Submit Boundary-Breaking Work to Lolwe Magazine Issue 8 | Deadline: August 31

August 17, 2023

Lolwe is accepting submissions for its Issue 8 throughout the month of August 2023. The issue will be guest-edited by Charmaine Denison-George (Sierra Leone), Logain Ali (Sudan), and Alírio Karina (Mozambique).

Lolwe is a Pan-African literary magazine that publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, and literary criticism. Founded in January 2020 by Troy Onyango, the magazine amplifies work by writers, poets and visual artists from Africa, Caribbean and the Black diaspora. Lolwe aims to ensure greater visibility for stories by Black people and to give a platform for the “Black imagination.”

In this issue, Lolwe is looking for work that is bold, different, and blurs or pushes boundaries. Some examples include playing with form and language, ignoring genre classifications, sending in your fears, joys, doubts, faiths, curiosities, and silences.

Guest Editors:

Charmaine Denison-George is from Freetown, Sierra Leone. She is currently a Creative Writing candidate at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. She enjoys writing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, occasionally. Charmaine is also an associate editor at Poda-Poda Stories, an online journal for Sierra Leonean literary arts.

Logain Ali is a writer, teacher, editor and poet. She is based in Sudan and holds a Biotechnology degree from Monash University. Logain has been writing poetry for the past 14 years, and to her, it has been an avenue of self-expression, a sanctuary, and a placeholder for her emotions. She is honing her writing skills and anticipates exploring different forms of poetry to be published.

Alírio Karina is a Mozambican scholar and poet writing in English and Portuguese. Alírio has a PhD in History of Consciousness, with designated emphases in Feminist Studies and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies, from the University of California, Santa Cruz. A scholar of African and Black social and political thought, their teaching and research engages the fields of feminist studies, museum studies, anthropology, literature, history, political economy, and postcolonial philosophy.

Submission Guidelines:

What to submit: Fiction, essays, poetry, and photography
Who can submit: Black (African, Caribbean, Diaspora) artists
When to submit: August 1–31, 2023. *Note: Submit as early as possible since due to the volume of submissions received, the categories will close once the submission cap is reached.
How long: 1,000-10,000 words for fiction and essays. Min. 3 – Max. 5 poems contained in a single document. Min. 5 – Max. 10 images/artworks in one document alongside 200-500 words about the work. (If you’d like to submit an image for the cover, just submit a single high-resolution version in the photography category).
Which format: Word document, Times New Roman, 12pt, double-spaced.
Multiple submissions: No. Please submit one submission per submission cycle and to only one category. Any submission to more than one or the wrong category will be automatically rejected.
Simultaneous submissions: Yes. Just remember to withdraw if accepted elsewhere. For poetry, leave a note on Submittable indicating which poem(s) is/are no longer available. Please note that failure to withdraw or notify us of work accepted/published elsewhere will lead to an automatic disqualification of the entire work submitted.
Republishing: No. Only original, unpublished submissions will be read. Previously published work is not accepted at all.
Submission fees: None. Feel free to donate a “tip” to us though.
Payment: Lolwe will offer a modest remuneration for work that is accepted for publication. You can help by donating to Lolwe.
Send a brief bio alongside the submission.
When to expect a response: 3-4 months after submission deadline. Please don’t enquire about submission status until the time has lapsed. Queries to [email protected].