Mawu Budding writers in African Teen Authors Initiative
programmes
Malawi Writers Union (Mawu) Budding Writers Desk has stepped in with an African Teen Authors Book Initiative which seeks to select two best short stories to be part of an anthology.
The desk’s chairperson Mirriam Juliet Neba said on Wednesday this was part of encouraging budding writers to be creative and vibrant in their writing.
“We want two short stories to be in an anthology of African Teen Authors Book Initiative. We are going to select two best short stories written by teenagers in the country,” Neba said.
She said that the main purpose is to promote pan -African system, knowledge and cohesion and also localise the vision premised onletting Africa tell her own stories.
“Interested participants can to send their short stories to mawumagazine@yahoo.com. The words should be 1,500. This is open to only teenagers,” Neba said.
She said that the whole project stems from the desk receiving a collaboration proposal from African Teen Authors Book Initiative (Atabi) based in South Africa.
“We agreed that Mawu should develop a Malawi national teen writing platform which will be called Mawu Teen Authors Book Initiative that will promote writing and reading of African stories by Malawian teenagers,” Neba said.
She said the founder of Atabi has a publishing company known as KwaziThina Publishers which made Mawu Budding Desk to be partners.
“The agreement is also that they will help in providing books for the reading campaign which the desk is yet to introduce in primary schools with the hope of extending it to secondary schools,” Neba said.
She said that since the writers’ body is a membership based organisation, this privilege
would be for budding writers who have paid their membership fees.
“We are looking at rolling out a number of programmes for budding writers and as such I would like to call upon budding writers to renew their membership so that they should be participating in these activities,” Neba said
