It's all systems go for the Open Book Festival 2022 in Cape Town

The Open Book Festival 2022, after a mini-edition in March, returns to Cape Town, South Africa from September 2-4, 2022.

The Open Book Festival is a literary festival held annually in Cape Town, South Africa since 2011. It has in the past included over 150 literary events, featuring over 100 authors over 5 days. 

It was initiated by Mervyn Sloman of The Book Lounge (a Cape Town-based bookshop) and Ben Williams then of ‘Books Live’ now a literary-focused subsidiary of South African newspaper Times Live.

After a two-year Covid-19 prompted break, the festival had a virtual mini-edition sponsored by the South African Department of Arts and Culture and Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Cape Town on March 26-27.

“We were lucky enough to run a mini festival in March. It was incredibly emotional to see the faces of so many people again for the first time in two years. It has also been fantastic to have workshops running outside of the digital spaces. There’s something about being able to learn amongst others that I don’t think can be easily replaced,” event organiser Frankie Murrey said. 

The festival would be a return to an in-person format, people will be able to interact with one another, face-to-face, in September. Some of the featured guests will be Rofhiwa Maneta, Africa Melane, Terry-Ann Adams, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Musawenkosi Khanyile, Fred Khumalo, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Lucas Ledwaba, Lethokuhle Msimang, Kopano Ratele, Bongani Kona, Pulane Mpondo, Yewande Omotoso, Mohale Mashigo, Rofhiwa Maneta, Lethokuhle Msimang, Christopher Ouma, among others.

While in the past events were hosted in a variety of venues, this year many events will go down at the District Six Museum Homecoming Centre (HCC). One special event aimed at children will be hosted at The Book Lounge on Saturday, September 3.

“The Homecoming Centre is delighted that we can once again host the Open Book Festival. The subject matter and themes for the 2022 edition are matters that closely align with our mission here at the HCC and we could not be more excited to host discussions and meaningful engagement with the public at large,” says Chrischene Julius, acting director of the District Six Museum.

This year’s events are presented in association with the national Department of Sports Arts and Culture, The Heinrich Boll Foundation, The City of Cape Town, Jonathan Ball Publishers, and NB Publishers. They are supported by Penguin Random House and Pan Macmillan.

For those who want to buy tickets or for more information they can be assisted through the website, www.openbookfestival.co.za. 

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Button Poetry Seeks Video Submissions

Deadline: August 31, 2022

Button Poetry is now accepting entries for the 2022 Video Contest. We are looking for brave poetry that crosses borders or effaces them completely, work that enters into larger social conversations, work that lives in the world, work with a strong, unique voice and palpable energy. 

The winner will receive $500 and be featured across our social media, which collectively has 5M+ followers. 

Finalist Judge: Sabrina Benaim, author of Depression & Other Magic Tricks. 

The contest closes August 31, 2022. Find guidelines at  buttonpoetry.com/video-contest.

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Opportunities for writers and poets August 2022

In our continuing series, we share opportunities for those who wish to submit work be it poetry, prose, or other related arts in August 2022. These callouts are divided into journals, publishers, prizes, and education (MFAs, Fellowships, residencies).

Literary magazines/journals/Anthologies

Maroko

Márọkọ́, an annual print and digital journal published by the Lagos International Poetry Festival, is now receiving submissions for its first issue.

Deadline: September 30

Lolwe

Lolwe is an online literary magazine that publishes fiction, literary criticism, personal essays, photography, and poetry. Founded in January 2020 by Troy Onyango, the magazine has a Pan-African focus with the area of interest being Africa, the Caribbean, and the Black diaspora. Lolwe aims to publish more work by Black writers as this is a way to ensure greater visibility for stories by Black people and to give a platform and space for the “Black imagination.”

Lolwe Issue 6, which is open for submissions from August 1, will be guest edited by Tlotlo Tsamaase (Botswana), Frazier Michael (Japan), and Lucky Grace (Rwanda).

Deadline: August 31

Moremi Review

Founded on the values of equity, Moremi Review hopes to feature women-only voices both in the Nigerian literary sphere and beyond. They are named after Moremi Ajasoro, a legendary Yoruba queen.

Deadline: October 15

Guernica

Guernica publishes poetry, essays, reportage/journalism, criticism, and fiction, and we offer honoraria of $50 for poetry, $100 for original essays, and $150 for original fiction and for reportage/journalism.

Deadline: Not indicated

Olúmọ Review

Olúmọ Review seeks amazing poetry – poetry that is bold, poetry that would collide with rocks and grind them to powder, that sparks curiosity, that intrigues the intellect, that kicks in the teeth, that guts the heart, that says something genuine about the world as well as the individual. We celebrate diversity and are open to diverse styles, forms, and kinds of poetry, about any and all subjects.

Deadline: September 30

Decolonial Passage

Decolonial Passage presents each distinct piece of writing as a passage worthy of readers’ attention in which writers create texts to articulate a variety of themata affecting the human condition including, but not limited to authenticity, liberty, alienation, dignity, community, and boundless love. Decolonial Passage publishes writing from emerging and established writers who use language and form in innovative ways.

Deadline: Not indicated

Prizes

The Abena Korantemaa Oral History Prize 2022

We’re pleased to announce the opening of submissions for the 2022 edition of the Abena Korantemaa Oral History Prize, an annual award for Oral History narrated by a woman over the age of 65 years.

Deadline: September 4

Qazini Writing Competition

Featuring different themes/topics every year, Perspective Matters is a writing competition that invites us to look at the challenges we face in our society through a solution rather than a problem-focused lens. We ask writers of Kenyan descent to ferry us into their imagination, where we hope to be exposed to the endless possibilities within our collective reach, as human beings.

Deadline: August 8

Hamwe Festival Short Stories Contest

African writers on the continent and in the diaspora are invited to submit their short stories by September 25th, 2022. Stories should be between 2000 and 5000 words, and you can submit your story in English or French. The themes of this year’s prize are memory, heritage and mental health. The winners will be announced during Hamwe Festival in November 2022 and each of the winners will receive a $1000 cash prize.

Deadline: September 25

Kikwetu Flash Fiction Contest

In our continued quest to showcase new and established writers from East Africa and beyond, we are thrilled to launch our first writing contest as a special 8th issue to recognize exemplary work from a writer of African origin. Submit here. For our 8th issue, Kikwetu seeks 1200-word maximum flash fiction pieces from African writers on or off the continent. You may submit as many as two stories. The call-out is open-themed and we encourage you to send your best work.

Deadline: August 31

Hafsat Abdulwaheed Women Short Story Prize 2022

Yasmin El-Rufai Foundation is now accepting submissions for the 2022 edition of the Hafsat Abdulwaheed Women Short Story Prize. It will be judged by Eugenia Abu, Maryam Aliko Mohammed, and Halima Aliyu.

Deadline: August 13

Prix Collectif Parlons

The Collectif Parlons Poésie launches a call for texts from young poets in Senegal who have never been published at the expense of either author or editor. The aim of this call for texts is to encourage writing in Senegal, to generate new feathers and to enable them to have the opportunity of editorial support according to their potential. In addition, a prize will be awarded to the best collection of poems selected on the occasion.

Deadline: August 5.

Prix Littéraire FETKANN Maryse condé 2022

The Prix littéraire Fetkann Maryse Condé rewards the works, collections, research works or essays which promote the work of memory of the countries of the global South and all that goes in the direction of the promotion of human dignity in general. It is a creation of the French organisation CIFORDOM.

Deadline: September 30

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Afro Poetry Times August 2022 edition has the knack for great #poetry

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's writing redefined - it's the beauty of poetry unboxed.

Inspiration from poetry knows now boundaries. Get the digital copy #August copy of the Afro Poetry Times magazine from #PressReader. Be inspired through poetry!

As usual the August edition is packed and it features the beauty of poetry and the literary arts from cover to cover.

This edition features some great poems, short stories, book reviews, interviews, some competitions to win real money and lots more.

Get your copy from the link below. PressReader issue the leading digital magazines distributor.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/afro-poetry-times/20220801

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Date set for Lagos International Poetry Festival

The Lagos International Poetry Festival 2022, with the theme “Babel… A New Language,” runs from October 27 – 31, 2022.

The Lagos International Poetry Festival brings together poets, writers, artists, and thinkers from across the world to Lagos for a week of conversations, readings, performances, workshops, and adventure.

Founded in 2015 by poet Efe Paul Azino, it has established itself as one of the continent’s annual art and culture highlights.

The organisers have announced that the festival this year will happen at the tail end of October. Here is the official communication;

This year we consider how the technology of language underscores our sense of identity and facilitates our understanding of the relational universe.

Entire generations of people across the world have had their contributions to scientific advancement and intellectual engagement precluded by the power dynamic that subordinates language for language, blurring encoded histories and bodies of knowledge in the process. And so this year we center the mother-tongue and the ongoing reclamation of default languages from the rubble of colonialism, interrogating the implication of a re-imagination of language in local education, and the possibilities presented for the liberation of stories and societies.

The 2022 edition of the festival draws an array of guest poets, writers, translators, and performers, as they translate their experiences by taking us beneath the skin of their tongues. 

Watch out for conversations, performances, workshops, and parties with offerings from across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, the US, England, Scotland, Australia, India, Belgium, Germany, Canada, and Spain.

If you wish to keep up with proceedings from the Lagos-based festival, please follow their Facebook or Twitter. You can also sign up for information by clicking here.

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Afro Poetry Times July 2022 issue is explosive

The Afro Poetry Times has released it's July 2022 edition. 

As usual, the beauty of poetry and the literary arts is celebrated in this fresh magazine.

The Afro Poetry Times transforms words to life under the touch of love. The July edition features:

- How poetry is keeping a community alive. 

- University student pens poetry book that aims to heal. 

- 5 breath taking poems from new African Poets. 

- Lots of competitions to win real money. 

- The usual short story bonus.... And lots more

Get your digital copy from the leading press distributor in the world - PressReader. 

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/afro-poetry-times/20220701

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Mattera was a writer par excellence

Mandela Day was punctuated by the end of a great life. The great Don Mattera passed away, aged 87.

“Bra Zinga”, as Mattera was known to many of his contemporaries and those close to him, has been described variously as a poet and an activist.

But to many of us who were close enough to him for him to call us “my laaitie”, we knew that he was much more than that.

In his younger days in Western Native Township, now called Westbury – where he was a prolific soccer star for Sophiatown African Morning Stars and, later, a gang leader – Mattera was known as a no-nonsense klevah (streetwise) who disciplined those he considered to be out of order.

He bliksemmed those who were ill-disciplined so hard that his “Zinga Special” was soon the talk of the town.

But it would be a mistake to think of Mattera as just a pugilist. Rather, bringing out the Zinga Special was just a way to demonstrate how prepared he was to defend what he believed in.

Throughout his life, his commitment to certain principles shone through. One of those was his seemingly bottomless desire to empower young people.

Realising that there was inadequate training for young black journalists, Mattera started running a journalism programme at local newspapers.

In 1986, I was among a group of young black journalists from all over Africa that Mattera helped to spend a couple of months in Boston, Massachusetts, on a journalism leadership exchange programme.

Many of the more established black journalists today are his former students.

His desire to improve the lives of black journalists was further demonstrated when he became one of the key players in the formation of the Union of Black Journalists (UBJ) – at the time when black journalists were under attack from the apartheid white minority regime in the late 1970s.

However, his love for writing was not limited to journalism only. He was a wordsmith par excellence, and also loved poetry.

The now-defunct Skotaville Publishers published a brilliant collection of his poetry – covering a period from 1971 to 1982 – in the form of a book titled Azanian Love Song.

Of course, as a devout member of the Islamic faith, Mattera also believed in and advocated Pan Africanism.

He was also a great storyteller who enjoyed retelling his life under apartheid in Sophiatown, the forced removals of the 1950s, and the hardships black people experienced in those years.

In short, he was a man with a deep, varied and complex history. That is what made him special. But above all, he was simply a great South African.

Mooi loop and rest well, Bra Zinga. Your laaities will forever remember you.

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