A.R Goldsmith is a native Washingtonian, growing up in Montgomery County, Md. and graduating from the University of Maryland.  He lives in Ellicott City, Md with his wife, Pauline, of 40 years.  He has 2 children and 5 grandchildren.

⁠Aba Amissah Asibon is a Ghanaian writer and an SSDA Inkubator Fellow 2022. Her short fiction has been published in Guernica, Adda, The Johannesburg Review of Books and the Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa anthology. She has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the Miles Morland African Writing Scholarship. She is also a 2023 Wilbur Smith New Voices winner for her novel-in-progress.

Ahmed Ismail Yusuf has lived in Minneapolis since fleeing Somalia in the late 80s. He did not speak English when he arrived, he was a high-school dropout, and he was not sure what his actual age was. Today he has two college degrees and is the author of Somalis in Minnesota, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. In 2017, The History Theatre of St. Paul, Minnesota produced his short play, “A Crack in the Sky,” a memoir about how Yusuf found inspiration in Maya Angelou and Muhammad Ali during his early days as an immigrant to the U.S.

Ameera Patel is in the storytelling business. She is an actor, writer, theatre-maker and poet residing in Johannesburg. She read for a BA in Theatre and Performance at the University of Cape Town in 2005 and in 2013 she received a distinction for her Masters in Creative Writing at Wits University in Johannesburg. Ameera has worked as a performer in both theatre and television, and has written for television and the theatre, notably the play Whistle Stop, which won both a Silver Standard Bank Ovation Award and the PANSA Best New Writer award in 2014 in her home country South Africa. Outside the Lines, Patel's first novel, was originally published by Modjaji Books and was long listed for a Barry Ronge Fiction Award (2017).

After unsuccessfully reaching rock star fame as a guitarist, A.M. Louw qualified as an attorney in 2000 and received a PhD in Law in 2010.  He has taught at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and currently teaches at Stellenbosch University. Through his fascination with corruption and love of reading crime fiction comes his first novel Phantom Pass.  A.M. Louw currently lives in Villiersdorp, South Africa with his partner and their teenage son.

Andreas Roman grew up on the Swedish west coast. He spent his childhood figuring out how to skip school to work on stories for the video games he was creating. Today, he’s a novelist as well as a writer and producer for the app and video games industry, where he's participated in the development of global apps like Sleep Cycle and video game franchises such as Mirror's Edge, Battlefield, InVector, Terminator, and Leo's Fortune, which won an Apple Design award. Andreas lives in Gothenburg, Sweden, where he has published ten novels in his native Swedish to critical acclaim, selling over 100,000 copies, and with several translations into Danish, German, and Norwegian.

Anthony Silverston is partner and Head of Development at Triggerfish Animation Studios in South Africa where he is currently overseeing a slate of projects in development and production.  These include Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, an anthology of 10 short films in production with Disney+, Mama K’s Team 4  with Netflix, and Kiya with Disney, eOne and Frogbox, as well as a number of feature films and TV series in development with various partners. In 2015, he oversaw the Story Lab, an initiative where 4 feature films and 4 TV series were chosen to be developed after a continent-wide search that drew almost 1400 entries. He also directed and co-wrote the feature film Khumba, which premiered in competition at Annecy International Animation Festival in 2013. The script, co-written with Raffaella Delle Donne, won a major UK scriptwriting competition in 2006 and was the first animation selected for No Borders Co-Production Market in its 30-year history. He has produced and written on Seal Team (released globally in December 2021 on Netflix), as well as Triggerfish’s first feature Zambezia.  Silverston was also producer of the short film Belly Flop which screened at over 135 festivals and won 14 awards, and the Blender short film, Troll Girl. Before joining Triggerfish, he completed three independent stop-motion shorts of his own.  He is also a published Microbiologist, which is a fact that has become increasingly less useful over the years.

Audra A. Diptée is a history professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. She’s a historian, author, and educator who studies the ways in which historical thinking can advance social justice issues today. Her research focuses on the Caribbean and Africa.

Barbara Adair is a novelist and writer. In Tangier we Killed the Blue Parrot was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Award in 2004. Her novel End was shortlisted for Africa Regional Commonwealth Prize. She contributed to Queer Africa and Queer Africa 2, and her writing, particularly her travel writing, has been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies. She is currently working with the Wits Writing Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Barbara Boswell is an educator and literary activist. She is an alumna of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she lived for several years, and has taught at universities in both the USA and South Africa. Barbara is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Cape Town, where she teaches Black women's diasporic literature, African feminist literary theory, and gender and sexuality.

Barbara Erasmus is a writer and journalist living in Cape Town. Having grown up in Zimbabwe, she spent twenty-five nomadic years following her husband’s career, which sparked an award-winning career in travel writing. Barbara has published three novels in South Africa: Kaleidoscope (Penguin, 2004), nominated for the Commonwealth Best First Novel; Even with Insects (Penguin, 2005); and Below Luck Level (Penguin, 2012). Her crime novel, Chameleon, was published in installments on the blog Crime Beat, which she edited for three years. This is her North American debut.

Becky Cerling Powers is a parenting columnist and editor of My Roots Go Back to Loving and other stories from “1998: Year of the Family,” a collection of faith-based family stories originally published in The El Paso Times.

Bridget Krone lives and works in a village called Hilton just outside Pietermaritzburg, in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa. Her office looks onto a field where cows graze in the winter and cranes (both crowned and blue) visit in the summer. She has spent most of her working life writing short novels and English language text books for school children in South Africa. Her favorite stories are those that, just when you expect a lesson, sing a song instead.

Bridget Pitt is a South African author and environmental activist who has published poetry, short fiction, non-fiction and three novels (Unbroken Wing, Kwela, 1998; The Unseen Leopard, Human & Rousseau, 2010; Notes from the Lost Property Department, Penguin, 2015). Two were long listed for the Sunday Times Literary Awards. Her second novel was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize (2011) and the Wole Soyinka African Literature Award (2012). She has recently co-authored a memoir of the spiritual wilderness guide, Sicelo Mbatha (Black Lion: Alive in the Wilderness, Jonathan Ball, 2021). Her short fiction has received a Commonwealth nomination and has been published in anthologies in South Africa, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Eye Brother Horn is her first book to be published by a North American publisher.

Bryan Kromm grew up in Penticton, British Columbia and is a dual citizen of both America and Canada.  He has spent time in both countries. Bryan was a collegiate athlete and now coaches hockey for a living and writes in his free time.

Caroline Kurtz lived in Ethiopia from ages 5-18 and worked in Kenya and Sudan as an adult.  After her husband Mark died in 2013, Caroline started a nonprofit organization to bring solar energy and women’s development to Maji, still beyond the grid, in the corner of Ethiopia where she grew up. See DevelopMaji.org and https://carolinekurtzauthor.com/ for more information. She now lives in Portland, Oregon.

South African writer Chanette Paul has published 41 crime, suspense and romance novels over her prolific career. A bestselling author in her native country, she makes her U.S./English debut with Sacrificed.

Chanette’s stories are marked by strong female characters, women who earn their strength by confronting their demons, both internal and external, and by taking full responsibility for their choices. Her books are also known for the subtle social commentary and dry humor.

In South Africa, Chanette has been nominated six times for the prestigious ATKV-Woordveertjies award and has won the South African Lekkerlit award 3 times. She serves as an editor for LAPA Publishers. Sacrificed was translated into Dutch and launched in 2015 at the Antwerp Book Fair.

Born in Douala, Cameroon in 1968 and raised in France, Christophe Cassiau-Haurie is a library curator and comics specialist. He is currently Director of Public Services for the National and University Library of Strasbourg, after having held several positions in Africa including time in Mauritius and five years in the DRC. He also serves as director of the comic book collection of L'Harmattan, one of the largest French book publishers. Cassiau-Haurie is the author of several articles and collective works on the state of publishing and comics in Africa. He has authored and contributed to numerous graphic novels in French, most of which are based on African histories. He did his postgraduate studies in African Studies and Public Law.

Ciiku Ndung'u-Case is the founder of the Cheza Nami Foundation, a California based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that promotes play-based cultural education and diversity awareness, inspired by Ciiku’s childhood in rural Kenya and the lack of accessible educational resources on Africa for her twins, born in 2007. Ciiku's work in creating cultural awareness programs has appeared in CBS News, TEDx Livermore, the Oakland Magazine, and several California news outlets. An immigrant and first generation college graduation, Ciiku holds a Master's degree in Cell and Molecular Biology and is a leader in strategic planning in the pharmaceutical industry. Wanjiku, Child of Mine is based on Ciiku's childhood in Kenya.

As well as being a writer, Colleen Higgs is also a publisher, she started the ground-breaking independent southern African women's press, Modjaji Books in 2007. She lives in Cape Town with her daughter and a cat. Looking for Trouble is her first collection of short stories. She also has two collections of poetry Lava Lamp Poems (2011) and Halfborn Woman (2004) all published by Hands-On Books.

She was recognised for her work in publishing by the Mail and Guardian, and was featured in their Book of Women 2011 in the Arts & Culture category.

Craig Higginson is a writer, theatre director and lecturer who lives in Johannesburg. His novels and plays have been published, translated and produced widely internationally and won several prestigious awards. Craig has a PhD in Creative Writing and was recently a recipient of the Hawthornden Foundation Residency, where he will be writing the sequel to his IEB matric set-work novel, The Dream House. The Ghost of Sam Webster is Craig’s first novel with Catalyst Press.

Daniel Snaddon is an artist, illustrator, and film director of Scottish-South African and Chinese-Australian descent, who grew up in Nelspruit, a short drive away from the Kruger National Park. He has worked in the animation and film industries for fourteen years, best known for his work with Triggerfish Animation Studios and with Magic Light Pictures' animated BBC Christmas specials. Among these, Daniel served as animation supervisor on the Academy Award nominated "Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes", co-director on the BAFTA nominated "Stick Man", and as director on both the Annie award winning "The Snail and the Whale" and the International Emmy winning "Zog". Daniel's most recent work, his fourth Magic Light Pictures Christmas special, "The Smeds and the Smoos", based on the book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (authors of The Gruffalo), was awarded the Audience Award at the New York International Children's Film Festival in March 2023. Daniel served as the founding director of CTIAF, South Africa’s premiere animation festival, for 4 years.

David Muirhead was born and raised in East Africa and his fascination and love for African wildlife began at an early age. He was educated at schools in Uganda, Kenya and the UK, and attended St Andrews University in Scotland, graduating with a degree in Philosophy. His career has spanned finance, trade development, economic research, publishing and journalism, and he has worked all over Africa, as well as in Europe and the Middle East. He is currently a freelance journalist and writes for magazines, notably Wildside, a South African ecotourism and nature conservation magazine which he founded in 1999 in partnership with KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation (now KZN Wildlife). He has authored several books, including The Curious Case of the Imaginary Tourist, a collection of satirical and humorous short stories which drew acclaim from the British press, and a novel, The Clamour King, published in London. Random House's Struik Nature imprint published his two anthologies of riotous, irrespectable essays on animals, which have been combined into one volume for North America. He now lives near Cape Town and is married with two children and two grandchildren. His daughter and her family live in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

Donica Merhazion, born in the midst of Ethiopia's Red Terror, channels her family’s experiences into her debut novel, Born at the End of the World. A former journalist and educator with degrees in journalism and education, she calls Eritrea, Zambia, and the United States home. Passionate about storytelling, she inspires her students to love learning and embrace their potential while finding time to write in her favorite quiet spots.

Doreen Anyango is a Ugandan fiction writer, scriptwriter and biotechnologist, who was born and raised in Kampala. Her short fiction has appeared online in several journals. She has published short stories in print anthologies with FEMRITE, Writivism, Short Story Day Africa and Riptide. She was long-listed for the Writivism prize for fiction in 2016 and the SSDA prize in 2020. Her novel manuscript titled ‘A Darkness with Her Name On It’ was shortlisted for the Island Prize for debut African novelists. ⁠

Dr. Nina Jablonski is an anthropologist and paleobiologist whose research on the evolution of skin color has been published in many scholarly journals including Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Nature, and American Psychologist. She is the author of several books, including Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color and Skin: A Natural History. She has also been a featured TED Talk speaker, and has appeared as a guest on shows such as The Colbert Report and Bill Nye’s Science Rules! podcast. Dr. Jablonski has extensive experience in the development of science-related youth curriculum from grades K-12.

Elizabeth Gabel holds a degree in English Literature and Journalism from the University of New Mexico. Fascinated by the whimsical and widely documented myths of ancient Ireland, Gabel indulged her passions by scouring old books stores for the stories lost by time. Those stories overflowed onto the blank pages of her imagination.

Emily Pensulo is a Zambian writer masquerading as a banker during her weekdays. She holds an undergraduate degree in Business Administration and a master’s degree in Economic Policy Management. She’s written a biography of a local conservationist which is yet to be published and her writing has appeared in local magazines such as the Bulletin and Record and the Zacci Journal. She has also been published by the Kenyan magazine, Down River Road. In 2018, Emily was longlisted for the Kalemba Prize for her short story, ‘Dowry.’ And in 2020, she worked as a scriptwriter for a film project called, ‘Lifeblood,’ directed by a BAFTA nominated Director. ⁠

Evelyn Vu is one of 1.5 million “boat people” who tried to escape Vietnam. She was one of the lucky ones to succeed. Water All Around, her debut novel, is loosely based on her own memories and experience. Through her book, she hopes others, including children, and the children’s children of immigrants, will come to understand the struggle during this period in history, and how/why so many people end up living in foreign lands. She hopes the novel, and her own personal story, will resonate with those who took similar paths and bring empathy to the plight of refugees.

Faraaz Mahomed is a researcher in the field of mental health and human rights, based between New York and his native South Africa. His short stories and travel writing have appeared in Granta, Boston Review, The Georgia Review, the Sunday Times, and other publications. In 2016, he won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the African Region with his story “The Pigeon. “He has been mentored by Damon Galgut and Claire Messud.Creators will be added soon.

Futhi Ntshingila grew up in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Now she lives and works in Pretoria. She is a former journalist and holds Masters Degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution. She loves telling stories about the marginalized corners of society, which includes women and children in South Africa and particularly those who live in the squatter camps. In her two novels, she features strong women who empower themselves despite circumstances that seek to disempower them. We Kiss Them With Rain is her debut into the North American market.

Genna Gardini is a South African writer, theatre-maker, and educator. She is a PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and recently won the 2020 CASA award to finish her latest play, Many Scars. Genna’s poetry collection, Matric Rage, received a commendation for the Ingrid Jonker Prize and she was a 2016 National Fellow at the Institute for Creative Arts.

Goretti Kyomuhendo is one of Uganda’s leading novelists and founding director of the African Writers Trust. Her novels include The First Daughter (1996), Secrets No More (1999), which won the Uganda National Literary Award for Best Novel in the same year. Goretti holds an MA degree in Creative Writing from the University of KwaZulu, Natal, South Africa, and taught creative writing in the same university in 2004.

Hannes Barnard is a multi-genre fiction author of Afrikaans and English novels. In 2019 he debuted with the Afrikaans version of Halley’s Comet with the English version following in 2022. Between 2020 and 2024 his apocalyptic YA trilogy, Wolk, Roet, and Vuur captivates readers and critics alike. He is currently working on the translation of these titles – and writing political thrillers in-between.

Hannes Barnard is a South African-born multi-genre author of both English and Afrikaans novels. He debuted in 2019 with the YA novel, Halley se komeet, which he translated into English as Halley’s Comet. In 2020, Wolk, his apocalyptic YA adventure was released, and coming up in 2022 is his crime novel, die wet van Gauteng. When not writing, traveling, or planning his next adventure, Hannes works in marketing. He has called England and Seychelles home but now lives in Johannesburg with his wife.

Heidi Paul is an equine advocate, horse trainer, and riding instructor in Los Angeles. She served eleven years as the Park Ranger Mounted Trainer for the City of Los Angeles. She has worked with youth-at-risk horse programs, trained many trail and endurance horses, completed two 100-mile Tevis endurance rides, and is involved in local politics regarding equine issues. She has degrees in STEM and Sociology and teaches Equine Science at Los Angeles Pierce College.

Helen Brain was born in Australia in 1960 and raised in Durban, South Africa. After school, she studied music at the University of Cape Town. Before settling to a life writing and teaching writing online, she was a freelance journalist and editor, a screenprinter and crafter, and taught English, music, and Ancient Greek. A mother to three sons and grandmother to one grandson, Brain lives in Muizenberg, South Africa with her husband.

Henry Trotter is the author of Sugar Girls & Seamen: A Journey into the World of Dockside Prostitution in South Africa. Hailing from California, he has lived in Africa for 20 years and written extensively on African history, culture and education. He is based in Cape Town with his wife and daughter.

Dr. Holly Y. McGee is a historian at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. McGee’s research, teaching, and publishing in the fields of African American History, comparative black politics, and South African history provide critical insight into historical narratives regarding the social creation of “race” and subsequent proliferation of racism in modern society. She is the author of "One Day We Are Going Home": The Long Exile of Elizabeth Mafeking, and founder of the nonprofit National Black Teachers Association.

I.M. Aiken worked on ambulances off and on since the 1980s, starting in the Boston area where she was born and raised. She served one tour in Iraq as a civilian member of the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division, and now lives in Vermont.

Innocent Chizaram Ilo is Igbo. Their works interrogate gender, class, politics and sexuality. They were awarded the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa Region. A finalist for the Gerald Kraak Award and Short Story Day Africa Prize, their work has been published in Fireside Magazine, Overland, adda, Strange Horizons, Granta and has won the Africa YMCA and Oxford Festival of the Arts short story contests.

Irma Venter is a bestselling South African crime fiction writer and a journalist at a media company in Johannesburg.  She writes books about strong women, interesting men and that fascinating space between right and wrong.

Creator: James Clarke was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and educated at the University of Cape Town, where he studied history and literature and completed his Masters in Creative Writing as a Harry Crossley Fellow. In 2016, he was the South Africa finalist in fiction for the PEN International New Young Voices Award. Kariba is his first graphic novel collaboration.

Author: Jane Kurtz is an award-winning author of more than forty children’s books. She lived in Ethiopia from the age of two where family members worked for nearly thirty years.  Currently, Jane is an adviser to Ethiopia Reads and is the creative director of the Open Hearts Big Dreams book program and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Jason Mykl Snyman currently serves on the board of Short Story Day Africa and as the Fiction Editor for Expound magazine. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including New Contrast, Jalada Africa, Bloody Parchment, Kalahari Review, Helios Quarterly, The Examined Life Review, Expound and more.

Jeffrey P. Armstrong grew up in New York and Florida and as a teenager hitchhiked around America in the late 1960s. He has worked as a salesman in the health industries and as a registered nurse. He lives in Gulfport, Florida with his wife.

Author: Born in Hartford, CT, Jeremiah Knight brings a rich heritage of African American and Caribbean roots to the global culinary stage. A graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA, he further expanded his international perspective through studies at the University of Westminster in London, England, and earned his master’s degree from the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy/International Affairs.

As a U.S. diplomat, Jeremiah has worked across five continents, immersing himself in diverse cultures and cuisines while shaping U.S. foreign policy. His passion for global flavors has led to a celebrated nine-year tenure as the author of A World of Flavors, a popular column in Manjar Magazine (Dominican Republic), where he shares the vibrant recipes and culinary traditions he has encountered throughout his travels.

Now, in Diplomat in the Kitchen, Jeremiah invites you on a culinary journey across every continent, blending his diplomatic experiences with his love for food. This cookbook is more than a collection of recipes—it’s a passport to the world’s flavors, bringing together dishes that tell the stories of culture, history, and the universal language of food.

Jo-Ann Bekker began writing short fiction in 2012, after working as a newspaper reporter for many years. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Rhodes University and her short fiction has been published in journals in South Africa and the United States. Asleep Awake Asleep is her first collection of stories. She was born in East London, and lives in Knysna with her family.

Joanne Hichens is an author and editor living in Cape Town. She has published several novels, including Out To Score (co-authored), Divine Justice, Sweet Paradise, and for young adults, Stained and Riding the Wave. She had edited numerous short story collections, including Bad Company, an anthology of South African crime fiction endorsed by Lee Child. Her memoir, Death and the After Parties, was released by Karavan Press in November 2020.

Jose Rodriguez is a debut author of Puerto Rican descent, a veteran of the United States Military, a recovering drug addict, and a father. He lives in Iowa.

Joseph Olejak is a convinced Quaker who chose not to participate in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by willfully refusing to pay income tax. Having come to the understanding that there is that of God in all people, it became impossible to lend support for the Middle East wars by paying income tax. After serving time for his peace witness, Joseph Olejak now works on peace and justice issues within the Old Chatham Quaker Meeting.

Josephine Sokan is a Nigerian-born writer who moved to the UK as a child. She fell in love with literature in those tender years and now writes poetry, short stories, audio and stage scripts and articles on faith and motherhood. She is currently working on her first novel. Josephine relishes filling blank pages with stories that ask important questions. She enjoys exploring the delicate and difficult. Her work often deals with themes such as female identity, motherhood, the perceptions and attitudes towards mental health, “otherness” and faith from an Afro-European and very personal lens. She is a wife to her best friend and a mum to two cheeky little boys. She is a lover of romance but despises love stories. She is also a Nollywood connoisseur and enjoys experimental cuisine (eat at your own peril). Follow her @jo.sokan

Kabubu Mutua is an SSDA Inkubator Fellow 2022. He grew up in Machakos, Kenya. He was longlisted for the 2021 Afritondo Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the 2022 Peters Fraser and Dunlop Queer Fiction Prize. His work appears in The Hope, The Prayer, The Anthem anthology by Afritondo, A Long House, and the Commonwealth Writers adda magazine. Follow him @kabubumutua

Kanyinsola Olorunnisola is a poet, essayist and writer of fiction. His work interrogates anxiety, broken lineage, [in]sanity, grief and the black body as a warfront. His debut collection, In My Country, We’re All Crossdressers was published as a chapbook by Praxis. He is the founder of the SPRINNG Literary Movement.

Karen Vermeulen is an artist, illustrator and teacher living in Cape Town, South Africa, known for her happy, uplifting and quirky creations. She is the illustrator of two Catalyst Press children’s books, It's Just Skin, Silly! (2023) and Wanjiku, Child of Mine (2024), middle grade books Small Mercies (2020) and The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap (2022) as well as many Catalyst Press book covers.

Born in Jelenia Góra, Poland, Karina M. Szczurek lived in Austria, the United States and Wales, before finding a home in South Africa. She is the author of Truer than Fiction: Nadine Gordimer Writing Post-Apartheid South Africa (2008), Invisible Others (2014) and The Fifth Mrs Brink (2017), and she is the editor of Touch: Stories of Contact (2009), Encounters with André Brink (2010), Contrary: Critical Responses to the Novels of André Brink(with Willie Burger, 2013), Water: New Short Fiction from Africa (with Nick Mulgrew, 2015), Misplaced and Other Stories: New Short Fiction from African Kids (2017, with Catherine Shepherd), and most recently, You Make Me Possible: The Love Letters of Karina M. Szczurek and André Brink (2018). Her play for young adults, A Change of Mind, won the MML Literature Award in the Category English Drama in 2012. She also writes short stories, essays, and poetry. In 2018, she received the Thomas Pringle Award for her book reviewing. She is a proud board member of PEN SA and SSDA.

Karoline Anderson is a pediatrician with a love of books. Born in Vancouver, Canada, she currently lives with her husband, golden retriever Jax, and cat Smoky on a lake in Nebraska. She runs whenever she can and has completed several triathlons and one marathon. Her two amazing daughters are off making their own way in the world and are always making her proud.

Kendra Powers is fourteen years old. She lives in Colorado with her two sisters and two brothers. Bait is her pet toad, which she caught in the nearby river while visiting her grandparents and aunt, who is one of the publishers of this book. An artist, she knits, crochets, makes hats for her toad, and takes photos.

Khumbo Mhone is an actor turned marketer and entrepreneur living and working in Malawi. She received her undergraduate degree in Theatre and English from the University of Denver in Colorado before moving to New York where she worked as a professional actor for a year. Khumbo moved back to Malawi in 2015 and is currently the Business Development and Marketing Manager at Unicaf University. A contributor to Enthuse Magazine (an online publication based in Zimbabwe), she spends her free time writing her fiction blog, helping the community through Rotaract International, and working on her new novel about rain priestesses in pre-colonial Malawi.⁠ Follow her @kcmhone

Laura Camacho Frias was born in Barcelona Spain and raised in an industrial town in the North of Spain, Miranda de Ebro (Burgos). She attended University in Burgos and Aveiro (Portugal) years later. Now she is a full-time writer after many years of Corporate life. Laura was an only child of a single mother and later became a mother of a large family.

Raised on radio, Lee Sanders is a Texas author who likes to write from the hip. His passions include guitars, grilling, and golf, although he’s not afraid of perusing a classic novel or catching a football game. He lives in Fort Worth with his wife, Zina, and their two daughters, Emilia and Caroline. He was born and raised in Texarkana and graduated with a degree in History from East Texas State. Under the Light of Fireflies is his debut novel.

Leo Daly is the son of iconic South African Illustrator and writer Niki Daly.  He lives with his wife Magriet Brink in a tiny house by the sea on the southern tip of Africa.  You can follow Leo and Magriet @we_are_creativehouse on Instagram.

Lisa Gilgannon is a storyteller from the wild and wonderful hills of Scotland, where animals talk, trees whisper secrets, and every page blooms with joy. She crafts tales for children filled with curious creatures, playful lessons, and the magic of learning through nature. With a heart full of wonder and a head full of ideas, Lisa turns each story into a little adventure of laughter and love.

Lisa Maria Burgess hand-stitches textile art to illustrate her bilingual books for children. While her first language is English, she speaks Spanish and French with fluency, and enjoys learning the basics of any language she has the pleasure of meeting. Lisa currently divides her time between the United States and Bénin, grew up in México, and has lived around the world as a United Nations spouse. She holds a doctorate in English from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a wife and mother.

Luke Molver, author and illustrator: Luke Molver has always known that his life would be fuelled by storytelling. He studied Fine Art and Graphic Design at the Durban University of Technology and works as a freelance illustrator and comic book creator in Cape Town, South Africa. He has produced a number of comic books and his work has been published in a variety of graphic anthologies including the Laugh It Off annual, Velocity, Mamba Comix and GrafLit: Graveyard Literature.

M.C. Kasper was born and mostly raised in Maryland. From her younger years living on a farm, to her college years working in the Museum of Natural History at Frostburg State University, she has immersed herself in the lives of animals. Writing is amongst M.C.’s many creative interests, including photography, painting, and baking. She holds a Bachelor’s in English, and now lives in Severn, Maryland with her husband and daughter.

MacSmart Ojiludu is a writer and freelance content creator living in Nigeria. He has a Bachelors in Technology from the Federal University of Technology Owerri. His fiction deals with themes of surrealism and oddity.

Malcolm Himschoot is a writer, minister, and educator. The United Church of Christ, a historic denomination, made much of his ordination as an out trans man by producing the indie documentary Call Me Malcolm in 2005. His previous writing has appeared in edited anthologies and journals.

Martin Steyn began writing Stephen King-inspired horror stories in his teens. Given his interest in the darker recesses of human beings, it was probably unavoidable that he would become fascinated by serial killers. After obtaining degrees in Psychology and Criminology, he studied serial killers and profiling. He also wrote seven true crime articles for the Crime Library website.

But the dream was always to write fiction, particularly realistic crime fiction. This led to much research into the South African Police Service and its forensic units. In 2014 Donker Spoor was published by LAPA Uitgewers, and was awarded the ATKV-Woordveertjie for Suspense Fiction the following year. In 2017 it will be published in English as Dark Traces. Steyn is the translator for Dark Traces.

Steyn prefers to tell the story through the eyes of the detective, that individual with the extraordinary task of finding justice for those whose final chapter ends up being written in a murder docket.

Born in Germany in the 1960s to war-traumatised  parents, Martina Dahlmanns grew up in middle class suburbia, surrounded by loaded silences and unacknowledged prejudice. For as long as she can remember, writing has been her go-to-place, allowing her to express the unthinkable and make sense of her feelings. She first came to South Africa on a holiday after the first democratic elections, missed her flight back and never left. Her writing career includes making up Chinese subtitles for Swedish porn and plotting weekly murders for a radio mystery-show in Berlin. She lives in Cape Town with her partner and their three children.

Born and bred in Gugulethu, South Africa, Tumi grew up in the last years of apartheid,  grappling from an early age with issues of social injustice and racism. Motivated  to understand and challenge herself and those around her, she co-founded “This Dialogue Thing” , studied psychology and took up boxing. She recently submitted her masters thesis and lives with her partner and their child in Somerset West.

Masiyaleti Mbewe is a queer Zambian afrofuturist writer, photographer, activist, academic, TEDx alumnus and Masters in Arts student based in Windhoek, Namibia. Her work revolves around the use of various mediums to navigate and negotiate alternative African futures using the confluence of language and cultural exchange in the representation of Africans in popular culture. Her fiction writing also aims to examine African technologies and the digitization of African futures.

Mason O’Connor grew up in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. He studied Mathematics at Stellenbosch University, and works as a data analyst in Cape Town. He has a passion for storytelling, music, games and puzzles, and the outdoors.

Max Annas is the author of fictional and non-fictional books. Before writing novels he was working as a journalist and published on food production, right wing youth culture and philosophy. He worked for film festivals and organized screenings in Germany, South Africa and Mozambique. Research on South African Jazz at the University of Fort Hare (East London, South Africa). Novels: Die Farm (2014), Die Mauer (2016), Illegal (2017) and Finsterwalde (2018).

Melusi Nkomo was born and bred in Zimbabwe. He lives and studies in Switzerland. He has been published in Wasafiri Magazine and New Frame and shortlisted for the 2018 Wasafiri Prize for New Writing. He holds a doctoral degree in Anthropology and Sociology from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

Michelle Hattingh was born in South Africa in 1988. She attended school in Port Elizabeth and studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Stellenbosch University. She went on to do her Honours in Psychology at Cape Town University and now lives in Cape Town. Michelle works as senior online content producer at Marie Claire SA. Her work has been published in Elle SA, Marie Claire SA and Mail & Guardian. I’m the Girl Who Was Raped is her first book.

Mike Nicol is an author, journalist, editor and a teacher of creative and non-fiction narrative writing. He has published a number of crime thrillers. His thrillers have all featured on the KrimiZeit Top 10 in Germany and he has been shortlisted for the VN Thriller of the Year award in Holland and the Prix SNCF Du Polar in France. His non-fiction includes memoirs, biographies and reportage. He has also published two volumes of poetry.

Moso Sematlane is a writer and filmmaker living in Maseru, Lesotho. His works have been published in Nat. Brut, The Kalahari Review, and adda, the online literary magazine of the Commonwealth Foundation. His story “Tetra Hydro Cannabinol” was shortlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and his film “The Season Hyssops” won best unproduced script at the Writer’s Guild of South Africa Muse. He is an assistant editor at Lolwe. ⁠Follow Moso @mososematlane.⁠

Mphuthumi Ntabeni is a South African author who lives in Cape Town.  He is trained in the economics of built environment, reads history and literature as something more than a hobby. He’s particularly passionate about the South African Frontier history and the wars of land dispossession.

Máire Fisher is a writer, writing mentor and editor. Her first novel, Birdseye, was published in South Africa in 2014 by Penguin Random House. Her second, The Enumerations, was published in South Africa by Umuzi in August 2018. Máire’s work has been published in several anthologies including Incredible Journey, Just Keep Breathing: South African Birth Stories; Twist: Short Stories Inspired by Tabloid Headlines, Women Flashingand Writing the Self. She was born in Zambia, educated in Zimbabwe, and currently resides in South Africa, where she runs several renowned writing workshops.

N. A. Dawn writes essays, poetry and literary speculative fiction, chiefly concerned with ecological politics and the prickly problem of human flourishing. He holds a BA in English Literature and Environmental Science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and has been featured in New Contrast Literary Magazine and Short Story Day Africa. He is known for philosophical digressions, drumming on everything, producing improbably vivid sound effects with his mouth, and for someone who spends so much time at a desk, his roundhouse kicks are actually quite nimble.⁠ Follow Nick @nadawnauthor

Nadia Ahidjo is a Pan-African feminist writer and development professional based in Dakar, Senegal. She uses her experience in the development sector to weave together fiction and non-fiction stories. Her other work has been published by Afreada and African Feminisms, and is available online.

Najwa Binshatwan is a Libyan academic and novelist. She is the author of three novels: The Slave Yards (2016), Orange Content (2008), and The Horses' Hair (2005) in addition to collections of short stories and plays.

Nicholas A. Dawn is a South African/American novelist, essayist, poet and blogger, writing at the collision course of literary speculative fiction, Capitalocene ecosophies and radical politics. He tutors humanities and languages to high schoolers. His work has been published in New Contrast.

Niki Daly has won many awards for his work. His groundbreaking Not So Fast Songololo, winner of a US Parent’s Choice Award, paved the way for post-apartheid South African children’s books. Among his many books, Once Upon a Time was an Honor Winner in the US Children’s Africana Book Awards and Jamela’s Dress was chosen by the ALA as a Notable Children’s Book and by Booklist as one of the Top 10 African American Picture Books of 2000 - it also won both the Children’s Literature Choice Award and the Parents' Choice Silver Award. Niki lives with his wife, the author and illustrator Jude Daly, in South Africa.

Onke Mazibuko is a psychologist who has worked in different settings including private practice, corporate, non-government organisations, tertiary institutions and schools. Currently he works as the Director of Transformation, Diversity and Inclusion in an all-girls’ private school. Onke has two masters’ degrees, one in Counselling Psychology and the other in Public Health. Currently he is in his final year of a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Pretoria. He is a recipient of the Canon Collins Educational Trust Scholarship, as well as the International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP – Public Health) granted by the US Department of State. He is also a Mawazo African Writers Institute Fellow. His debut novel, The Second Verse, was published by Penguin Random House in South Africa and longlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Awards and won in the Youth Literature category of the South African Literary Awards.

Peter Church is a South African fiction novelist renowned for the dark and racy nature of his writing. Church lives in Cape Town with his wife, the artist Paula Church, and three children. He is a member of SA’s PEN association of writers.

Peter Lindenfeld turned 100 years old in March 2025, editing and revising this book right up to his hundredth birthday. Retired from a storied academic career at Rutgers University, Peter lives with his partner in a retirement home only a few blocks from the house that was his home for many decades.

Philisiwe Twijnstra is a writer, director and actor. She lives in Durban where she founded Durban Women Playwrights in 2017. She was shortlisted for the 2017 Short Sharp Stories prize. Her plays have been performed at or won awards from the National Arts Festival, the Women’s Theatre Festival in Johannesburg, Zee Zee Theatre in Canada, among others. She was recipient for the 2018 CASA playwright award residency and a 2020 Distell Playwright Finalist. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from Rhodes University.

Pieter de Poortere is reeds vir meer as twintig jaar die illustreerder-skrywer van die veelbekroonde Boerke-strokiesprente. Hy is gebore en woon in Gent, België. Sy werk is in verskeie tale in tydskrifte, koerante en boeke gepubliseer, en is te sien in die Belgiese Stripsentrum, ’n museum vir strokiesprente in Brussel. Pieter se aweregse karakter het ook sy eie reeks op Vlaamse televisie, op Prime en op die stasie Adult Swim in Frankryk gehad.

Polly Kronenberger is a novelist whose work explores the intersection of everyday life and humanity. Drawing inspiration from her years of work in a plethora of jobs, her stories often delve into the dilemmas of our increasingly connected world. When she's not writing, she enjoys the world around her, where she lives with her life partner and a menagerie of pets and farm animals in Camden, Ohio.

With degrees in art history and historic preservation, Rachel Hildebrandt worked as a historical consultant and academic editor before transitioning to literary translation. A recipient of several translation grants from both the Goethe Institut and the Austrian Ministry of Culture, she has published both fiction and nonfiction works in translation, including Herr Faustini Takes a Trip by Wolfgang Hermann (KBR Media), Collision by Merle Kroeger (Unnamed Press), Fade to Black by Zoe Beck (Weyward Sisters Press), and The Happiness Bureau by Andreas Izquierdo (Owl Canyon Press). Her translations have appeared in journals such as Europe Now, Anomaly and Trafika Europe. Rachel is also the founder of Weyward Sisters Publishing, which focuses on bringing contemporary works of crime and noir fiction by women authors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland to English readers.

Rachel Zadok was born in Tel Aviv and raised in Johannesburg. She has a National Diploma in Fine Arts. In 2001, she escaped a career in advertising to become a writer, which she describes as being a little like running away to join the circus without the safety net. She is the author of two novels: Gem Squash Tokoloshe (2005), shortlisted for The Whitbread First Novel Award and The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and longlisted for the IMPAC Award; and Sister-Sister (2013), shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Prize and The Herman Charles Bosman Prize, and longlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Award. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and daughter.

Raffaella Delle Donne has over fifteen years of experience in the animation industry developing and creating content for Disney, eOne, Wekids, Snipple Animation, Netflix, Baobab Studios and Triggerfish Animation Studios. She was the TV Development Executive for the Triggerfish Studios/Disney Storylab that incubated Mama K's Team 4 and co-wrote the award-winning features Adventures in Zambezia and Khumba. Raffaella is currently a writer and Executive Creative Consultant on Kiya and the Kimoja Heroes, a new preschool show slated for release on Disney.

Reneilwe Malatji was born in South Africa in 1968. She grew up in Turfloop township, in the northern part of South Africa, during the era of apartheid. Her father was an academic and her mother was a school teacher. Malatji trained as a teacher and worked as a subject specialist and advisor to provincial education departments. She recently completed a post-graduate diploma in Journalism and an MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes University. She works as a lecturer at the University of Limpopo in South Africa and has an adult son. Love interrupted is her first book.

Rosemary Smith started working with the Black Sash in about 1967, first in the Advice Office and then holding various positions in the organisation, including being a Vice President. At the dissolution of the membership organisation, she was employed as Director of the Grahamstown Black Sash Advice Office for five years.  She is currently on a number of local boards and trusts and is chairperson of the Grahamstown Friends of the Library. She still lives in Grahamstown with her husband, Malvern van Wyk Smith, where they raised their four children.  Swimming with Cobras is her first book.

Rosemary Smith started working with the Black Sash in about 1967, first in the Advice Office and then holding various positions in the organisation, including being a Vice President. At the dissolution of the membership organisation, she was employed as Director of the Grahamstown Black Sash Advice Office for five years.  She is currently on a number of local boards and trusts and is chairperson of the Grahamstown Friends of the Library. She still lives in Grahamstown with her husband, Malvern van Wyk Smith, where they raised their four children.  Swimming with Cobras is her first book.

Sahra Noor is a writer, international health and philanthropy consultant, executive coach, and leadership development expert based in Nairobi, Kenya. Noor is the Founder and CEO of Grit Partners, a consulting firm that supports health system reform, capacity building, and leadership transformation across Africa and beyond.

Women out of Water is Sally Cranswick’s debut collection of short stories. She lives in Cape Town and is a writer and workshop facilitator with a special interest in life-writing and memoir. She has an MA in Creative Writing from UCT. Before coming to South Africa, Sally lived in many countries around the world and worked as a singer in the UK and Southeast Asia.