Tanzanian emerging writers will join their East African counterparts in a three-day workshop to be held in Dar es Salaam starting Friday this week.
Organised by the Centre for Culture Excellence (CACE) and Culture and Development East Africa (CDEA), the workshop will involve 11 participants who will attend twohour master classes on fiction writing daily.
CDEA Executive Director Ayeta Wangusa, who is one of the facilitators of the workshop, said other activities include group sessions of critiquing draft stories and private time for participants to re-write their stories.
“Participants who produce high quality pieces in the workshop and show commitment to their writing shall be assigned mentors at the end of the workshop,” she stressed.
Participants shall work on two flash fiction stories to be published in newspapers and online and a short story for submission to the ‘writivism’ African Short Story Prize under the guidance of the mentors.
They shall also be required to review assigned work by the mentors and apply to various writing opportunities on recommendation by the mentor.
The workshop in Dar es Salaam is part of CACE 2015 activities that kicked off with creative writing workshops this month in five cities — Gaborone, Lagos, Johannesburg, Dar es Salaam and Kampala. In addition, CACE will start accepting submissions for the ‘writivism’ Short Story Prize on February 1. The panel of judges for this year’s prize will be chaired by Chika Unigwe.
The other judges are Mukoma wa Ngugi, Ainehi Edoro, Tendai Huchu and Rachel Zadok. According to Wangusa, ‘writivism’ is CACE’s flagship programme aiming to promote emerging African writers.
She said the CACE model is based on equipping writers with skills, through workshops and mentorship and promoting their work through newspaper publication of stories developed in their workshops, publication of an annual anthology, an annual short story prize, public readings, school tours and a minifestival.
‘Writivism’ was piloted in 2012/3 in Uganda and is now being scaled up, to cover the whole African continent. Currently submissions are in English, but in 2016 work in Kiswahili will be accepted for both the workshops and short story prize.
The workshop will be co-facilitated by Zukiswa Wanner, who will launch her book ‘London Cape Town Joburg’ (2014) during a public
By NATASHA K’OKUTANGILIRA, Tanzania Daily News