The Abebi AfroNonfiction Foundation has opened applications for its inaugural Abebi AfroNonfiction Fellowship, a six-week programme for African women writers working in creative nonfiction.
The fellowship is designed for writers who are interested in exploring African womanhood through creative nonfiction with depth, originality, and literary ambition. Rather than rewarding completed work alone, the programme creates the conditions for new work to emerge through workshops, conversations, editorial mentorship, and engagement with African feminist thought.
Supported by the Open Society Foundation, this year’s fellowship will be judged by Ama Asantewa Diaka, Mubanga Kalimamukwento, and Gloria Mwaniga Odary.
Over six weeks, fellows will participate in weekly seminars, craft workshops, reading discussions, and editorial sessions led by some of Africa’s leading writers, editors, and scholars.
The fellowship will culminate in:
- A three-day residency in Lagos, Nigeria
- A public reading and literary symposium
- Publication in the inaugural Abebi AfroNonfiction Fellowship Anthology
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must:
- Identify as a woman.
- Be 18 years of age or older at the time of application.
- Be currently resident in an African country.
- Be available to participate fully in the six-week virtual fellowship.
- Be willing and able to travel to Lagos, Nigeria, for the three-day residency (subject to visa requirements and programme funding).
- Have a demonstrated interest in creative nonfiction, whether published or unpublished.
- Be able to communicate and write in English, as the fellowship will be conducted in English.
- Submit original, unpublished work. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but applicants should notify the Foundation immediately if the submitted writing sample is accepted elsewhere.
- Submit only one application.
Submission Guidelines
Applications must include the following:
1. Essay Proposal (500 words)
Applicants are required to submit a 500-word proposal about the essay they hope to write during the fellowship.
Rather than a synopsis, the Foundation is interested in the questions the proposed essay hopes to explore, including what compels the story, why it matters now, and what intellectual, emotional, or cultural territory the writer hopes to investigate.
Possible areas of exploration include, but are not limited to:
- Memory and inheritance
- Family and intergenerational relationships
- Migration and belonging
- Faith and spirituality
- Motherhood and caregiving
- Illness, disability and the body
- Work, labour and ambition
- Love, intimacy and desire
- Language and identity
- Home and displacement
- Class and social mobility
- Friendship and community
- Education
- Technology and digital life
- Climate and ecology
- Political life and citizenship
- Tradition and cultural inheritance
- Joy, pleasure and celebration
- Silence and voice
2. Writing sample (maximum 1,000 words)
Applicants must submit one piece of creative nonfiction that best represents their writing.
The submission may be a personal essay, memoir excerpt, lyric essay, braided essay, reported personal narrative, or another work of literary creative nonfiction. The writing sample does not need to be related to the proposed fellowship project.
3. Short biography
Applicants must include a biography of no more than 150 words.
4. Statement of commitment
Applicants must submit a statement of no more than 250 words explaining why they would like to participate in the fellowship and what they hope to contribute to the cohort.
Applications close 12 September 2026. Click here to apply now!
Best of luck to all applicants
