They say, “Until the lion learns to speak the take of the hunt will always glorify the hunter“. Our vision, therefore, is to give voice to the lion by publishing stories that challenge, move, excite, inspire and enthrall readers.

Africans have been telling stories around the fire since the beginning of time. Africa is rich with legends, mythological creatures, folklores that tell of magical, paranormal, supernatural, mystical, otherworldly adventures. These stories have carried culture, traditions and principles from generation to generation. These stories have taught us our history and served to educate us. And some of these stories were just purely entertaining.

Stories about Anansi the spider, Mamlambo, ghosts, tokoloshi’s, vampires, Nethathe, soul eaters, witches, zombies, jinns and eloko… Reality and fantasy blurred. Heroes took on mythical monsters. Heroines protected entire nations. And these were our stories, told in our own way by our own storytellers.

Do you have a story to tell? A magical, fantastical, mystical story with supernatural, paranormal creatures from the past or the future or a parallel time? A story that can be classified as speculative fiction, fantasy, magic realism, supernatural or folkloric.

Black Letter Media wants to read your manuscript.

Black Letter Media is looking for stories that tap into the magic and otherworldliness of Africa. The otherworldliness of our folklore, magical, fantastical and historical or futuristic in nature. These stories must tap into our varied cultures, be inspired by, recreate or be original stories that fit into the speculative fiction genre.

This is an Africa-wide call for unpublished novel length manuscripts.

• Deadline: 15 December 2013
• word-count: 40 000 to 120 000
• manuscript must be in the speculative fiction genre (sci-fi, fantasy, magic realism, folkloric)
• manuscript must be previous unpublished in any language or territory
• manuscript must not be submitted at the same time to another publisher
• this call is for Africa-based, African writers only
• submit manuscripts in English

Formatting Guidelines

1. Send manuscripts in a Word doc (or docx)
2. Your name, address and contact information must be on the first page (cover page)
3. Times New Roman or Courier New, 12pt, double space lines
4. Begin each new chapter on a new page
5. DO NOT add anything in the header or footer, leave the header and footer blank

Send all manuscripts to story@blackletterm.com.

For questions and queries please email info@blackletterm.com or use the form on here -> contact us