The Kalahari Review is an African-centric magazine interested in material exploring modern Africa and Africans in unique and avant-garde ways. Telling new stories from everyday African life as told by the people that are living it. We are looking for stories that have not often been told but should be — through voices that have not yet been heard — but should. We are interested in works from both the continent and the diaspora.

We hope to push the limits and expose the world to aspects of Africa not often shown — both the positives and the negatives.

Please take the time to enjoy the content on the site and get an understanding for what we publish before submitting.

Because this is a web-based publication there are no word count restrictions and no deadlines.

The Kalahari Review is always open for submissions.

Compensation: Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to pay our contributors. However, our goal is to be be able to provide a place where an African artist can receive proper compensation for their work. We are working very hard to acquire advertisers and sponsorships. When we have proper funding we will change our policy on compensation.

Thank you for being a part of the community and good luck.

All submissions should be meet the following guidelines:

All submissions should be emailed to: editor@kalaharireview.com

The subject line of the email should state the artist’s name and title of the work.

In the body of the email must be a query letter. In the query please include: an explanation of the genre your submission is (poetry, fiction, non-fiction, personal essay, photography, visual art — etc.) as well as contact details, country of origin, your Twitter handle if you have one, a link to your blog or website and a short bio written in the third person.

Then attach your work according to the genre specification below.

(If you are unfamiliar with query letters — there is an excellent guide on submitting to literary publications that will help you: here.)

We read all the submissions and should respond that we have received it and are putting it into our submission cycle within a week of receiving your submission. If you don’t hear from us after a week’s time feel free to contact us and confirm we received it.

Each new submission should be sent on a fresh email chain to avoid confusion with previous submissions.

Please do not submit more than one submission at a time.

Simultaneous submissions are ok, but we do not accept work that has been published elsewhere already.

All rights to the works revert to the artists on publication. However, we do request that if it is published elsewhere that The Kalahari Review is noted as the original publisher.

Genre specific requirements:

Fiction, essays, humour pieces, articles, profiles, memoirs, interviews, etc: Should be single spaced format and be attached as a Microsoft Word document and should be accompanied by a proper query letter in the body of the email. Please include any photos or graphic illustrations that you feel would help your piece.

The Igby Prize for Nonfiction

We are opening a monthly nonfiction/essay contest. The winner each month will receive a $50 usd prize.

Each month will have a theme. When submitting to the contest please specify in the query letter that it is for the contest and which theme.

Here are the themes by month for 2017:

January — Home

February — Relationships & Family

March — Night life: On the night life of cities and towns around The Continent

April- Freedom

May — Food

June — Pride: These is are month dedicated to the African LGBTQ community and their issues

July — Work

August — Where I live and why

October — Comfort/Discomfort

September — Travel

November — African Writers of the Past

December — Festive Traditions