay: up to $560
Things to note:
“We want to showcase stories of Black joy in the fantastical and the mundane in the present, past, and the future. We’d like a variety of Black joy from catharsis to irreverence to clawing resilience out of the darkness. From Black Twitter after the Alabama Brawl to the kind of joy that has been constructed in the face of white supremacy and patriarchy. We want to know what Black joy means to you.”—RP
Send original submissions in English.
They are also open to translations and reprints.
Rates of $0.08 (USD) per word, for original short stories between 3,000 and 7,000 words long and $0.02 (USD) per word for reprints.
They’ll be asking your permission to include the work as part of the anthology in the following formats: print, digital, and Braille.
Please email your submissions as an attachment to planetblackjoy@rosariumpublishing.com
7. The Winged Moon: Call for Submissions
The Winged Moon is a print and online publication focused on daring and experimental writing that seeks to explore the intersections of the human experience, ecology, metaphysics, spirituality and folklore. For their upcoming issue, they are seeking publications under the theme: BIOPHILIA. “Biophilia is a human’s intrinsic nature. We know it in our blood and deepest wildernesses…We once wild mammals lived with the ‘ears of a bear’ but they have gone unheard in thousands of years wide erosion. We have forgotten that we are beings-in-the world as opposed to beings-apart.”—TWM
Deadline: 3rd July 2025 | Pay: €20
Things to note:
To fully understand the theme and explore suggested texts that align with it, please read this.
Poetry (around 30 lines is the limit) please submit via form below
Prose Poetry (300 word limit) please submit via form below
Lyric Essays (1000 word limit ) please send to their email: thewingedmoonmagazine@gmail.com
Please send only ONE submission form per issue
Send a maximum of TWO written works per submission
if there are two written works, please attach two separate documents
Clearly place your name first followed by the genre followed by the title as the document name: YOUR NAME_GENRE_TITLE
Please send your writing in Garamond size 11
8. Young Adult Literature Prize 2025
The TY Buratai Literary Initiative is calling on Nigerian writers focused on young adult literature to submit their novella/novel for consideration in the 2nd Young Adult Literature Prize.
Deadline: 31st July 2025| Prize: N1,000,000 + Book Deal
Things to note:
The prize is open to Nigerians within or outside the country
Entries should be original, between 80-120 pages in Arial Font, Size 12
Only unpublished manuscripts are acceptable. TYBLI intends to grow this genre by publishing the best ten entries in a post-event anthology.
Submitted manuscripts must not be published before announcement of Prize winners in November 1, 2025
The language should be age- appropriate, easy to read, and may include slangs and colloquial terms. Specifically for ages 13-19.
Entries should reflect one or more of the common themes and archetypes of young adult literature, such as solo quest to change the world, rag-to-riches, diversity, identity, or recreating classic stories.
Each participant is required to fill out the application form on the website with relevant information, given which your entry, even though received, might not be eligible.
Entries should be sent as a Word document attachment, to TYBLITERARYI@GMAIL.COM
Please put in the subject line “TYBLI Young Adults Literature Prize 2025.
9. Submit to One Story
One Story began in 2001 as a platform to showcase fiction from emerging writers. They are currently accepting literary fiction submissions for their magazine.
Deadline: Until Cap of 2000 subs | Pay: $500
Things to note:
All submissions should be sent via Submittable. In your cover letter, please include the word count for your submission and a short biographical statement.
Please upload your submission as a PDF with the story title and all writer contact info on the first page of the submission.
They only accept unpublished work.
They can only accept stories between 3,000 and 8,000 words. They can be any style and on any subject as long as they are good.
They accept simultaneous submissions, but please withdraw your submission if your work is accepted elsewhere.
Please only send us final drafts, but if you must upload a new version, please withdraw your submission through Submittable and resubmit.
They consider translations but please include the name of the original author and language, as well as the name of the translator on the first page of your submission.
Emailed submissions will be deleted unread.
10. Call for Submissions: The Bare Bones Book of Humour
Bare Bones is an independent publishing house based in Gurugram, India. They are looking for humorous prose writing in English—fiction and creative nonfiction—for their upcoming anthology The Bare Bones Book of Humour, edited by Ankit Raj Ojha. “Give us stories that make us laugh out loud, woo us with their quiet humour, probe the human condition with a funny bone, do all of the above, or none of it! We love good old storytelling, fun and thoughtful experiments, and everything in between. Surprise us.” —B.B
Deadline: August 15th 2025 | Pay: unstated amount
Things to note:
Word count: 500 to 2000 words
Non-English words, phrases or passages are fine as long as translation is provided, wherever necessary, and the work itself is in English.
Their Humour Hall of Fame includes but is not limited to: Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka, Alexander McCall Smith, Haruki Murakami, Kōtarō Isaka, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen etc.
Writers from all over the world, aged 18 and above, can submit their work.
The book is meant for adult readers; both general and mature themes are welcome. So, feel free to be subtle or outrageous with your humour.
Please only submit once per reading period.
All submissions shall be responded to within three weeks of the deadline
Publication is slated for January 2026.
Send your work as a .doc / .docx attachment to bareboneshumour@gmail.com with the subject line: Bare Bones Humour: [Your Name]
All manuscripts should be in 12-point type, double-spaced, with at least one-inch margins.
Paste a brief biographical note (third-person, not more than 50 words) in the email body. If possible, please mention where you are based.
Although they prefer previously unpublished works, they can consider reprints as long as the work has previously appeared in print only and the author retains reprint rights. If you are submitting such a piece, do confirm the above and also mention the when and where of its first publication.
They do not accept simultaneous submissions
If you or someone you referred have received an acceptance for any of the opportunities listed on African Writer Weekly, please share your win to encourage the work we do!
Prose of the Week
The Realms of Owls | Perpetual Murray
A song comes to you. At this point, it is only a melody. No lyrics. Not a ballad— not yet. This song rides, a current so subtle beneath the cawing of guinea fowl foraging for mites and weeds in the savannah. Perched in the canopy of a Mukwa tree, you sit up, attune your ears, and reach through the guinea fowl’s guttural chattering, past the discordant squawking. You reach for the heart of the noise—the chorus—and finding it, close your eyes. It is a tune so clean, so polished, like a star in the crypt of an October night…
If you’d like your prose featured in ‘Prose of The Week’ send an email to editor.afww@gmail.com.
Poetry of the Week
Written in honour of Nyambura Wa Ngugi
Welcoming Morality Home | Mukoma Wa Ngugi
As a child on my way home,
roughened more by play
than the weight of my books,
I ran that short distance from
the cornerstone paved road
to our gate afraid that the trees
bowing so close to the ground
would surely give way…
If you’d like your poetry featured in ‘Poetry of The Week’ send an email to editor.afww@gmail.com.
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ówú!jí!bhá (good luck! —Mbembe, Cross River, Nigeria)