Illustration by Aimee-Claire Smith
Modjaji Books is not accepting submissions in 2021. We encourage writers who would like to submit to Modjaji to submit elsewhere, read more books (especially books published by Modjaji), and work on polishing their craft through writing courses and workshops. There are a range of options for writers. Most of all, we encourage writers to just keep writing!
Below, we’ve compiled some of the courses and resources we recommend. This is a working document. Please email us if you have any suggested edits or additions!
All About Writing has a range of creative writing courses, from their beginner Power of Writing course to their Saturday Writing Workshops to their more advanced Creative Writing Course. They also regularly host free writing webinars, and post a lot of how-to-write content on their blog.
The South African Writers College has a range of courses. We especially recommend the Basics of Creative Writing Course, with Helen Brain.
FunDZa Literacy Trust publishes writing by young people from South Africa. They also provide a free mentoring service where all authors who submit stories or writing receive feedback on pieces submitted.
Lolwe is an online magazine that publishes writing by Black authors. They also host online workshops and courses, facilitated by big names such as Zukisa Waneer and Hawa Jande-Golakai.
The Life Righting Collective (LRC) offers the LRC Creative Writing course. It is an online audio course. The LRC has new short laser -focused live online Zoom courses where you can experiment in a fun way.
Mishka Hoosen runs regular writing workshops via Zoom, which are R350 per workshop or free for his Patreon supporters.
Maire Fisher offers monthly online writing workshops. Details of the workshops that Maire hosts together with writer Chantal Stewart can also be found on the Western Cape Creative Writing Facebook page.
Mike Nicol runs several online writing courses.
Joanne Fedler runs several online writing courses, most notably her Author Awakening Adventure.
Melinda Ferguson runs online and in-person writing workshops, focused specifically on memoir or life writing, but applicable to all writers. Email her on melindafergusonwriter[at]gmail.com for more information.
UCT, UNISA, The University Currently Known as Rhodes, and Wits all offer postgraduate or undergraduate courses in creative writing. The UCT Summer School also offers writing courses every January.
It’s worth following writers such as Koleka Putuma, Rémy Ngamije, Mishka Hoosen, Lauren Beukes, and others on Twitter. They regularly re-tweet or share content for writers. The same applies for the social media channels of organisations such as Lolwe, Doek!, Short Story Day Africa, Brittle Paper etc.
Some books that we would recommend for writers are Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, The Right to Write by Julia Cameron, On Writing by Stephen King, Writing Down the Bones and Wilder Mind by Natalie Goldberg, Light the Dark edited by Joe Frasler, Daemon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling by Phillip Pullman, Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses, and the books in this article compiled by Lit Hub.