Deadline: May 31, 2026 7:00 PM
SUBMIT VIA SUBMITTABLE
Lolwe: From Nam Lolwe, the original or traditional Luo name for Lake Victoria meaning “endless lake/water body”. Therefore, Lolwe meaning endless, meaning “having or seeming to have no end or limit”.
Lolwe is a Pan-African literary arts platform that publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, hybrid writing, orature, drama, translation, and visual art. Founded in January 2020 by Troy Onyango, the magazine has a focus on amplifying the work by writers, poets and visual artists from Africa, Caribbean and the Black diaspora. Lolwe aims to publish more work by Black creatives as this is a way to ensure greater visibility for stories by Black people and to give a platform and space for the “Black imagination.”
Lolwe: From Nam Lolwe, the original or traditional Luo name for Lake Victoria meaning “endless lake/water body”. Therefore, Lolwe meaning endless, meaning “having or seeming to have no end or limit”.
Lolwe is a Pan-African literary arts platform that publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, hybrid writing, orature, drama, translation, and visual art. Founded in January 2020 by Troy Onyango, the magazine has a focus on amplifying the work by writers, poets and visual artists from Africa, Caribbean and the Black diaspora. Lolwe aims to publish more work by Black creatives as this is a way to ensure greater visibility for stories by Black people and to give a platform and space for the “Black imagination.”
Lolwe is looking for work that is bold, different, and pushes boundaries: play with form and language, ignore limitations and classifications, send in your fears and joys, your doubts and faiths, your curiosities and silences.
General submissions from the public are open once a year across all genres.
Lolwe Academy alumni and solicited contributors may submit at any time of the year across all genres.
We accept submissions in English and French across all categories.
We also accept translated fiction from any language used in Africa and the Caribbean.
Please read the submission guidelines carefully and submit your work to the appropriate category via Submittable. Any work sent via email or to the wrong category will not be read and will be automatically rejected.
While not mandatory, we recommend that you read our past issues before submitting.
For queries, please email info@lolwe.org.
Submission Guidelines Length: 1,000-10,000 words for prose. 3 – 5 poems contained in a single document. 5 – 10 images/artworks in one document alongside 200-500 words about the work. (If you’d like to submit an image for the cover, just submit a single high resolution file).
Format: Word document, Times New Roman, 12pt, double-spaced.
Award submissions: Lolwe nominates work for awards such as Caine Prize, Pushcart Prize and The Best Short Stories: The O. Henry Prize.
Bio: Send a brief bio alongside the submission.
Queries: Send any queries to info@lolwe.org. Only queries sent to this email will be replied to. Please don’t send social media DMs.
General submissions from the public are open once a year across all genres.
Lolwe Academy alumni and solicited contributors may submit at any time of the year across all genres.
We accept submissions in English and French across all categories.
We also accept translated fiction from any language used in Africa and the Caribbean.
Please read the submission guidelines carefully and submit your work to the appropriate category via Submittable. Any work sent via email or to the wrong category will not be read and will be automatically rejected.
While not mandatory, we recommend that you read our past issues before submitting.
For queries, please email info@lolwe.org.
Submission Guidelines Length: 1,000-10,000 words for prose. 3 – 5 poems contained in a single document. 5 – 10 images/artworks in one document alongside 200-500 words about the work. (If you’d like to submit an image for the cover, just submit a single high resolution file).
Format: Word document, Times New Roman, 12pt, double-spaced.
Payment: At the moment, Lolwe is not funded so we will offer a £50 voucher redeemable towards a Lolwe Academy course or at Lolwe Books.
Award submissions: Lolwe nominates work for awards such as Caine Prize, Pushcart Prize and The Best Short Stories: The O. Henry Prize.
Bio: Send a brief bio alongside the submission.
Queries: Send any queries to info@lolwe.org. Only queries sent to this email will be replied to. Please don’t send social media DMs.