Tlotlo Candice Kenalemang was born in Gaborone, Botswana. She grew up in Molepolole but lived most of her teenage years in Abuja, Nigeria. She started writing lyrics for songs and later after something traumatic happened she started writing poetry, short stories and long stories. Her poetry is all based on her experiences and she tries to write as often as possible.
“Kela Griot is a creative, radio head, writer, poet and lover of humanity. She has been writing for more than 15 years but it wasn’t until four years ago that she was drawn out of her shell to set foot on a stage.
She has been on numerous platforms since: the Basadi Jam With A Purpose, Writers Lounge, Kagiso Arts Expo, Art by Night, The Bangkok Sundays, Snapshots, Restorative Justice Women’s Fair, Show Face, Poetic Joint and Fanatic Poetry Sessions to name a few. She has gone on to be one of the founding members of the New Age Poetry Movement, as well as co-founder and host of the Juiced Poetry Sessions.
She describes herself as deep empath and suspects that’s why she is a medium for poetry and other stuff. She hopes to help humanity art itself back to love, one poem and outlandish creative disruption at a time.”
Twitter: @KelaGriot
Arja Salafranca has published two collections of poetry, A Life Stripped of Illusions and The Fire in which we Burn; a third, Beyond Touch is published by Modjaji Books in 2015 and a collection of short stories: The Thin Line. She has participated in writers conferences, edited two anthologies and has received awards for her writing. More at: http://arjasalafranca.blogspot.com
Khulile Nxumalo was born in Diepkloof, Soweto, in 1971. He completed school at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland and went on to attend the University of Cape Town, the then University of Natal and the University of the Witwatersrand, where his studies were focused on media and cultural studies.
Nxumalo has worked as researcher, writer, producer and director for various production houses in Johannesburg. He has directed inserts for a magazine television programme, a short documentary on young, up-and-coming opera singers and for national education broadcasts.
In 2004, Nxumalo’s first collection of poetry titled Ten Flapping Elbows, Mama, was published. That same year, he produced a documentary titled Nabantwa Bam (With My Children) as part of the SABC 1 Project 10 series.
Nxumalo has twice been the recipient of the DALRO award for poetry. His work has appeared in several literary journals in South Africa, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In 2013, Nxumalo launched his poetry collection, Fhedzi.
Fellow poet Robert Berold says of Nxumalo: “[He] is one of the few poets in South Africa using longer experimental forms. He has found a creative way of breaking up the English language and fusing it with other languages. He is also capable of intense lyrical expression.”
Nxumalo lives in Johannesburg with his two children.
Mandi Poefficient Vundla is a writer and spoken word ambassador, born in Soweto, Johannesburg.
She made her debut in the world of competitive poetry in 2011. Since then, she has appeared at different events on various stages, including the State Theater’s Night of the Poets, and the Jozi Book Fair, where she was part of the protest poetry panel discussion hosted by Poetry Potion, a monthly online journal that profiles poetry communities.
Vundla has shared the stage with Myesha Jenkins, Natalia Molebatsi, Lebo Mashile, Phillippa
Yaa De Villiers, Napo Masheane, Afurakan, Tumelo Khoza, Keisha Monique Simons, UK’s Yrsa
Daley-Ward, Chanelle Gabriels (U.S), Joshua Bennett (U.S), Busiswa qulu, Kabomo Vilakazi , Neo Muyanga, Muta Baruka, Tumi of the Volume and many more. She has also performed alongside the legendary Pops Mohammed and opened the stage for Ian Kamau (U.S), career highlights include her appearance on e-tv’s breakfast show, Khaya fm, Power fm, Sunrise, 702, Radio 2000, shiznizz, and opening for Tedx Johannesburg, she went on to co-hosted Tedx Soweto.
Performances Include:
-Action aid’s 5 year country strategy launch
-KPMG women’s breakfast
-The screening of the ‘Girl Rising’ documentary, hosted by Intel Africa.
-Commemorating 20 years of the Native land act in Nasrec .
-Bertha Gxowa Memorial Lecture
-Smac Gallery
Features:
-The Citizen
-The Star
-True Love Magazine’s September edition, where she dedicated a poem to South Africa for
Heritage month.
-Twelve + One Botsotso Anthology featuring Jo’burg poets
-News Day [Zim]
Festivals:
-Poetry Africa
-Arts Alive
-The National Arts Festival in Grahamstown
-The Spoken freedom fest, hosted by Word n Sound in conjunction with the Market Theater.
-Afr(we)ka Festival in conjunction with WordNSound and The DAC
-Harare International Festival
-Venice Biennale in Italy, where she opened for the South African Pavilion
Vundla is the co-editor of an international anthology that features 24 young influential writers titled ‘ HOME IS WHERE THE MIC IS’ published by Botsotso
Vundla is currently a member of the Word N Sound content production team.
Dubbed Queen of the Word N Sound Mic 2012 in Johannesburg’s prestigious Slam, she went on to win the Poet of the Year award, and broke her own record by defending her own WordnSound queen of the mic title.
She is the undisputed queen of the word n Sound mic 2012+2013
Gary Cummiskey is a South African poet and publisher living in Johannesburg. He is the editor of Dye Hard Press, which he started in 1994.
He is the author of several poetry chapbooks, including Romancing the Dead (Tearoom Books, Durban 2009), Sky Dreaming (Graffiti Kolkata, India 2011) and I Remain Indoors (Tearoom Books, Stockholm 2013). In 2009, he published Who was Sinclair Beiles?, a collection of writings about the South African Beat poet, co-edited with Eva Kowalska. An expanded and revised edition of the book was published in 2014.
Also in 2009, Cummiskey compiled Beauty Comes Grovelling Forward, a selection of South African poetry and prose published on the US literary website Big Bridge.
His debut collection of short fiction, Off-ramp, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award in 2014.
His work has been translated into French, Greek and Bangla.
He is currently editor of the South African literary journal New Coin.
Livhuwani Mashao was born Livhuwani Takalani Mashao on March 8, 1993, in Vosloorus, Gauteng. As a young boy he was exposed to Edgar Allen’s anthology and he grew up with a great passion for poetry and music. At the age of 15 he was introduced to Nasir Oludara Jones’, Nas, music and he fell in love with his writing style, fashion sense and demeanor.
Livhuwani began to write poems and raps, performing at school and church as he was being inspired by the divine life of Jesus Christ. Still growing and studying theology, Livhuwani hopes to reach out to his peers in style using witty rhyme schemes and word play. Livhuwani is currently taking theatre classes at Johannesburg theatre with the well known Souht African film director, Mr. Duma Ndlovu, being his lecturer. “Stage presence is a good trait to an all-round performer” Livhuwani alludes in most of his interviews.
Peter Esterhuysen was born in 1963 and died in 2004. As a founding member of the StoryTeller Group, he scripted highly successful educational comics on environmental health, HIV/Aids treatment and gender relations in rural settings. He storyboarded short stories by three South African writers, Can Themba, Bessie Head and Alex la Guma. He scripted theatrical productions for the Handspring Puppet Company and anchored the writing team that produced the TV series Soul City, Gazlam and Yizo Yizo I and II. The latter won multiple local and international awards. In 2002 he co-wrote a feature film with Tebogo Mahlatsi titled Scar. The script was selected for the Sundance Writers Festival held in Utah, but he was too ill to attend. His short stories and poetry reviews were published in local literary journals. Five years after his death, a selection of his poems was published in Comeback: Poems in Conversation 1984-1989.
Paul Mason is an English Teacher, workshop facilitator and published poet. Paul has published poetry, short stories and critical reviews in South Africa and the United States.
His and Peter Esterhuysen’s dialogue of poems – Comeback – was published by Botsotso Press and Bodhi Books in 2009.
Colleen Higgs is the publisher and founder of Modjaji Books, a small independent feminist press based in Cape Town. Inspired by Modjadji, the Rain Queen of Limpopo, Modjaji Books aims to fill a gap by taking seriously women’s writing from southern Africa. As a powerful female force for good, growth, new life, and regeneration, the press works at creating a space for those experiences and voices that may not fit in to the constraints of more mainstream publishers. Many Modjaji titles have gone on to be nominated for and some to win prestigious literary awards.
A writer herself, Colleen Higgs’s poems and stories have been published in literary magazines, women’s magazines and in academic journals, and she has had stories published in collections such as Dinaane; Just Keep Breathing Home, Away; and Stray. Colleen’s own books include the poetry collections Halfborn Woman, Lava Lamp Poems, and a collection of short stories, Looking for Trouble.
Colleen is a publishing activist and has long been a supporter of small, independent publishing; through her previous work at the Centre for the Book, she managed the award-winning Community Publishing Project, and she has written numerous articles, pamphlets on writer development. She also compiled two Small Publishers’ Catalogues of African publishers (2010 and 2013) and wrote A rough guide to Small Scale and Self-Publishing (2005) which was translated into 4 South African langauges and sold thousands of copies.
Chris Mann, a South African of English, Dutch and Irish descent, was born in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. He started his working life in rural development and poverty alleviation projects, such as low-cost water-supply and sanitation, small-scale agriculture and labour-intensive public works including secondary road and pipeline construction. This multi-faceted, multi-talented writer has also taught English in a rural school, lectured in English at Rhodes University and worked in teacher development and job creation. He has volunteered for various trusts, has been a parish councillor and was a founder and song-writer of Zabalaza, a cross-culture band performing in English and Zulu.
His formal education includes a BA from Wits majoring in English and Philosophy, an MA from the School of Oriental and African Languages (London) in African Oral Literature and an MA from Oxford in English Language and Literature. Now based at the Institute for the Study of English in Africa at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, he is the founder and convenor of Wordfest, a national multilingual festival of South African languages and literatures with a developmental emphasis. Chris Mann’s poems have appeared in a wide range of journals, textbooks and anthologies in South Africa and abroad. He performs his work at various festivals, schools, churches, universities and conferences around the country as part of a life-long passion to promote poetry in the public domain. Able to converse in Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa, Mann writes poetry influenced by the richness of the different languages he speaks and which reflects the diverse work experiences and social encounters he has had. Keenly narrative, his poems convey to the reader the textural details of the South African landscape and the intimacy of its people. As he examines his own spirituality, which appears rooted in the history, place and potential that is contemporary South Africa, his practical musicianship emerges clearly in the lilting lyricism and rhythm of his poetry.
Mbasa Sigcau, also known as Amazing the Slum Intellect, is a 20 year old emcee, poet and observer based in Grahamstown South Africa. He honed his writing style by studying the Durban underground rap scene. Most of his writing is deeply rooted in social commentary.
Thandi Sliepen is a self taught artist living in the Eastern Free State. Born in 1971 in Mowbray, Cape Town she left South Africa in 1976 and immigrated with her family to New Zealand where she completed her formal education.
In 1990 she farewelled the antipodes and returned to Africa, first to Tanzania for 8 months and then back to her roots in South Africa. In 1992 Thandi met artist Martin Wessels and the stage was set for a life of Art. She moved into a cave on Martin’s property and started painting, sculpting and continued to write poetry prolifically.
Since then Thandi has lived and exhibited in various places around South Africa, New Zealand and the Netherlands. Thandi currently lives on a farm outside Ladybrand with her partner, photographer Glen Green and their two children.
Thandi’s website is www.glengreen.co.za/thandi
Andile Nayika was born and raised in Grahamstown, South Africa. He was first introduced to storytelling and poetry by his late grandmother. He has published his works in various poetry publications like Oppikoppi’s Ons Klyntj. He has also written for media houses such as the Mail & Guardian in Johannesburg. He is a founding member of the Writers Movement, which collaborates with the Rhodes University English Department to produce the Cycle of Knowledge.
Fadzai Nova Dube is a writer and philosopher. She was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and is of Shona origin. She relocated to East London, South Africa at the age of 5. In 2007, Fadzai moved to Cape Town to complete a B.A in film and Media at the University of Cape Town.
She currently lives in Pretoria, South Africa with her two German Shepherds and is currently working on her first fiction novel.
Dan Wylie teaches English at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. He has published two books on the Zulu leader Shaka (Savage Delight: White Myths of Shaka and Myth of Iron: Shaka in History, both UKZN Press); a memoir; Dead Leaves: Two Years in the Rhodesian War (UKZN Press); and several volumes of poetry. Most recently, he has concentrated on Zimbabwean literature and on ecological concerns in literature. He founded the annual Literature & Ecology Colloquium in 2004, and edited the collection of essays, Toxic Belonging? Identity and Ecology in Southern Africa (Cambridge Scholars Press). His latest publications are Elephant and Crocodile, both in the Reaktion Books animals series, and Slow Fires (poems with etchings by Roxandra Britz; Fourthwall Books).
Stephen Symons is a former lecturer, graphic designer and poet. His poetry has been published in journals (including: New Contrast, Carapace, New Coin, Prufrock, Aerodrome, Umlanga ) and various anthologies. He holds a Masters in Creative Writing from UCT and is currently busy with a PhD in African Studies. He lives in Oranjezicht with his wife and two children.
Marike Beyers lives in Grahamstown, where she spends most of her time surrounded by books, papers, the buzz of internet pages. Balance is a difficult thing, as is the wind. She gets herself tangled up in letters and does not drive. On the other hand, she says, “Thunderstorms are magnificent beings. And then there is poetry that reaches into stillness.” Her collection of poems, On Another Page, was published with Aerial Publishing in 2011.
Pakama Mlokoti, born on May 12 1994 in Mthatha, is currently based in Port Elizabeth pursuing a career in poetry. She is a writer, peformer and film maker in progress.
Pakama began competitive poetry in 2013 winning the Candlelight slam and Consent is Sexy Poetry slam. She also came second place on the Udubs Got Talent finals.
She has performed at various stages across the country including the Inzync Sessions in Cape Town, the Word N Sound stage in Johannesburg as well as Atheneaum Little Theatre in Port Elizabeth.
She also represented Eastern Cape in the National Slam For Your Life finals at the Soweto theatre where she won and is current a National Slam Champion.
Stuart Thembisile Lewis is a journalist and filmmaker who moonlights as a poet. He was born in 1993, less than a year before South Africa’s first democratic election, and carries a massive chip on his shoulder for consistently being lumped together with the so-called ‘Born Frees’. He spends most of his time stuffing around on the internet
Ntsika Tyatya is a writer, poet, spoken word performer who is from Nelson Mandela Bay, he has been active in the poetry scene for the past 12 years. After co-producing weekly poetry sessions in Port Elizabeth in 2006, he created SLAM ( Student’s Literature and Arts Movement) in 2008, which was the first slam poetry society at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. He was the headliner and finalist in the Cape Town poets search competition, Poetry Delight, as well as a headliner at the East London weekly poetry sessions; Brute Force. 2012 he was one of the headlining poets at the National Book Week. He has graced the stages with Luka Lesson (AUS), Lesego Rampolokeng, Lebo Mashile, Ntsiki Mazwai, Bongeziwe Mabandla, Don Mattera, Afurakhan, The Brother Moves on, Zubz, Mxo, Tumi to name few. In 2014 he partnered with Word and Sound, as the Eastern Cape facilitator in their Slam Your Life national competition that was held in Grahamstown.
He currently pursues a BA in Corporate Communication and has assisted with conceptualising both Maxhosa exhibitions in 2013 and 2014. He was part of the company that assisted in bringing Ian Kamau (Canada), Tutu Puoane (Holland) Vatiswa Ndara (SA), to Nelson Mandela Bay. He freelances in communication for various artists and businesses.
Deborah Seddon is an academic and a poet who was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, but is now based in Grahamstown, South Africa, where she teaches South African, African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and English Renaissance literature in the Rhodes University English Department. Her academic research is focused on South African orature and the transnational aesthetics of spoken word poetry. She is a founding member of the Cycle of Knowledge, a poetry organization consisting of students, school learners, and poets from the local community. The Cycle of Knowledge was created in 2013, and is a community engagement partnership between the Rhodes University English Department and the Writers’ Movement: a group of poets located in Joza, Grahamstown. The weekly sessions of the Cycle of Knowledge alternate between meetings on campus and in Joza, and provide a range of educational activities around writing, reading, and performing poetry. These include discussions of the work of South African and international poets, creative writing exercises, poetry ciphers and open mike sessions, editing and group feedback sessions on individual works, performances on campus, in town, and at local schools, recording poetry in video formats, collating biographies of the poets involved, and documenting the group’s activities.
Since 2006, Deborah has been a member of Aerial Publishing, a self-financing community publishing project based in Grahamstown, which received its start-up funding from the Centre for the Book in Cape Town. The committee annually calls for manuscripts of poetry and prose, mainly from Grahamstown writers, and chooses two per year to publish. Aerial Publishing edits, designs, and prints all their publications themselves, using funds raised by the sales of their books.
Deborah has published academic papers on South African literature and orature, African-American literature, South African engagements with Shakespeare, and on pedagogy in post-apartheid South Africa. Some of her poems appear in Writing From Here and Aerial.
Lesedi Thwala is a 20-year-old female, born in Itsoseng but grew up in a small town called Lichtenburg in the North West Province. She is currently doing her first year of her Bachelor of Arts at Rhodes University. A die-hard feminist, Motswako rapper and recovering book worm, Lesedi’s love for poetry began as an escape from the challenges she faced in life until a friend discovered one of her poems and forced her to recite it for a group of people. Lesedi is passionate about South African literature and dreams of becoming an author someday.
Sisonkepapu is a dynamic personality. Close observers of his work claim that he has a provocative poetic skill and has established himself as a prominent poetic voice within the Eastern Cape. Being a professor of literature, his focus extends beyond the academy and community, and has a penchant for critical engagement through writing and development of budding writers like himself. His poem was added into the syllabus for a Poetry course at NMMU in 2014 and 2015, and offered his insights into the critical revelation in the piece, and the art of poetic writing and literary interpretation in the Poetry lectures. The Resonance Poetry Movement, a poetry society he co-founded, facilitates creative writing workshops and has published an anthology, hosted local and International acts such as Ian Kamau and Luka Lesson.
Crystal Warren grew up in Port Elizabeth but now lives in Grahamstown where she works at the National English Literary Museum. She has edited New Coin poetry magazine and taught a creative writing course. In-between she manages to occasionally do some writing of her own.
TJ Dema is a Botswana based poet who runs SAUTI, an events, arts and performance management organization. She was the Chairperson of The Writers Association of Botswana from 2010 to 2012 and a founding member (alumni) of Botswana’s acclaimed Exoduslivepoetry! collective, who coordinated Botswana’s sole annual poetry festival between 2004 and 2009.
A 2005/06 participant in the British Council’s Crossing Borders project, she has since participated in a number of their initiatives including the 2007/08 Power in the Voice(PIV) initiative as mentor to the PIV national champions.
In 2010 she was guest writer for the University of Warwick’s International Gateway for Gifted Youth program. In 2008 she was in India for the Delhi International Festival of the Arts, and in 2010 she was a main stage act at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA), Shakespeare and co’s Festivalandco in France as well as the World Wide Words festival in Denmark. In 2011 she was part of the Poetry Africa tour, a 5 city Southern African initiative of the University of Kwazulu Natal’s Center for Creative Arts. She is part of a bi-continental, multi country eclectic ensemble called Sonic Slam Chorus who debuted their poetry infused soundscapes at HIFA 2011 and returned in 2012. Recently she participated in a series of events linked to the London Cultural Olympiad.
Between August and November 2012 I was based out of Iowa City as one of the International Writing Program writers-in-residence.
Anthony ‘Ty’ Ngachira is a 22 year old from Kenya. The budding lawyer took an interest in poetry while in high school but actively pursued it while at university. He has performed at Kenya Slam Africa, Kwani Open Mic, Fatuma’s Voice and Poetry under Stars. He loves poetry because it allows him to be who he wants to be. His work mirrors the African society he has grown up in.
Jason Nkwain was born in Cameroon, and moved to the USA at the age of thirteen. He has been publicly speaking since the age of seven when he started reciting poems and rhymes for kindergarten events.
Jason became really interested in poetry after moving to the US, and as time went by, he slowly developed a love for performance poetry or as most people call it, spoken word poetry. In 2012, alongside some of his close Cameroonian friends, he co-founded LEGACY ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTIONS, which is a collective of African artist whose main focus is to elevate and expose the beauty and the brilliance of the African Art.
Jason Nkwain’s poems focus on the continent of Africa and especially its people. Looking at the African people through the eyes of an anthropologist, Jason seeks to expose the beauty in Africa’s story. Jason seeks to dispel most myths and to shatter the false His-Stories, creating room for the truth in Our-Stories.
Some of his well-known poems are Thoughts, and Have You Ever Seen An African Dance.
Jason Nkwain is currently a senior at The University of Maryland College Park double majoring in Geographical Information Systems and English. He hopes to become an English professor some day focusing on African studies.
Website: https://www.facebook.com/Legacy237
Poet, writer and Energy Law expert, Donna is arguably the most compelling voice in Nigeria’s intense performance poetry circuit today. She has been described in the only ranking effort for spoken word in Nigeria (EGC Platform) as the “queen of spoken word poetry in Nigeria” for the year 2013 and ranked amongst the top 20 poets in Nigeria in the year 2012.
She is a Partner in the Law Firm of Adepetun, Caxton-Martins, Agbor & Segun where she has earned herself the prized ranking of “Rising Star” in 2014 and 2015 from IFLR 1000 for the World’s Leading Lawyers. When she is not providing expert advice to clients, Donna invests her energies in performed poetry and was formerly a co-coordinator of the well established Nigerian platform for art expression, Freedom Hall. She is a regular act on platforms like Taruwa, Freedom Hall and Word Up (where she has been a judge of poetry slams severally and was a facilitator at their event “The Business of Spoken Word in Nigeria, 2014” where she taught a sizeable audience of spoken word artistes on perfecting their act “From Page to Stage”).
Donna has been called upon for landmark events where only the finest acts are selected such as Nigeria’s 1st Cultural Trade Show (2014) tagged “Business Meets Culture” hosted by the Nigerian-German Business Association, the Lagos Black Heritage Festival and the WS 80 (celebrating Professor Wole Soyinka). DONNA was also the only Nigerian and one of 11 women elected by ONE.ORG for the National Month of Poetry, 2014 on its “National Poetry Month: Uplifting Verses From 11 Strong Female Poets”, alongside greats like Maya Angelou and Naomi Shihab Nye.
Her debut audio album “Water For Roses” is now available for purchase, with a formal launch to follow by April, 2015
Kafui Adjaye-Gbewonyo is a Ghanaian-American, currently based in Boston, Massachusetts. She has enjoyed writing poetry since childhood. Her poetic work has appeared in California State University, Bakersfield’s literary journal, Orpheus. She was also recognized by the Live Poets Society of New Jersey as an American High School Poets Regional Winner in 2002 and was one of the recipients of the Edward Eager Memorial Fund Prize for Poetry at Harvard University in 2007.
Kafui is currently pursuing a Doctor of Science degree in social and behavioral sciences at Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Her other interests include music and issues related to development, globalization, Ghana, and Africa in general.
Katlego K Kol-Kes is a 2015 Centre for African Cultural Excellence Writivist, Trans* ARTivist, writer, musician, educator and theatre producer. She is founder of the Queer Shorts Showcase Festival, “Queer Me Out” blog, and a 2013/14 Best of Botswana “Performing Arts” Artist honouree. She is also a member of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community.
Kol-Kes is a WITS University BA Dramatic Arts Honours graduate. Her writing appears in the Kalahari Review, Peolwane Magazine, The Washington Blade, Afropunk.com and EliteDaily.com.