Jungle Jim seeks stories that explore the "collision between visceral daring of pulp and the reality of living in Africa"

Jungle Jim is a bi-monthly illustrated print publication, aiming on spreading narrative, imagination and concept-driven African stories. Taking from the pulp tradition, we publish short and serialized fiction that entertains and engrosses in all dramatic genres (horror, sci-fi, crime, detective, western, romance, adventure etc.), accessible to all, but with a high quality of writing. We seek to publish stories that explore the collision between visceral daring of pulp and the reality of living in Africa.

Length
Very Short Fiction: 800 – 2000 words
Short Fiction: 2500 – 3500 words
Serialized Fiction: 13000 words (2000-2500 per installment)
True Life: 1500 – 2000 words

Fiction-Style

Narrative-driven genre or genre clash fiction that is imaginative, provocative and dramatic, drawing on African environments, characters, concepts, culture and myth, whether set in real worlds or those imagined. Extreme language, violence, sex or ideas are welcomed IF they advance the story.

Non-Fiction

We try and reserve one slot per issue for true-life accounts of unusual first-person experiences (e.g. alien abduction, ghost sightings, near death experiences). These should be transcribed directly and edited from an interview source, capturing the speech and storytelling of the story-teller.

Language

We welcome and encourage submissions in all languages, as long as they are accompanied by an English translation. Where possible we will publish BOTH original language and translation.

License

Jungle Jim accepts both published and and un-published works, no matter how old. We request a non-exclusive license, and authors retain full-copyright. We are currently unable to pay for contributions, but hope to change this soon.

Submissions

Electronic submissions only. These should be in MS Word format (.doc, not .docx), 12 pt font.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: mailto:junglejimmag@gmail.com

For submissions: mailto:junglejimmag@gmail.com

Website: http://www.junglejim.org/

Allaboutwriting 150 word short story contest

To settle a bar bet, Hemingway wrote the following short story. For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn. He called it his best work. And it proves that you don’t have to blather on endlessly to write something powerful.

It is the inspiration for our June exercise. But we’ve decided to go easy on you. We’re happy to settle for not six, but 150 words.

Here’s the challenge.

Write a 150 word short story that contains the following words: car guard; lover; and shoe.

Best story stands in line to win its author a R200 book voucher from the independent bookshop of your choice. Your deadline is July 7, at 12 noon. Send your submission to trishurquhart@gmail.com.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: trishurquhart@gmail.com

For submissions: trishurquhart@gmail.com

Website: http://allaboutwritingcourses.com

The Cecilia Unaegbu Prize for Flash Story 2011 calls for entries

The Cecilia Unaegbu Prize is now open and entries close on July 17, 2011. Anyone from any country is eligible for this contest. Entrants are to submit only one non-fiction flash story of not more than 750 words on the theme: "Women as Vessel of Honour". Entry is free.

Soft copy of entry to be submitted as attached file in MS Word to lionlordjeff@yahoo.com with the subject: Cecilia Unaegbu Prize. The name, phone number, address and portrait of entrants should be provided in MS Word in a second attached file. Entrants should not provide their particulars within the body of the story.

First prize: 15,000 Naira
Second prize: 10,000 Naira
Third prize: 5,000 Naira
and 10 consolation prizes.

All thirteen winners will be published in an anthology which will also contain the biographies of famous women of virtue from guest authors including the biography of Mrs. Cecilia Unaegbu with the title: Women of Virtue Book of Fame.

Competition judge: Unoma Azuah

Contact: lionlordjeff@yahoo.com

SA PEN angered over killing of Anton Hammerl and attempt to cover it up

South African PEN (SA PEN), a member of the International PEN organisation which promotes and protects the interests of writers, authors, editors and poets, is deeply angered at the manner in which the Libyan and South African authorities have conducted themselves over the cruel death of non-combatant South African-Austrian photographer Anton Hammerl in the Libyan desert while covering the hostilities there.

According to two journalists who were with him on April 5 when he was killed by troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Hammerl was shot in the stomach and left for dead in the desert after they were captured and imprisoned in Tripoli.

Hammerl is one of several journalists and photographers who have been killed in the North African fighting -- the dreadful toll extracted on journalists when trying to inform the world of what is happening -- but his death raises serious questions about the conduct of the authorities -- the Libyans for lying in saying that he was in detention, alive and well, despite his having been killed, the South Africans accepting these lies and adding that they had proof that he was alive when they clearly did not and President Zuma for failing to ask Gaddafi about Hammerl in his several conversations with the Libyan leader. The South Africans compounded their untruth that they had proof that Hammerl was alive by claiming that the International Affairs and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Matabane had been misquoted when they had made no effort to correct the alleged error much earlier after it had been made.

Though Hammerl was not a writer in the accepted sense he was a prolific story teller in photographic images and SA PEN extends its condolences to his wife and family and joins local and international media organisations in demanding the speedy return of his remains and a prosecution and trial by the International Criminal Court of those responsible for his death and coverup.

It is an offence under the Geneva Convention to attack non-combatant journalists covering conflict situations and Hammerl with his visible cameras was clearly identifiable as a journalist.

The shortlist for the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced

Selected from 126 entries from 17 African countries, the shortlist is once again a reflection of the Caine Prize’s pan-African reach. The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 11 July.

The 2011 shortlist comprises:

NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) ‘Hitting Budapest’ from ‘The Boston Review’ Vol 35, no. 6 - Nov/Dec 2010
Beatrice Lamwaka (Uganda) ‘Butterfly dreams’ from ‘Butterfly Dreams and Other New Short Stories from Uganda’ published by Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, Nottingham, 2010
Tim Keegan (South Africa) ‘What Molly Knew’ from ‘Bad Company’ published by Pan Macmillan SA, 2008
Lauri Kubuitsile (Botswana) ‘In the spirit of McPhineas Lata’ from ‘The Bed Book of Short Stories’ published by Modjaji Books, SA, 2010
David Medalie (South Africa) ‘The Mistress’s Dog’ from ‘The Mistress’s Dog: Short stories 1996-2010’ published by Picador Africa, 2010

See: http://www.caineprize.com/

Writers from Africa and Asia are asked to submit short stories for an anthology of the two continents

Writers from Africa and Asia are asked to submit short stories for an anthology of the two continents. The writers can be on the respective continents or in the Diaspora but it is necessary that their stories deal with the topic as experienced by Africans/Asians.

Topic - Outcasts (contemporary or historical, adult audience)

Length - 3000-5000 words

Submissions Deadline- August 1st 2011

Remuneration- Shall be discussed upon selection of your short story as part of the anthology. You will know by September 30th.

Editors - Writers Rohini Chowdhury and Zukiswa Wanner

The editors will need some written commitment from writers on whether they will be submitting something by May 30th. We kindly request no poetry or non-fiction. Purely short stories. Please submit a short two-line introduction about yourself with your story.

If this exciting project interests you as a writer, kindly get in touch with rohini.chowdhury@gmail.com / wanner.zukiswa@gmail.com.

*New* short fiction: Election Day by Christopher Mlalazi

He suddenly stood up and punched a fist into his left palm.
‘Damn!’ he cursed to the empty room. Then he called out. ‘Twenty!’
Twenty entered the room. He went down on his knees in front him. ‘Your Excellency,’ he said, his head bowed over a potbelly straining under a buttoned suit jacket.
His Excellency pointed at a sofa. ‘Sit.’

Election Day by Christopher Mlalazi.

Christopher Mlalazi has two books to his name, Dancing With Life: Tales from the Townships, a short story collection, and Many Rivers, a novel. He has written plays in Zimbabwe for Amakhosi Theater, the Harare International Festival of the Arts, and Umkhathi Theater, and has had short stories published in the Edinburgh Review, the Caine Prize Anthology and the Literary Review (USA). Currently, he is the 2010 Feuchtwanger Fellow at Villa Aurora in California, and in 2011 he will be guest writer at the Nordic-Afrika Institute in Sweden.

African-writing.com prize for flash fiction 2011

Deadlines: Entries close - 31st January, 2011. Winners announced - 4th April, 2011.

Stories must be previously unpublished (and must not be available on any blogs or publicly accessible online repositories).

Stories must be the sole work of the entrant.

Stories must be 750 words or less.

Entry is free.

Only one submission can be made per entrant.

Only online submissions are acceptable. Entries should be emailed to flashprize(at)african-writing.com as an attachment in the .doc or .rtf format with 'Flash Contest' in the subject line.
See http://www.african-writing.com/ten/flashfiction.php

*New* non-fiction: The Story of Magadi by Evans Kinyua

The greatest Oscar and Pulitzer deserving stories happen in Africa. But the Western camera and pen recognises only the tear jerker variety; the disease ravaged, hunger stricken, below a dollar a day genre of stories, of which, granted, there is no dearth. But there are countless other stories that tickle the imagination, stories of a forgotten era that form a fundamental part of the mosaic that informs a continent's wretchedness.

The Story of Magadi by Evans Kinyua

Evans Kinyua studied commerce at the University of Nairobi and also holds a postgraduate diploma in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK). He is the author of Flight From Fate.

*New* short fiction: Road to Guantanamo by Evans Kinyua

One chilly Tuesday afternoon in July of 2005, Tom Githinji’s longsuffering secretary, Aseca Jamati, poked her head into his office on the tenth floor of an office building in downtown Nairobi and announced in a curious tone that there were two gentlemen at the reception asking to see him. “They say that they are policemen,” she added, her brow creasing inquisitively. Tom had worked with Aseca for six years and during that time, as the group human resource manager, he had had cause to deal with the police on various occasions in the course of duty. Nothing untoward had taken place that he could recall prior to this unsolicited visit from the good gentlemen, and Aseca had reason to sound curious.

Road to Guantanamo by Evans Kinyua

Evans Kinyua studied commerce at the University of Nairobi and also holds a postgraduate diploma in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK). He is the author of Flight From Fate.

*New* poetry: The Long Walk to Freedom by Thamsanqa Ncube

Thamsanqa Ncube is from Zimbabwe, a country he loves and adores with all his heart. He has traveled around the world, including Europe, the Americas and Africa and walked and lived with people of different races, tribes, affiliations and afflictions, building an understanding of the concept of the Global Village and his place in it. His poetry has been published on munyori.com, ascentaspirations.ca and in Timbila and the Consumnes River Journal in the USA. You can also view some of his work on his blog at http://thamsanqancube.blogspot.com

The Long Walk to Freedom by Thamsanqa Ncube

*New* short fiction: 3 stories by Evans Kinyua

Evans Kinyua studied commerce at the University of Nairobi and also holds a postgraduate diploma in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing. (UK). He is the author of the novel Flight From Fate.

Three Stories by Evans Kinyua

Kenya short story call

Dr Emma Dawson
Series Editor
World Englishes Literature
CCC Press.

www.cccpress. co.uk

email: worldlits@googlemai l.com

Submission Guidelines For Short Stories.

* Word count: 3000 - 8000 words.

* There is no theme, only ‘Kenya’.

* This is adult fiction (in the sense that it is not ‘children's fiction’).

* The work must be written in English from the outset, no translation work and it must be written from Kenya (this is not a collection of diaspora writing).

* The story must be 'new' in the sense that it is ‘unpublished in book form’ - this makes life much easier in terms of ‘rights’. (We can accept submissions which have been previously published in magazines.)

Resurging eBook interest

Bowing to the growth in demand for e-books, Barnes & Noble, the world’s largest chain of bookstores, has acquired Fictionwise, an online retailer of electronic books:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/business/media/06book.html?_r=1

And Amazon's Kindle is reaching wider, all the way to the iPhone:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/technology/internet/06google.html?fta=y

Winter School for African Artists’ Networks

The Arterial Network’s first Winter School to help build sustainable national and regional artists’ networks and advocacy groups in Africa will take place in Cape Town from 1-10 June 2009.

Funded by the European Union, the Winter School aims to have two representatives from ten African countries per year in an intensive training programme that will be an exciting combination of a seminar programme on contemporary issues such creative industries, culture and development and cultural diversity; practical workshops in fundraising, lobbying and the use of technology in the arts, and group work sessions devising cultural policy, programmes of action and membership benefits.
Representatives from artists’ networks and unions in Europe will be invited to the latter part of the winter school to establish partnerships with African artists’ networks that would encourage exchange and collaboration over a period of at least five years.

Participation in the Winter School will be fully funded for African delegates.
Applications to attend close on 10 March.

Applicants are to provide the following:
a. a letter of application detailing the name, contact details and website of the network/advocacy group/artists’ union and motivation to be part of the winter school
b. an outline of the history, activities and national membership of the organisation
c. the names and positions (within the organisation) of two individuals who would represent the organisation at the winter school
d. the names and contact details of two civil society referees based in their countries

Applicants may operate in a particular discipline e.g. theatre, visual art, music or be multi-disciplinary in nature. It is the aim of the Arterial Network to build strong women leadership in the African creative sector, and applicants are encouraged to nominate at least one woman participant.
Applications are to be sent to Margerie Vacle at margeriev@africacentre.net. Participants in the first winter school will be selected by the Task Team based on the strategic priorities of the Arterial Network and available funding.

Please if you know people who would be interested in this information, don't hesitate to forward this email to them or to send us their email address so that we can send them the info. Thanks a lot!

The Wasafiri New Writing Prize launched

£300 will be awarded to the winner of each category and their work will be published in Wasafiri.

Renowned worldwide for featuring some of the best and brightest new talent, Wasafiri is launching a New Writing Prize as part of its 25th birthday celebrations. In the words of acclaimed author Jackie Kay, ‘Wasafiri holds it all together, the past and the future. It is vigorous, searching and stimulating’. Since Wasafiri was first published in 1984, it has consistently aimed to shift the contours of established literary canons and remapped the borders of international contemporary writing, creating new imaginative spaces and publishing some of the most promising new literary voices.

The competition is open to anyone worldwide who has not published a complete book. We are looking for creative submissions in one of three categories: Poetry, Fiction or Life Writing. Simply incorporate the theme of ‘25’ somewhere in your piece, fill in the entry form and send it to us with your entry fee of UK Sterling £5.00.

The closing date is 30 June 2009. Entrants who are visually impaired or who are prevented from typing through disability can enter stories on audio CD. How to enter For more information about Wasafiri visit our website at www.wasafiri.org Judges Susheila Nasta (Chair) Editor of Wasafiri and Professor of Modern Literature at the Open University Margaret Busby Writer, editor, critic and broadcaster, former publisher and founder of Allison and Busby Mimi Khalvati Award-winning poet, Wasafiri Board member and founder of the Poetry School Blake Morrison Writer, poet and Professor of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London.

South Africa to revive literary classics in indigenous languages

The Department of Arts and Culture has tasked the National Library of South Africa to reprint literary classics in indigenous languages to help preserve the country's heritage.

Launching the Reprint of South African Literary Classics Project on Tuesday, Minister of Arts and Culture, Pallo Jordan said publishing literature in indigenous languages was self-evidently an area with the greatest potential.

Significantly, he said, the project was part of the government-wide campaign to promote the culture of reading and writing in indigenous languages, thereby reducing illiteracy.

"It is our fervent hope that its [the project] impact will be to inspire emergent writers and even those who might have given up owing to the discouraging environment of the past, to come forward with their works," Minister Jordan said.

At the launch, the minister announced that 27 titles had already been reprinted including the works of authors such as poet laureate Samuel Mqhayi, writer Sibusiso Nyembezi, M.L Bopape, S.P. Lekaba, T.N. Maumela and others.

These titles, he said, will be available in public libraries and booksellers nationally.

The minister explained that by reprinting these classic works, the country will rediscover the capacity of exploring and expressing the broadest human experiences, the profoundest human emotions and wisdom in the indigenous African languages.

He hoped that in the future schools would use these classics as part of their syllabus.

"We envisage that our school system will very soon become aware of these republished classics and that many, otherwise lost to memory, will once again be prescribed as part of the school syllabus.

"The library system, otherwise starved for literature in the indigenous languages, will now have this resource to draw on," the minister said.

He said as a nation South Africa is in earnest about an African Renaissance, adding that it must entail the rediscovery of African genius, African achievements and the dissemination of the best works of the African imagination.

"The literature that has been produced by the story-tellers and writers in indigenous languages are essentially and no different from that in any other in these respects, but what is specific to it is the environment in which the tales unfold."

The minister indicated that the classic literary works reveal and wrestle with the very same human frailties, foibles, idiosyncrasies and human robustness found in other literatures.

"If no one else wishes to preserve these works, we as South Africans have a responsibility to our nation and humanity to ensure that they survive into the future," he said. - BuaNews

Commonwealth Writers’ Prize: Africa Region

Kwela Books is proud to announce that two of our titles have been short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize: Africa Region. Beauty’s Gift (novel) by Sindiwe Magona has been short-listed in the category Best Book. Porcupine by Jane Bennett (short stories) has been short-listed in the category Best First Book.

*New* non-fiction. Chip Off The Old Block: The Human Personality Shape Hypothesis by Evans Kinyua

Many studies have been done to classify human beings and human behavior using physical attributes and temperament. Such studies have shed light on what differentiates the physiological appearance as well as the behavior of different people. Often these studies have grouped people in certain specific categories, where one is either or, or a mixture of the various attributes. Evans Kinyua offers an additional study and classifies human beings according to characteristics or innate being.

Evans Kinyua studied commerce at the University of Nairobi and also holds a postgraduate diploma in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK). He is the author of Flight From Fate.

Chip Off The Old Block by Evans Kinya

SA PEN announces finalists for 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award

The South African Centre of International PEN (SA PEN) is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award.

The award for original short stories in English by African authors attracted an unprecedented 827 entries, 625 of which met with the rules of entry. Just under 200 stories were longlisted, and 34 stories were chosen as finalists by the PEN Editorial Board comprising Shaun Johnson (Chair), Anthony Fleischer, Justin Fox, Harry Garuba, Alistair King and Mary Watson. Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee is currently judging the shortlisted stories and will choose the winners of the first (£5 000), second (£3 000) and third (£2 000) prizes. The winners will be announced in May 2009. (Details regarding the announcement will be posted on www.sapen.co.za in due course.) The finalists’ stories will be included in an anthology of new writing from Africa to be published later this year.

The writers and their stories to have been selected as finalists for the Pen/Studzinski Literary Award 2009 are:

Ken Barris – The life of Worm

Nadia Davids – The visit

Ceridwen Dovey – Survival mechanisms

Joan du Toit – An informed decision

Graham Ellis – No match for Fanie Smith

Rosemund J Handler – Strident night

Jeanne Hromnik – Love In troubled times

Karen Jayes – Where he will leave his shoes

Suzanne Jordaan – Beulah

Bobby Jordan – Metalhead and Situation Orange

Chisanga Kabinga – Display cabinet

Ken N Kamoche – A kiss in Nanjing

Yvette Kruger – What I wore

Lauri Kubuitsile – Pulani’s eyes

Beatrice Lamwaka – The star in my camp

Jennifer Lean – To each his own

Irene McCartney – Pauline’s ghost

Jenna Mervis – The lives of dogs

Kirsten Miller – Only in art

NoViolet Mkha Bulawayo – Snapshots

Wame Molefhe – Rainbow-coloured dreams

Natasha Moodley – Spirit of Madala

Isabella Morris – Bluette

Kyne Nislev Bernstorff – The last supper

Naomi Nkealah – In the name of peace

Maik Nwosu – In Leopardville

Tolu Ogunlesi – River Falling

Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi – Area boy rescue

Andrew Salomon – A visit to Dr Mamba

Alex Smith – Soulmates

Dineke Volschenk – Glorious wounds

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers – Keeping everything the same

Hayet Z – Flypapered days

The PEN/STUDZINSKI Literary Award has replaced the HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award and aims to encourage new creative writing in Africa. It is open to all citizens of African countries writing in English, and offers talented writers on the continent an exciting opportunity to develop or launch a literary career.