In our continuing series, we share opportunities for those who wish to submit work be it poetry, prose, or other related arts in February 2023. These callouts are divided into education (MFAs, Fellowships, residencies), journals, prizes, and publishers.
Grants
Pro Helvetia
Pro Helvetia promotes professional contemporary Swiss literary creation with a view to ensuring its diversity as well as its national and international reach. It supports the creation of new literary works and their translation, the dissemination of Swiss literature outside Switzerland and cultural exchange within Switzerland. As a national foundation, Pro Helvetia only supports projects of cross-regional or international significance and supplements the promotional activities of Switzerland’s cantons and cities.
Deadline: March 1
Details: Click here.
Education (MFAs, Fellowships, residencies).
African Writers Trust Informative Seminar
The African Writers Trust Informative Seminar on Emerging Trends in Writing & Publishing Practices will take place from 6th to 8th March 2023 at Hotsprings Villas in Kampala, Uganda. Discussions will centre around current practices and trends in the writing and publishing ecosystem, focusing on legal aspects governing the writing and publishing industry, publishing across cultures, across borders, and the role of writers in tackling the global climate change crisis.
Deadline: March 1
Details: Click here.
Courage To Write & Lando grant applications
The de Groot foundation will award the following grants to writers in 2023: Three LANDO grants of $7,000 each to writers exploring immigrant/refugee issues and experiences in any genre. Seven COURAGE to WRITE grants of $7,000 each to writers writing in any genre. Up to ten Writer of Note grants of $1,500 each. Writer of Note awardees are selected from the pool of finalists for the LANDO and COURAGE to WRITE grants. The de Groot Foundation is thrilled to partner this year with Barry Lando, award-winning, former 60 Minutes investigative journalist, to award the LANDO GRANTS to writers exploring migration, immigration and refugee issues, challenges and solutions. Application fee of US$22 applies.
Deadline: February 15
Details: Click here.
Literary magazines/journals/Anthologies
Lolwe
We are accepting submissions for Issue 7 throughout the month of February (1-28 February 2023). The issue will be guest-edited by Bongani Sibanda (Zimbabwe), Hibaq Osman (Somalia/UK) and Filemon Iiyambo (Namibia). We are looking for work that is bold, different, and blurs or pushes boundaries: play with form and language, ignore genre classifications, send in your fears and joys, your doubts and faiths, your curiosities and silences. The issue will be guest-edited by Bongani Sibanda (Zimbabwe), Hibaq Osman (Somalia/UK) and Filemon Iiyambo (Namibia).
Deadline: February 28
Details: Click here.
Iskanchi Press
We are open for Magazine submissions until March 12th. We are seeking submissions from African writers interested in the experimental. We want pieces that disobey in form and content. Send us your disobedient prose. We pay.
Deadline: March 12
Details: Click here.
Talon Review
We are accepting submissions until April 1st! Talon has also broadened its submission genres and we are now accepting hybrid submissions.
Deadline: April 1
Details: Click here.
Itanile Mag
We are delighted to announce that submissions are now open for our January 2023 Issue. Aligning with our commitment to promoting emerging and established African voices, submissions are open to all African writers. For this issue, submissions of any theme or genre are welcome, though we are particularly interested in works that explore individuality in a world dominated by group identities. Group identities could also be cultural, religious, familial, ethnical, national, continental, or classic in nature. What does it mean to belong to an in-group without inhibiting the individual? We want to read stories and poems that explore, among other things, the trade-offs between the individual and the collective, the daily forces that prompt individuals to blend in with their in-groups, to break away, or to find a compromise.
Deadline: February 13
Details: Click here.
The African Feminist Anthology
The African feminist anthology is the latest undertaking of the Sistah Sistah Foundation, designed to celebrate and spotlight African womxn through imaginative storytelling. With a focus on telling African womxn and minority groups stories in our voices, we hope to develop a foundational tool that provides young African feminists a platform to share their stories and advocate for causes they support.
Deadline: March 3
Details: Click here.
The Journal
We are interested in quality fiction, poetry, nonfiction, photo essays, author interviews, and reviews of new books of poetry and prose. We impose no restrictions on category or type of submission for fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but we ask that you notify us of this at the time of submission. Multiple submissions are not accepted and will not be read or responded to; please wait until you receive a response from us before submitting again. Please allow four to six months for a decision.
Deadline: May 1
Details: Click here.
Omenena
We want art, fiction, and non-fiction from artists and writers from Africa and the African Diaspora. If you are unsure whether that includes you, please read this definition by the African Speculative Fiction Society about who is African for clarity. Fiction and art must be speculative (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror or Magical Realism) and must involve characters, settings or themes directly related to the African continent. All stories and art must be in English (translations welcome), must be original works (no fan fiction, sorry), and previously unpublished.
Deadline: February 25
Details: Click here.
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
Information: Click here.
Pepper Coast Lit
Pepper Coast Lit is a literary magazine from the coast of Liberia that seeks to give attention to brave voices. The newest edition, guest edited by Jakky Bankong-Obi and Akpa Arinzechukwu, seeks submissions for both poetry and fiction.
Deadline: April 1
Information: Click here.
Publishers
Masobe Books
Our manuscript submission window opens at the beginning of February and closes in March every year, giving you a chance to turn that dream into reality through Masobe Books. So go ahead and dust that masterpiece manuscript and get ready to make your history. Dot the I’s and cross the Ts, because only the best will be accepted.
Deadline: March 1
Details: Click here.
Details: Click here.
Ibua Publishing
We are back! After a much needed break, we are back in the office. To start off our year, we are calling for submissions to Bold Continental Call 2023. The theme for this year is Climate Change. We want your short stories and poems on the effects of climate change in Africa.
Deadline: February 23
Details: On Poster.
Prizes
Kendeka Prize for African Literature
The Kendeka Prize for African Literature is accepting entries for its’ 2023 edition. The entry is free. The Prize will be awarded for the best unpublished short story either in fiction or creative non-fiction. The first prize will be Kes 100,000, while the 2nd and the 3rd Prize shall be Kes 50,000 and Kes 25,000 respectively.
Deadline: May 15
Details: Click here
The Goldsmiths Prize 2023
The Goldsmiths Prize was established in 2013 to celebrate the qualities of creative daring associated with the College and to reward fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form. The annual prize of £10,000 is awarded to a book that is deemed genuinely novel and which embodies the spirit of invention that characterises the genre at its best. The jury this year comprises Tom Lee (Chair), Maddie Mortimer, Helen Oyeyemi, and Ellen Peirson-Hagger.
Deadline: March 31
Details: Click here
Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2023
The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2023 is officially open! The 2023 prize is judged by Leila Aboulela (Fiction), Caleb Femi (Poetry), Aanchal Malhotra (Life Writing) and chaired by Diana Evans.
Deadline: June 30
Details: Click here.
The Wilbur Smith Adventure Prize
The Wilbur Smith Adventure Prize, Best Published Novel Award is now OPEN! Celebrating the very best #adventurewriting of the last year, we can’t wait to start receiving submissions. Who would you like to see win the prize this year?
Deadline: February 17
Details: Click here.
IPA Prix Voltaire 2023
Freedom of expression and freedom to publish are human rights under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet freedom to publish is under continuous, sustained daily attack, with writers and publishers vilified, jailed, tortured and killed merely for doing their jobs. In 2005, the International Publishers Association created the Freedom to Publish Prize to honour a person or organization adjudged to have made a significant contribution to the defence and promotion of freedom to publish in the world. In 2016, the prize was renamed the IPA Prix Voltaire, in tribute to the French philosopher and writer François-Marie Arouet (penname Voltaire), who propounded a doctrine of tolerance and free expression before the terms were in general use.
Deadline: February 24
Details: Click here
The Diverse Book Awards 2023
The Diverse Book Awards was established in November 2019 and was created by award-winning children’s and YA author Abiola Bello and award winning publicist Helen Lewis, founders of The Author School.
Deadline: May 31
Details: Click here.
Bristol Short Story Prize 2023
The Prize is open to both published and unpublished writers around the world. 20 stories will be shortlisted and published in Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 16. The winner and two runners up will be selected from the shortlist and announced at an awards ceremony in October 2023. Prizes awarded will be as follows: First prize: £1,000 Second prize: £500 Third prize: £250
Deadline: April 26
Details: Click here.
Nigerian Pidgin English writing competition in 2023
Genti Media is an Africa-focused audio media platform showcasing audio stories, dramas, and messages from and for the continent in regional and indigenous African languages. In August, we launched our mobile app -Genti Audio on both the Google Play and Apple App Stores with over 4,000 hours of content in 13 languages (English, Nigerian Pidgin, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulfulde, and many more).
Deadline: February 10
Details: On poster.
The James Currey Prize for African Literature
The James Currey Prize for African Literature is an annual award for the best-unpublished work of fiction written in English by any writer, set in Africa or on Africans in Africa or in Diaspora.
Deadline: April 1, 2023
Details: Click here.
