The Library Of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD) and the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) are launching a call for applications for a four-week writing residency taking place in May 2021.

The LOATAD-SCCA Writing Residency is a self-directed programme in which writers working across genres from Africa and the Diaspora are given the time and space to work on a long form project. The residency is intended to help stimulate and inspire a new level of creativity.

Residents will have a unique opportunity to experience life in both Southern and Northern Ghana. In Accra, they will have access to LOATAD’s vast collection of books by African and Diaspora writers . In Tamale, they will get to interact with artists from across disciplines in residence at the SCCA/Red Clay.

FAQs

• When: Mid-May to Mid-June 2021
• Duration: 4 weeks: 2 in Accra, 2 in Tamale
• Cost: Accommodation costs are covered by the residency. However, successful applicants will be required to pay for their own travel to, from, and within Ghana, and their own food
• Open to: Writers from Africa and the African Diaspora e.g. the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe.

Eligibility

• Applicants must be 21 years old, and over
• Open to writers of all genres, at all stages of their writing careers
• We welcome unpublished writers, but they will need to demonstrate significant literary output and/or a commitment to literature

To apply

Submit the following to residency@loatad.org by 12pm GMT on 18 January, 2021:

• A writing sample of no more than 2,000 words
• A writer’s CV
• A letter of why you want to be in residence of no more than 500 words
• Two professional referees

Interviews for shortlisted applicants will be held online in February 2021.

Successful applicants will be notified in March 2021.

Questions? Email residency@loatad.org.

NB: Writers-in-residence will be required to give a presentation of or about their work at the library at the end of the LOATAD part of the residency.

Header Image: African American Playwright Lorraine Hansberry – Photograph by David Attie / Getty