Ema Babikwa

Ema Babikwa is a Ugandan writer. His work traverses a variety of literary genres and themes.

He is passionate about social justice, plants, puns and other subtleties of language. He is currently an Assistant Editor for Fiction at Isele Magazine.

Cynthia Kistasamy

Cynthia Kistasamy is a writer and artist living in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has a degree in Fine Art but, alas, nothing from the writing world. Holding the title of ‘stay-at-home mum’ for many years, she finally traded in her pots and pans for pen and paintbrush as she felt she had something of great importance to say.  

To date, she has a modest collection of writing accolades.

‘Pepsi, Pie and Swimming-Pools-in-the-Sky, published in the anthology, ‘We Mark Your Memory’ (2018). 

Longlisted by Afritondo for ‘Shiva Eyes’ in the anthology, ‘Yellow Means Stay’ (2020).

‘The Missing Ingredient’, a self-published, romance novel (2022).

mwĩhaki mũragũri

Inspired by beautiful sentences, enamoured by history, and disturbed by loose threads, mwĩhaki is a writer, storyteller and AfroOptomist based in her hometown of Nairobi.

She loves getting lost in new worlds and complex characters that good books offer, never passes up a chance to explore a museum in any town or city that she travels to, and is constantly wondering what the word on the tip of her tongue is.  

By day she runs Paukwa—a digital storyhouse that celebrates diverse dimensions of the Kenyan identity—and in the in-betweens is working on her first short story collection.

Hussani Abdulrahim

Hussani Abdulrahim is from Nigeria. He has a degree in Pure Chemistry from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto. Hussani won Ibua Journal’s 2023 Bold Call, the 2022 Toyin Falola Prize, the 2019 Poetically Written Prose Contest and WRR’s 2016 Green Author Prize. He was the first runner-up for the 2023 Kendeka Prize. He has also been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and a finalist for the Boston Review Prize, Gerald Kraak Award and ACT Award.

His works have appeared in Boston Review, Brittle Paper, Evergreen Review, Solarpunk, and Ibua Journal. He lives in Kano, Nigeria, and is working on a short story collection.

Sabah Carrim

Sabah Carrim has authored two novels, Humeirah and Semi-Apes, both set in Mauritius, where she was born.

Her short stories have been published in the Bristol Short Story Prize, the Not-So-Normal Narrators Contest, the AfroYoung Adult Short Story Competition, among others, and recently, in the Afritondo Short Story Prize.

She is also the recipient of a number of fellowships and scholarships in Genocide Studies, a field in which she has a PhD. 

In 2020, she was awarded a scholarship to further an MFA in Creative Writing in the United States, where she is currently based.

Khetani Michael Banda

Khetani Michael Banda is a Zimbabwean Theatre Practitioner and Writer of Malawian descent.

Among other creative pursuits, he is currently working on making a number of short films. He is married to writer Cynthia Marangwanda, with whom he has a beautiful son.

Jesutomisin Ipinmoye

Jesutomisin can be described as enigmatic, curious, fiercely communitarian, postmodern, an unserious engineer, an alleged author, hilarious, living on an island, survivor of ages nineteen and twenty-three, from Nigeria, a relentless idealist, a writer of Nigerian weird and afro-depression, and over-employed, but also as anxious, possibly insane, pretentious*, a train wreck, unreasonably passionate, unmotivated, and never present.

He has been published in HAD, Kenga, and Brittle Paper and was shortlisted for the Happy Noisemaker Prize for Storytelling.

*It will never be pretentious to care a lot about what you do.

B. T. Karuma

B. T. Karuma is a Zimbabwean speculative fiction writer.

One of his stories was included in the African Ghost Short Stories anthology (Flame Tree Publishing, UK). Another short story appeared in the Ibua Journal (Uganda) after it was longlisted in the Bold 2023 Continental Call: Climate Change.

He has also dabbled in romance fiction (Singular Affections, Afritondo). Before exploring writing, he got a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering and worked in electrical power generation.

Charmaine Denison-George

Charmaine Denison-George is a writer from Freetown, Sierra Leone.

She is an M.F.A. in Creative Writing candidate at Texas State University. Charmaine serves as an associate editor at Poda-Poda Stories, a Sierra Leonean literary organization.

Her work has appeared in Brittle Paper, Isele Magazine and Kinsman Quarterly’s ‘Black Diaspora’ anthology (2024).

Foday Mannah

Foday Mannah hails from delightful Sierra Leone, where he studied English Language and Literature at Fourah Bay College.

He currently lives in Scotland where he is employed as a teacher of English. He holds an MSc in International Conflict and Cooperation from the University of Stirling and an MA with Distinction in Professional Writing from Falmouth University.

His short story, Amie Samba, was shortlisted for the 2019 Bristol Short Story Prize, and was published in the anthology of the same year. Foday has also had stories shortlisted and or longlisted / highly commended for the Bridport, Sean O’Faolain, Mo Siewcharran, Brick Lane, Commonwealth, Morley, Bloody Scotland, and Queen Mary Wasafiri writing competitions.

His short stories have also been published in Doek, The Decolonial Passage, Wasafiri, Iskanchi and The Other Side of Hope literary magazines.

His novel, ‘The Search for Othella Savage’, won the 2022 Mo Siewcharran Prize and is due for publication in 2025.

Ufuoma Kwale

Ufuoma Kwale was born hungry for stories. She is a graduate of pharmacy and has put her pestle and mortar on hold for the pen and paper.

She works as a ghostwriter and prides herself on her scribblings, snippets of conversations she inadvertently overhears as ‘the characters’ pop in and out of our tangible world.

She believes in love and the power of words to mould the mind and the world and to connect us.