Rising literary blog Syncity NG will be celebrating its one-year anniversary with a prose competition and anthology. The competition, which comes with cash prizes and editing opportunities, will be judged by Mukoma wa Ngugi and Leye Adenle. Syncity NG was founded in 2017 by the Nigerian writer Cynthia Osuchukwu and is managed by Ama Udofa, also a Nigerian writer.

It’s been one year since Syncity NG launched into African literary scene. We want to toast to how far we’ve come by celebrating great storytelling. Stories that belong to an adventurous generation, a generation that believes in reading literature for interest rather than compulsion.

On that note, we’re compiling an anniversary anthology to celebrate stories by African writers, stories that move us, excite us and stretch our imagination. We will offer prizes to five shortlisted stories in the anthology. The anthology will be edited by Ama Udofa, and the competition will be guest judged by Kenyan and Nigerian authors Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Leye Adenle. Please send us your submissions!

Here is more information as published on their website.

Prizes

First prize: $55 (N20, 000) and a session with our guest judges.

Second prize: $14 (N5,000) and a book gift.

Third prize: Professional editing for one short story of the writer’s choice, and a book gift.

Fourth and fifth prizes: one book each.

Submission Guidelines

  • We are accepting only original prose entries. Submit fiction or nonfiction.
  • Works published elsewhere will be not be considered. If you have published the story on your social media or blog, please take it down before submitting. If you are publishing an excerpt from an unpublished book, make sure the story is able to stand alone.
  • You can only submit one entry. Multiple entries will lead to disqualification.
  • There is no set theme for this anthology. Whether you’re a marketing executive, biochemistry undergraduate or a full-time writer, if you have a great story to tell, we want to hear it. Send us realism works as well as speculative fiction; send writing that explores identity, the self, and human relationships. In all, though, we just want to read well-told stories.
  • Submission is open to all Africans, both published authors and unpublished.
  • No simultaneous submissions, please.
  • No submission fee.
  • Submit only through our Submissions form. Email submissions will be discarded unread.
  • Entries will be judged blind. Do NOT include your name IN THE DOCUMENT. Place other identifying information in the Submittable form. State the word count on the top right corner of the first page of the document.  Name the document Anniversary Anthology- story title, eg: Anniversary Anthology- Purple Hibiscus. Submit document ONLY in Microsoft Word format. No PDFs.
  • Stories should be between 0 to 3999 words. Use Times New Roman, font size 12, double line spacing.
  • Deadline for submissions is midnight 28 February 2019.
  • We will announce a longlist of 10 writers in mid-March, and release the anniversary anthology alongside with the winners’ announcement in April.

Furthermore

We are publishing 10 stories, so by submitting, all longlisted writers acknowledge that they will be published in the anniversary anthology. Rights to the published stories remain with the writers. Other worthy stories that do not make the longlist will be published on the blog with permission.

Submit your story here.

For inquiries and questions about the competition, please email [email protected] or message them on Twitter @syncityng.