The Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop (@Idembeka)is pleased to announce its fourth cohort of fellows. Taken from the Igbo word for "pillar" (ide) and the Bemba word for "star" (mbeka), the Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop was established in 2022 by Frances Ogamba (@FrancesOgamba), Kasimma, and Mubanga Kalimamukwento to serve as a pillar of light for emerging African writers. The following writers will attend a five-day virtual workshop, from the 5th to the 9th of January 2026, taught by Rafeeat Aliyu, Sihle Ntuli, Michelle K. Angwenyi, Ibrahim Babátúndé Ibrahim and Gloria Mwaniga Odary:

Their country may have sparse literary capital, but Zambians are still writing. “The stories are there, but the spaces and the support aren’t quite as there yet,” Kalimamukwento said. opencountrymag.com/in-great-…

On Zambian literature: The stakes are different for us,” she said. “A lot of our literary counterparts have other magazines in those countries. My dream is that when someone goes into a bookstore and they look at the African fiction section or just African book section, whether it’s poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction, there would be so many Zambian writers that they don’t know all our names.” #OpenCountryMag #MubangaKalimamukwento #ZambianLiterature #AfricanLiterature