Short Story Day Africa has withdrawn the nominations of two writers initially announced on their 2017 prize longlist. The stories by the two writers failed to adhere to the prize’s rule against simultaneous submissions. David Medalie’s “Borrowed by the Wind” was entered—and longlisted—for the 2018 Gerald Kraak Award while Hanna Ali’s “Bloated” was entered for—and placed third in—the 2017 HISSAC competition. Both writers will now be replaced on the 2017 SSDA Prize longlist by Susan Newham-Blake’s “The Things They Said” and Mpho Phalwane’s “The Memory Games.” Here is the press release:
Short Story Day Africa is a small organisation with limited funding and manpower. As such, we ask writers to take heed of our terms and conditions of entry as we prefer not to have to read and debate stories that will later need to be disqualified.
One rule described under the submission criteria for the annual anthology on the SSDA website is that no simultaneous submissions are allowed, and any story found to have been entered for publication or a prize elsewhere will automatically be disqualified. This rule is in place to protect publication rights for SSDA and our publishing partners. For this reason, regretfully, we have had to disqualify David Medalie’s “Borrowed by the Wind”, which was simultaneously entered for the SSDA and Gerald Kraak awards; and Hanna Ali’s “Bloated”, which was entered into the 2017 HISSAC competition and took third place. While we congratulate both authors, and are glad that “Borrowed by the Wind” will see print, as it is a fine story, we are saddened that neither will be published in the next SSDA anthology. David Medalie has apologised sincerely for his oversight. We would like to urge writers to please, please read the SSDA Prize rules carefully before hitting “send”.
The places of these two stories on the longlist will be taken by “The Things They Said” by Susan Newham-Blake and “The Memory Games” by Mpho Phalwane. Congratulations to Susan and Mpho!
Here is the updated longlist for the 2017 Short Story Day Africa Prize.
- “Limbo” by Innocent Ilo – Nigeria
- “All Our Lives” by Okafor Tochukwu – Nigeria
- “The Memory Games” by Mpho Phalwane – South Africa
- “God Skin” by Michael Yee – South Africa
- “Who We Were Then, Who We Are Now” by Nadu Ologoudou – Benin
- “Plums” by Kharys Laue – South Africa
- “Waiting” by Harriet Anena – Uganda
- “The Piano Player” by Agazit Abate – Ethiopia
- “A Brief Eruption of Madness” by Eric Essono Tsimi – Cameroon
- “When the War Came Home” by Heran Abate – Ethiopia
- “Ibinabo” by Michael Agugom – Nigeria
- “Fever” by Alithnayn Abdulkareem – Nigeria
- “Unblooming” by Alexis Teyie – Kenya
- “Transubstantiation” by Genna Gardini – South Africa
- “Taba” by Adelola Ojutiku – Nigeria
- “The Things They Said” by Susan Newham-Blake – South Africa
- “The Geography of Sunflowers” by Michelle Angwenyi – Kenya
- “The House on the Corner” by Lester Walbrugh – South Africa
- “Blue in Green” by Chourouq Nasri -Morocco
- “Sew Your Mouth” by Cherrie Kandie – Kenya
- “South of Samora” by Farai Mudzingwa – Zimbabwe
The shortlist will be announced early this year, comprising the winner, first runner-up and second runner-up. All the longlisted stories will appear in ID: New Short Fiction from Africa, an anthology to be edited by Helen Moffett, along with editing fellows she will mentor in the process. The anthology will be out in July 2018.
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