Khadija Abdalla Bajaber is a Kenyan writer and the author of The House of Rust which won the inaugural Graywolf Press Africa Prize and The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. You can find her work at Enkare Review, A Long House, Lolwe, and Down River Road among others.

 

Kiprop Kimutai is a rising Kenyan writer who won the 2023 Graywolf African Fiction Prize for his manuscript The Freedom of Birds, set to be published by Graywolf Press in 2026. His fiction has appeared in No Tokens, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Kwani?, Evergreen Review, and Jalada Africa. A 2023 Miles Morland scholar and a finalist for the 2018 Gerald Kraak Award,

Kimutai’s work is known for its cultural depth and emotional resonance, making him a notable voice in contemporary African fiction.

 

David Otieno AKA Slim Shaka is a performance poet and storyteller based in Nairobi, Kenya.

He is also the reigning Poetry Slam Africa Champion (65th). Shaka has written and performed  six poetry productions, the latest being Of A Dying Breed, a 2-hour production infusing sound

design, puppetry, spoken word, music and contemporary dance. The conflicts of the 21st century world and the history behind it are the subjects of Slim Shaka's poetry.

 

Nyangari Macharia (Nyash) is a graduate and enthusiast of literature, and the 2022 Poets You

Should Know Poetry Slam Queen. She uses her to advocate for the community and her environment, to inspire change and provoke conversations in regard to the socio-economic system. She aims to instigate change with every opportunity she gets.

 

Stella Kivuti is a Clinical Psychologist and a dynamic spoken word artist and performer. Since making her debut at Slam Africa in 2016, she has consistently lit up stages across Kenya. Her

artistic journey includes notable achievements such as being the 3rd runner-up in the 2017 Slam Africa, being crowned the 2020 Female Slam Queen and serving as a Poetry Slam Judge in 2022.

 

Mufasa is a multi-award winning poet, actor, writer and a teaching artist from Kenya who uses

his art to discuss and showcase works inspired by day-to-day life on the African continent.

He constantly writes to speak on the commonality of our differences and to interrogate the

social political environment.

 

Naddya Adhiambo Oluoch-Olunya is an Animation Director and Musician from Nairobi, Kenya. For the past 15 years, her practice has toyed with the upper limits of form and function, spanning Animation, Comics, Games, XR, Product Design and Music. Under her Nalo Studios banner, she is currently cultivating her slate originals, and has led her team through service work for Walt Disney Animation, Netflix Animation, Nickelodeon and many more.

 

Yvonne Muinde is an artist, muralist and illustrator and the founder of IKWETA ARTS who looks to share her experiences and knowledge as a Matte-Painting Supervisor and concept artist from her work at the best Post-Production (VFX) studios around the globe. Her Visual Effects career has spanned over 20 years working on numerous iconic and award-winning film productions. In 2009, Yvonne and her team were awarded the VES (Visual Effects Society) Award for Outstanding Matte-Painting in a Motion Picture for AVATAR.

 

Buke Abduba is a Kenyan writer and pharmacist who was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2023. Her work has been featured in publications like Adda Stories, Lolwe, and an East African anthology Let Us Conspire and Other Stories (2024), published by Jahazi Press. She is currently working on a manuscript with a vision to authentically reflect the lives and experiences of people in her community.

 

Scholar Akinyi is an award-winning writer. In her debut book, Hop, Skip and Jump, she brings to light the experiences of children caught up in Kenya’s 2008 post-election violence, emphasizing the importance of including children in discussions that shape a country's history. Akinyi's work has earned her the YouthHubAfrica Flash Fiction Award, and she was shortlisted for the inaugural African Writers Awards in Flash Fiction. She served as Editor-in-Chief of Writers

Space Africa (2023-2024) and currently works as an editor at Oxford University Press, East Africa.

 

Scholastica Moraa has a passion for poetry and stories. She expertly weaves her poems to present the full mix of emotions associated with love. Her work has been featured in Konch Online Magazine and Imbiza. She also writes for children. Ms. Moraa is a mother to one daughter, a literature lover, and an avid reader.

 

Hassan Ghedi Santur is the author of the novels Something Remains and The Youth of God and the non-fiction book Maps of Exile. The Youth of God was a finalist for the Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award for Excellence in African Writing. Nuur, the film adaptation of The Youth of God, is currently in pre-production. Santur is working on his third novel, Imagined Lives.

 

Mshai Mwangola is an oraturist / performance scholar who uses the lens of culture in her work as an academic, artist and activist. She is a storyteller who holds a doctorate in Performance Studies from Northwestern University (USA), a Masters of Creative Arts from the University of Melbourne (Australia) and a Bachelor of Education from Kenyatta University (Kenya). She is an Advisory Board member of the Macondo Literary Festival.

 

Dr. Dino J. Martins is a Kenyan artist, naturalist and writer. An entomologist and evolutionary biologist, he is currently the Director of the Turkana Basin Institute. He holds a PhD from Harvard University (2011) and seeks to share the wonder and diversity of nature, especially the hidden, beautiful details that are intrinsic to human life. Teaching people to see, understand and care about the details of the living world are central to his work and life. His latest natural history book, The Grasses of East Africa, has been received with wide acclaim.

 

Alex/is Grace Teyie is an artist and researcher. Previous books include a poetry chapbook, Clay Plates: Broken Records of Kiswahili Proverbs, and a children's book, Shortcut. Teyie was one of the co-founders of Enkare Review, and currently works with Down River Road (DRR). They also provide advisory for nonprofits and startups.

 

Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer and editor who co-founded Warscapes magazine and is now creative director of the Radical Books Collective. She is the author of Cold War Assemblages: Decolonization to Digital and recently co-edited Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War.

 

Zulfikar Hirji is Associate Professor in Anthropology at York University, Toronto (Canada). His research is on the arts and material cultures of the Indian Ocean. His publications include Between Empires: Sheikh Mbarak al-Hinawy 1896-1959 (2012), Approaches to the Qur’an in Sub-Saharan Africa (2019), and “A Corpus of Illuminated Qur’ans from Coastal East Africa” (2023). His current research projects include the study of a corpus of 18th-19th century illuminated Qur’ans from the Lamu Archipelago and the histories of colonial-era clock towers built around the Indian Ocean.

 

Adam Chienjo is a Kenyan contemporary dancer, choreographer, artistic director, teacher, curator, and performance critic with 22 years of experience in interdisciplinary performances incorporating dance and movement.

 

The LAM Sisterhood is an award-winning story company filling the world with stories for African women to feel seen, heard and beloved. From viral videos to podcasts, from stageplays to screenplays, they are obsessed with story in every form and genre.