Institute calls for applications to writing workshop

Mawazo Africa Writing Institute has called for submissions for its first writing workshop. The workshop is open to writers who are not published, including self-published authors.  A 30,000-word excerpt of a draft novel manuscript in English is required. The aim of the workshop is to provide advanced training and support to African writers who want […]

Mawazo Africa Writing Institute has called for submissions for its first writing workshop. The workshop is open to writers who are not published, including self-published authors.  A 30,000-word excerpt of a draft novel manuscript in English is required.

The aim of the workshop is to provide advanced training and support to African writers who want to complete full-length novel manuscripts, normally of 30,000 words minimum. 

The workshop will be held online and is a free pilot program and will hold for three months, from January to March 2018, consisting weekly three-hour group sessions with the facilitator by video conference. Thereafter, participants will be given two months to revise their full drafts and in June 2018, be assigned editors to review the revised manuscripts.

The workshop will be limited to six African writers selected on the basis of their draft manuscript excerpts. The workshop will focus on the discussion and critique of the participants’ writing and the study of craft through the reading and analysis of published novels. The goal is for participants to complete their books by the end of the workshop period.

Facilitator of the project, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi  (PhD) is a Ugandan novelist and short story writer living in Manchester, United Kingdom. She has a PhD from Lancaster University and has taught Creative Writing and English for the past ten years at British universities. Her novel, Kintu, won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013. It was published in 2014 in Kenya and the US and was long-listed for the Etisalat Prize 2014. Jennifer’s short story, Let’s Tell This Story Properly  won the regional (Africa) and overall Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2014.