London-based Bahati Books, will on Friday July 29, 2016 release an anthology that includes flash fiction written as part of the 2015 Writivism mentoring programme. The anthology, titled Your Heart Will Skip A Beat and Other Stories will only be available in a digital format on the Bahati Books website.
This is the second time that Writivism is compiling flash fiction written under the mentorship programme into an anthology, available online. The first anthology, titled My Maths Teacher Hates Me and other Stories was released last year in a collaboration with Jalada.
Your Heart Will Skip A Beat And Other Stories includes stories by twelve emerging writers, from Botswana (Thato Angela), Tanzania (Sima Mittal), Uganda (Lillian Akampurira Aujo), South Africa (Chivimbiso Gava and Helen Herimbi) Kenya (Margaret Muthee, Wairimu Muriithi and Magunga Williams) and Nigeria (Adeola Opeyemi Salau, Daniel Tolu, Socrates Mbamalu and Uzoma Ihejirika).
They were mentored by Sumayya Lee, Meg Vandermerwe, Yewande Omotoso, Richard Ali, Tope Folarin, Emmanuel Sigauke, Mehul Gohil, Okwiri Oduor, Tuelo Gabonewe , Donald Molosi, Hawa Jande Golakai, Barbara Mhangami and Dami Ajayi.
The stories were originally selected and published by prominent Africa-based digital publishers, namely Saraba, Afridiaspora, So Many Stories, Deyu African and Kalahari Review as well as Canada-based One Throne magazine, from a pool of over 50 stories from the entire mentoring programme.
Bahati Books specialises in publishing ebooks and already had on its esteemed list of authors a number of former Writivism workshop participants and mentees. One of these, Katlego Kol Kes attended our Gaborone workshop in 2015 and has published a poetry collection On and on about the same old things, due to be launched at the 2016 Writivism Festival in Kampala.
Another of the Bahati Books authors, Stanley Gazemba will also speak at the festival, where his short story collection, Nairobi Echoes will be featured. There will be other titles released under the new partnership between the Centre for African Cultural Excellence and Bahati Books, to be announced later.
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