Image Credit: AtlasbyAtlas Studio, Shutterstock.com
Guest Edited by Anwuli Ojogwu
“My belief is that if we live another century or so … and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think… if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women…”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
What does it mean to be a woman?
When Dzekashu asked me to be the guest editor of the Woman Issue, I was delighted and perplexed. Delighted because it was an opportunity to showcase the complexity of being a woman and perplexed because of the broadness of the subject.
So, I decided to approach this issue with the central point of Virginia Woolf’s work, A Room of One’s Own. That is, to give women the “freedom” to explore, interpret and contextualise the experience of living in their own skins—in their own words.
As a society, women are labelled as the “same” in a patriarchal system that sets rules of behaviours that exemplify the aspirational virtuous woman in the Bible. But a woman has no single identity. We are dynamic and evolve. We are not perfect. We are chaste and we are wanton; we are ambitious, and we are kept; we are advocates and we are enforcers of oppressed cultures and customs; we are feminists and anti-feminists; we are CIS, gay and trans. We are primary care takers, single mothers, single women, married women etc. Our existence is a moral and political compass—sexuality, body, identity.
In this issue we want to give a voice to women (and men feminists, maybe) contributors on this identity journey. We seek fiction, nonfiction, photography and poetry that explore stories of the experience of living in one’s own skin in this call for submission. What are the pain points? What are the struggles? What is your joy?
We want honest and creative writing in evocative styles. We want thought pieces that are deep and questioning, that state clearly and explore this theme. Our submission guidelines can be found here.
Anwuli Ojogwu
Guest Editor
Submission Guidelines
We accept unpublished fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, cartoons etc. Submissions must be sent as an attachment including a short biography and picture if available. We accept submissions in English, French & Pidgin English and pay a token fee of USD 60 for each accepted piece.
- Fiction: should be 3,000 words minimum.
- (Creative)Non-fiction: we accept essays, articles, travel writing, memoirs, collages etc. Between 2,000 words to 7,000 words. We do not accept scholarly articles.
- Poetry: send 4 -8 poems of any length and style. For translated poems, make sure that they are accompanied by the originals.
- Photography: we accept high quality pictures that have a story to tell or which capture the human condition, as well as original art or cartoons.
Your biography and email address should be at the end of the word document, which should be sent as an attachment alongside a picture. Please do not name your submission any of the following: “For Bakwa”, “Bakwa”, or “Submission”. An example of how you can name the document you are submitting is; “Fiction Submission by (your name)”, or you can include the title of your piece in the name of the document; “December Rain by Elsa M’Bala”.
We will acquire first time publishing rights and all other rights will revert to the author once published on our website or in print.
All submissions, queries and questions should be sent to info@bakwa.org
DEADLINE: JANUARY 10, 2022
DEADLINE (EXTENDED): JANUARY 31, 2022