The twelve writers selected for the first Short Story Day Africa Inkubator project have been announced.
36 Short Stories, 12 Writers, 6 Workshops, 3 Months, 1 Anthology
Inkubator Africa/UK is an intensive, three-month online seminar designed by Short Story Day Africa and Laxfield Literary Associates. Its aim is to allow writers to develop and hone their fiction writing and self-editing skills, as well as to create an environment for cultural exchange and dialogue between writers from different backgrounds. Organisers describe the project as ‘a place for writers to support writers: to learn, to teach, and to mentor each other and create new, ongoing support networks.’
SSDA Executive Editor, Rachel Zadok, and UK Director of SSDA, Lizzy Attree, say:
‘We received 125 applications from across Anglophone Africa and the UK. Narrowing them down to just twelve was incredibly difficult, as there were many wonderful stories. These twelve writers stood out for us. There is something special in each of their voices, a unique energy and spark. We’re really looking forward to working with them over the next months to see what they produce.
‘To the writers who didn’t make it: we encourage you to keep writing, and keep submitting.’
The twelve participants will be mentored through a curriculum that covers writing, editing, preparing work for submission, as well as how to approach agents and publishers. Inkubator consists of six online workshops and a moderated online forum, with facilitation from a group of renowned writers and editors: Tochukwu Okafor, Karen Jennings, TJ Benson, Doreen Baingana, Olumide Popoola and Emma Shercliff.
The writers will work in pairs to produce short stories that will be edited for publication and the resulting anthology will be published as an ebook.
The 2022 Short Story Day Africa Inkubator writers are:
- Aba Asibon – Ghana
- Kabubu Mutua – Kenya
- Moso – Lesotho
- Doreen Anyango – Uganda
- Zanta Nkumane – eSwatini
- Khumbo Mhone – Malawi
- Nicholas A Dawn – South Africa
- Emily Pensulo – Zambia
- Josephine Sokan – Nigeria/UK
- Sola Njoku – Nigeria/UK
- Yovanka Paquete Perdigao – Guinea Bissau/Republic of Ireland
- Salma Abdilatif Yusuf – Kenya/UK
SSDA Inkubator Africa/UK is supported by the British Council Cultural Exchange programme, which ‘supports cultural organisations, festivals, artists and creatives between the countries of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) and the United Kingdom (UK) to create art, build networks, collaborate and develop markets and share artists’ work with audiences’.
Zadok and Attree add:
‘We’d like to express our thanks to all the incredible people who have donated to Short Story Day Africa or bought copies of our anthologies, especially our most recent publication Disruption, and our publishing partner Catalyst Press.’
Congratulations to the twelve writers!
