The Writivism Literary Initiative is a Pan-African organization that awards emerging writing. This week marks ten years since the first literary festival was held in Kampala from August 16 -18, 2013. The program, hosted by the Center for African Cultural Excellence (CACE) nonprofit, will relaunch three prizes to mark the tenth year anniversary. The new awards’ categories are short fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry in translation. Winners of each category will take home $1000 USD while shortlisted writers will each walk away with $50 USD.
Writivism@10 programming has pared down its previous bouquet of activities that included online mentoring, a literary festival, outreach events, and a podcast. Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire, one of three co-founders of the Center for African Cultural Excellence, says: “After Writivism’s three-year hiatus that started after our literary festival held in Kampala in August 2019, we are transferring our work to an exclusively digital plane and expanding eligibility for the prizes to include the African diaspora. This can be partly explained by direct personal experience of the increasing insecurity in Uganda that makes it difficult to guarantee the safety of staff and everyone involved in our activities. It is not a boycott of the country because nobody can boycott home, but an acceptance of the inability to sustain our work in the current environment.”
The new prizes and other related activities will be administered by Tramaine Suubi, in the role of Managing Editor. Born in Uganda and based in the United States, Suubi is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a past contributor at the Tin House Summer Workshop. Their forthcoming book debut is a full-length poetry collection titled “phases,” and will be published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins. Their poems have been published in Solstice Literary Magazine, Prompt Press, Protest Through Poetry, Kiwi Collective Magazine and other spaces.
“I am deeply grateful to join Writivism and build upon such beautiful and important work. I look forward to serving our Pan-African community and empowering our writers,” Suubi said.
Suubi will work under the direction of Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire, the CACE director and Sumayya Lee, the program advisor to the Writivism Literary Initiative. She said, “I love that we can continue supporting emerging writers and I’m interested in seeing how our decade of learning informs Writivism’s development.”
Joschua Rukundo, pre-eminent illustrator, graphics designer, and photographer who has worked with Writivism since the start will also assist Suubi, completing the team of four-member volunteer staff of the initiative.
The guidelines for submission of stories, essays, and poems, alongside publishing partners, judges, and timeline of activities related to the prizes will be announced in the coming weeks.
The Writivism Prizes 