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The Excursion Potpourri

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Pen Avenue will be trekking through Zomba Plateau on Saturday, 15 April 2017. The team comprising of poets, essayists, fictionists, non-fictionists, scriptwriters and everything writing will challenge themselves to produce a digital anthology of writing inspired by the landscape of Zomba plateau and the beauty beneath it. The following will be a part of the Excursion: Tamanda Kanjaye Tamanda is a writer and poet currently pursuing a Journalism degree at The Polytechnic (University of Malawi). In her early teens she began being interested in the concepts of death, human misery, broken souls, self -destruction and the idea of possible salvation and redemption. She then decided to romanticize such ideas into her poetry before branching them out into prose. She is now comfortable writing general young adult fiction in which she implores a soft but sharp writing style that best appeals to human emotions. She hopes to one day imitate and exceed the writing style Markus Zusak us
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Call for Applications: fully funded Pen Avenue Writing Excursion for Malawian young writers

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Pen Avenue will be holding a Writing Excursion on Saturday, 15 April, 2017. The Excursion will take place on Zomba Mountain, from morning to late afternoon. It is expected that from this Excursion, a digital anthology will be produced.  Pen Avenue is, therefore, calling for applications from Malawian writers aged 25 and below for them to attend the Excursion. Interested applicants should apply with the following: A sample of their own writing (in any genre) with the word limit of 2000 words for any form of prose and not more than 2 pages for poetry and not more than 10 pages for a play or its snippet (all in 12pt Times New Roman, 1.5 spacing) An essay of not more than 500 words explaining why they would like to attend the Excursion and what they expect to write from the Excursion  A brief bio of themselves Complete applications should be emailed to penavenue3@gmail.com before 11:59 pm on Friday, 31 March, 2017.  Pen Avenue will provide the following to successful applica
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Announcement: Angasamale Maliro's Quiet Revolutions has emerged as the Inaugural Pen Avenue Writing Competition winning story

Pen Avenue Malawi is pleased to announce that the short story, Quiet Revolutions , by Angasamale Maliro is the winning story for the Pen Avenue Short Story Writing Competition for University students. The story emerged number one basing on a 70% contribution from the judges towards the final score and a 30% contribution from the wider public. Despite not winning the public opinion vote, Maliro's story emerged top followed by Kennedy Kaula's story, Mlela , and Tamanda Kanjaye's story, For someone I used to know . The other two stories are number 2 and 3 respectively on an aggregate of both popular vote and the judges' decision. For winning the Competition, Maliro will claim the K100,000 cash prize from Pen Avenue. The three winners will also be a part of the Pen Avenue Writing Excursion to take place in Mid-April in Zomba. Details of the Excursion will be published later.
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Meet the Shortlisted writers for the University Students Short Story Competition

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Three authors pursuing undergraduate studies in Colleges and Universities across Malawi have been shortlisted for our inaugural writing competition. These are the three authors whose works have been shortlisted (presented here in an alphabetical order basing on their first names): Angasamale Maliro She is a writer, independent author and college student living in Blantyre. In 2016, she electronically self-published her debut, a contemporary coming-of-age novel, titled Tender Underneath. Angasa likes to write about broken people and the allure of self-destructive tendencies. For this competition, her entry Quiet Revolutions was described by one of our judges as "a delicate experimentation of a style that is somehow a thrill for the reader, a risk for the author". Kennedy Kaula Born on 5 February, 1994, he is a Malawian young writer whose career started with poetry in 2010. He has been performing spoken word poetry until recently he realised the essence
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Shortlist: Malawi University Students Short Story Competition

Pen Avenue Malawi is pleased to announce a shortlist of its inaugural writing competition which involved Malawian University and College Students.  The competition received a positive response. A careful and comprehensive judgment of the stories was entered into upon the closure of the completion. Three stories were deemed to have qualified for the shortlist.  The following are the stories that have made it into the shortlist (arranged in order of the alphabet basing on the story titles):      For Someone I used to know by Tamanda Kanjaye  Mlela by Kennedy Kaula   Quiet Revolutions by Angasamale Maliro Short bios of the authors can be found here .       Members of the public are being informed that they can actively participate in the voting of the stories. Rea d the stories by clicking on the link to every story and leave a comment. You can also join us on Facebook by liking our page here .      NB: For those who participated but did not make it int
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Mlela

By Kennedy Kaula  This part of the river was my favorite. I liked the sight of fishermen and kids swimming. I hated the women who came with laundry. They made unnecessary noise. But they never came often, so they did not really worry me.  Mlela was the only physical feature our village had. It is believed that over a hundred years ago the most holy man in the village drowned in Mlela. Ever since the incident happened, the river turned into a home for various kinds of fish than any other river in the neighboring villages; apparently proving to be of economic value to us. In the rainy season, Mlela does grow muscles although no one has ever drowned in the river. There is a spirit of the holy man under that river working tirelessly for the goodness of the village.  Unlike the fishermen, the kids and the whole village, I found the river so generous in a special way. It offered me the best writing ideas than any place I have ever known. My usual spot was a T-carved stone t
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