2024 Opportunities for African Writers
Cash prizes from $50-$1500, publication etc.
This newsletter is published every Wednesday.
1. Deep Vellum’s Best Literary Translations Anthology 2025:
The second edition of this exciting annual anthology will showcase literary translators’ work to make possible literary encounters from around the world for the English-language reader. This anthology will help redefine the canon of world literature and challenge the perception that only Anglophone literature matters in the cultural conversation.
Deadline: 5th January 2024 | Prize: $150 + copy of anthology
Guidelines:
You can submit works of poetry, short fiction, literary essays, and hybrid-genre texts, translated into English from any language(s) and published online or in print in a US or US-affiliated literary journal or magazine during 2023.
Prose submissions are limited to 5,000 words. Drama, graphic, and illustrated works are not eligible. Acceptable file formats are .DOC, .DOCX, or .RTF.
Deep Vellum has a broad definition of “translation” and admire both “traditional” translations (those rendered so seamlessly into English that they seem to have been first written in it) but also more conceptual or experimental approaches to translation, especially where they reveal the often fraught and complex relationships between languages and cultures.
Translators will need to confirm that they have permission from the author or their estate (or that it is in the public domain) to publish the submission, should it be chosen, in this anthology.
Please make your nominations through Submittable and complete the questionnaire (Google Form) that is a required part of your submission. Both are important to completing your application.
Source: Brittle Paper
2. Hailerz Story Writing Challenge
Hailerz is an online community of over 1000 creatives encompassing Africans at home and in diaspora. Join their 2024 writing challenge by writing a short story titled “Letter to My Younger Self”. The story should be a reflective story, a personal journey captured in words. Wining story will be awarded the Best Story-Teller Award and receive a special gift.
Deadline: 5th January 2024. | Prize: Award + special gift
Guidelines:
Write an original story and post it on your blog/page (ensure your page is set to public view), or add a screenshot.
Share a link to your post on www.hailerz.com/challenges
The judges will pick the best story and award a special prize.
3. 2024 Awele Creative Trust Short Story Award
Awele Creative Trust (ACT) is a non-profit trust formed in 2013 to provide a platform and enabling environment for creative young persons in Nigeria through literature and arts. The ACT prize is awarded to a short story by any writer between the ages of 16 and 26, who is a resident in Nigeria.
Deadline: 10th January 2024. | Prize: N50,000
Guidelines:
Previously published work is not eligible for the ACT award.
Submissions should be made by e-mail only to awelecreativetrust@gmail.com.
Only one story per author will be considered in any one year.
Submissions should include a cover note with the name, date of birth, e-mail address and telephone number of the author.
Only fictional work is eligible.
Works must be between 2,500 and 5,000 words.
Works translated into English from any Nigerian languages are eligible. Should such a work win, N20,000 of the prize money will go to the translator.
A longlist will be announced in February, and a shortlist of five will be announced in March. A winner will be announced in April 2024.
4. Liberation Alliance Africa: Call for Contributors
This is a feminist, panAfrican collective raising critical consciousness through radical knowledge production. They are currently inviting feminist creatives, writers, illustrators, and storytellers to contribute to ‘The Makings of Revolutionary Hope’ anthology.
Deadline: 9am WAT, 10th January 2024 | Prize: publication
How to Submit
Download and follow the submission guidelines for the category you’re submitting for.
Send your submissions to hello@liberationallianceafrica@gmail.com
5. Open Sewers Collective: Call for Submissions
Open Sewers Collective is a non-profit magazine seeking literary pieces, critical writing and translated works for their next issue. They encourage especially those without prior publishing experience and those who belong to marginalised communities to do so. You may also choose to publish anonymously.
Deadline: 12th January 2024 | Prize: Publication + free copy of magazine.
Few things to note:
You can submit texts on any topic or theme and in any language, but please add a German or English translation, if necessary.
Literary submissions can take the form of: poetry, short prose , serialised novels, creative nonfiction, and plays. Critical writing entries can be essays, popular scientific writing, or reviews (of literature, movies, shows, music, etc.)
For translated work, they accept translations of any type of literature, if you have legal permission to publish it. However, they do offer to inquire about the legal situation for you.
Simultaneous submissions are allowed if they are identified as such.
Submit all texts as word documents. Don't mention your name in the document.
You may submit up to five texts in total. For projects exceeding 20 pages, please include an expose. Layout, font, etc. will be unified within the editing process.
To submit, send your text to opensewers@gmail.com. You may introduce yourself and your work briefly in the body of the mail.
6. Makena Onjerika’s Kenyan Speculative Fiction Anthology
Kenyan author and winner of the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing, Makena Onjerika, is inviting Kenyan writers to submit speculative fiction under the theme Yajayo.
As the name suggests, Yajayo is focused on what is to come, the future. So what is your vision of Kenya's future? The next 10, 20, 50, 100, 1000 years, what will they be for Kenyans? The author is particularly interested in futures that are heavily connected to the past and the present. Futures that are singly and peculiarly Kenyan, whether positive or negative. Futures that are not simply replications of stories and imaginations from elsewhere. 15-20 stories will be selected and published in the Anthology by April 30th, 2024.
Deadline: 11:59pm Kenyan Time, 20th January 2024. | Prize: Publication + up to 10,000 KES for each published story.
Submission rules:
Your short story should be 2000-5000 words long (including the title, your name, and contact details). Shorter or longer manuscripts may be accepted but only if they are exceedingly impressive.
Speculative fiction should be interpreted to cover science fiction, fantasy, magical/surreal fiction, folklore and others. Please do not submit work that is not speculative in nature or that does not match the theme.
Strictly format your manuscript as per the Shunn Modern manuscript format and use 12-point font.
Submit your manuscript in Word format. PDFs will not be accepted. Make sure to label your word document as follows: Your name_Yajayo 2024 submission.
Do not use ALL CAPITALS anywhere in your work, even in the title. Use Sentence case for your writing and Capitalize Every Other Word for titles.
Submissions will only be accepted from Kenyan citizens, and you will need to provide proof of citizenship if your work is accepted.
Submit a 50-100 word bio. You will be asked for an author photo if your work is selected for the anthology.
Your story must be recognizably about Kenya and Kenyans.
All entrants must be age 18 years and above as of January 20th 2024.
All submissions must be in English although they may include other languages in them.
All submissions must be written for adults and not for children only
All entries selected for the anthology cannot have been previously published elsewhere. Simultaneous submissions are welcome as long as you notify Onjerika immediately if your story is accepted elsewhere and withdraw it.
Stories selected for the anthology will undergo editing, copywriting, and proof reading as necessary. You will be consulted about all editing work done on your manuscript.
Only submit work that is significantly developed and complete. Early drafts will not be accepted.
Worldwide copyright will remain with the writer. You will only have to provide 12 months exclusive publishing rights for the anthology from the date of publication, after which your story may be reprinted anywhere as long as other publishers always indicate that the story was first published in Yajayo: An Anthology of Kenyan Speculative Fiction (2024). Once the 12 months lapse, Yajayo will hold non-exclusive publishing rights to your story indefinitely. Snippets of stories published in the anthology will be used for promotional purposes online.
Writers whose work appears in the anthology will be expected to take part in publicity activities, including online.
Only submit work that is exclusively your own work. Plagiarism is not acceptable.
7. Iskanchi Book Prize 2024 is open for submissions:
Iskanchi Book Prize aims to recognize exceptional prose and hybrid book manuscripts and offer the winners a chance to be published. This competition is open to both emerging and established African writers living anywhere in the world.
Deadline: 30 January 2024 | Prize: $1500 and book publication
Some things to note:
Submissions should be prose: Fiction and non-fiction manuscripts (novels, novellas, short story collections, essay collections, memoirs, etc.). OR
hybrid: Manuscripts that blend multiple genres or mediums (e.g., poetry and visual art, prose and photography, experimental formats, etc.)
Book submissions should be previously unpublished and between 50,000– 120,000 words.
Simultaneous submissions to other publishers or competitions are allowed, but please notify us immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Subject of submission should be "Iskanchi Book Prize"
Please send all submissions to submissions@iskanchi.com
8. Call for Submissions: Black Feminist Collective
The Black Feminist Collective is an intergenerational group of Black feminists and womanists who stand for Black liberation in its entirety. They are seeking essays, articles, interviews, artworks etc, from Black feminists and womanists, for their Spring 2024 publication.
Deadline: 26th February 2024 | Prize: Professional Consulting and Publication
Notes to guide submission:
Please provide your email address in order for us to work with you to edit your work before it’s published.
If the work you are submitting has been published before, please copy + paste a link to it was originally published, and we’ll cite it.
Describe your submission(s).
If your work contains graphic and explicit content, and please provide a content warning.
Pick at least one of the following sections in which you want your works to be published: Resource lists, Art, Politics, Movements, Culture, Interviews and Conversations, Reflections and Personal Narratives.
All writings must be at least 100 words.
Resource lists must be accompanied by a brief overview.
Both video essays and audio essays must be accompanied by a transcript, or be transcribed before it’s published. If you’re submitting video essays to the submissions form, please only upload the transcript.
Clarify if you want your visual artwork to be published individually, or if you want it to be featured on another person’s works for future publications.
If you want your visual pieces to be published individually, it should be accompanied by a title and a description, or by an optional 100+ word piece.
If the artwork is you’re submitting is a picture of someone else, you must also have their written consent to be photographed and featured in order for it to be published—please confirm this with us!
Upload at least one picture per submission.
Please give credit to the creator(s) of the image you are uploading.
If you’re submitting your writings, and you don’t want to upload an image, you can pick one of your favorite quotes to appear at the top of your published work. View this example.
For more information, click here.
Prose of the Week
Shiny sufurias and what does that have to do with you being wifey material | Gladys Njamiu
My mum cleans her sufurias with the utmost care. A bucket full of warm water. Sunlight bar soap. A new steel wool. The kitchen sink is too small for all this activity she does it outside, bending. My old back couldn’t. The first wash gets rid of the dirt, then the second wash. The sufurias are in a row from the easiest to the hardest. The milk and tea sufuria are always the first. Yes, huku kwetu sufuria ziko na kazi yake, ya nyama, ya chai, ya ugali, ya mukimo, and that one lonely sufuria…
Poetry of the Week
What then…? | Chukwuonyeoma E
What happens when my eyes can no longer moisten
And the only proof of pain are hot droplets of my sanity as it melts,
trickling down my brain like molten magma
Dissolving everything in its path
Hope. Love. Reason. Truth. Logic. Resolve...?
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Iyefu (your name comes with good luck—Idoma, South Eastern Nigeria)