Creative Writing at Wits University

27/08/2026

Join Wits students and alumni in conversation with one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century. Bring your student card and pay R120 on Saturday or R80 on Sunday. All welcome

26/08/2026

If you missed A Season in Hillbrow yesterday join us at the ASSITEJ South Africa Cradle of Creativity Festival.

A specially designed teacher and learner resource pack has been created based on the Long Poem methodology by Stacy Hardy. These will be available at the two performances.

A Season in Hillbrow, a reimagining of Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, brings Rimbaud’s fierce youthful rebellion into dialogue with the urgencies of contemporary Johannesburg. Set in Hillbrow, a dense, multilingual and vibrant migrant neighbourhood shaped by inequality, displacement, xenophobia as well as community and inventivesness, the work asks what rebellion might mean for a new generation.
Through poetry, performance, movement and collective voice, young people turn refusal into a creative force: inventing new languages, solidarities and ways of imagining the future. The work moves between what is remembered and what can still be invented, asking how rebellion might become a way of remaking the past and the present, and imagining futures not yet given.

The Long Poem Project was initiated by Stacy Hardy in 2024, in partnership Creative Writing, University of the Witwatersrand.

This year’s long poem project is supported by the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), Oppenheimer Memorial Institute, Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.

Creative Writing at Wits University
French Institute of South Africa
Department of Sport, Arts and Culture

Thank you to the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust for their generous support of our programmes.

05/08/2026

ONE MONTH TO GO

Applications for the 2027 BA Honours and MA in Creative Writing at Wits University close on 15 September 2026.

Our intensive, workshop-based programmes offer writers the time, community and rigorous support needed to develop their voices across fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, scriptwriting and experimental forms.

BA Honours students produce a substantial portfolio across genres. MA students complete a full-length creative manuscript in their chosen form.

This year, eligible MA applicants may also apply for the Achmat Dangor Literary Prize, which provides financial support to a young, previously disadvantaged writer pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at Wits.

The prize is open to writers working in any literary genre. Applicants without an Honours degree may be considered on the strength of substantial writing or publishing experience.

Deadline: 15 September 2026

Programme details:
https://www.wits.ac.za/creativewriting/

Dangor Prize applications and enquiries:
[email protected]

Please share widely. Somewhere, a manuscript is waiting for the conditions in which it can become a book.

25/06/2026

Nou Pas Bouger!

So we invited friends and comrades, poets and writers, South Africans, to sit with us on 30th June 2026 and share their thoughts, read from a piece that speaks their feelings. Expect to hear from: Gabeba Baderoon; Milisuthando Bongela; Audrey Brown; Jacques Coetzee; Nolan Dennis; Nadia Davids; C.A. Davids; Alexandra Dodd; Ingrid de Kok; Phillippa Yaa de Villiers; Asher Gamedze; Thandi Gamedze; Pumla Dineo Gqola; Tania Haberland; Stacy Hardy; Rangoato Hlasane; Ali Hlongwane; Kemang wa Lehulere; Hlengiwe Lushaba; Bongani Madondo; Percy Mabandu; Mandla Mlangeni; Ingrid Masondo; Athambile Masola; Shepi Mati; Nombuso Mathibela; Kwena Mokoena; Masello Motana; Siya Mthembu; Lethokuhle Msimang; Sisonke Msimang; Nhlanhla Ngqaqu; Sandile Ngidi; Julie Nxadi; Yewande Omotoso; Shailja Patel; Uhuru Phalafala; Edgar Pieterse; Thania Pietersen; Jolyn Phillips; Karen Press; General Sbu; Kelwyn Sole; Ari Sitas; Ivan Vladislavić; Zukiswa Wanner; Ilze Wolff; Breeze Yoko and many more...

Live on PASS on the day, from 7pm - panafricanspacestation.org.za

Our brethren Bongani Kona will intro and coordinate proceedings. Join in.

12/05/2026

Applications are open for the Achmat Dangor Literary Prize 2026
The biennial Achmat Dangor Literary Prize supports a young, previously disadvantaged writer to pursue an MA in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2027.
Established in honour of acclaimed South African writer, activist and cultural leader Achmat Dangor, the prize carries forward his commitment to literature, justice, memory, and the unfinished questions of South African life.
The prize is open to young writers working in poetry, fiction, scriptwriting, memoir or creative nonfiction, whose work engages South African experiences, voices, histories, futures and literary possibility. Thank you to the Achmat Dangor Legacy Project for the support.
Deadline: 15 September 2026
Submit applications to: [email protected]
Application details & criteria: https://www.wits.ac.za/creativewriting/achmat-dangor-literary-prize/
Achmat Dangor Legacy Project https://achmatdangor.co.za/
The recipient will be announced in October 2026, during a special ceremony celebrating Achmat Dangor’s birthday month.

05/05/2026

Writing Between Tongues: Translation as Creative Process

The Wits Italian Department, Translation Studies, and Creative Writing, in collaboration with the Wits Reading & Writing Centre, invite you to a lunchtime conversation with Raphael d'Abdon, in discussion with Alice Leal and Anita Virga, chaired by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers.

Together they will explore translation as writing, listening, re-making, and crossing between languages — drawing on Raphael d’Abdon’s work as a poet, editor, writer, and translator, including his Italian translation of Etienne van Heerden’s The Long Silence of Mario Salviati.

Monday 11 May
1 PM
Wits Reading & Writing Centre Wits Writing Centre
Wartenweiler Library, East Campus, Braamfontein

Free and open to all.

22/04/2026

Creative writing alumnus Riley Hlatshwayo is painting the town read this weekend.

Riotzine Launch
Riotzine is an independently published collection of work by South African writers and artists born after 1994. Centering around the theme of youth, this zine becomes a generational document with a range of current voices thinking about their lives.

In Riotzine Esinako Ndabeni has collected short stories, personal essays, poetry, and visual art from a diverse group of local creatives and is giving the reader a front row seat to a growing literary landscape.

The collection features a short story from beloved Bridge Books alum Riley Hlatshwayo who is another contributor to this rising literary landscape with their publication and zine LIMINAL (stylised as LMNL).

LIMINAL
LIMINAL (stylised as LMNL) is a zine and indie media platform founded by Riley Hlatshwayo.
By Riley Hlatshwayo
Some personal standout pieces from Riotzine are Don’t Tell My Mom: A short story by Riley Hlatshwayo, IKHOMPI Complexion: Photography by Khanya Zibaya, and Lois Flandorp’s essay Big Bek, Bigger Problems: My Rage Against Neoliberal South Africa.

Join us this Saturday for a discussion with contributing creatives, Riley Hlatshwayo, Kabelo Ntlaloe and Dylan Coleman.

Date: 25 April
Time: 11:00 for 11:30
Where: Bridge Books Barbican, 89 Helen Joseph Cnr Rissik
Please reserve your spot with an RSVP to [email protected].

Silent Reading Club

Read what you like, at your own pace while the city breathes around you.
Once a month we host our Silent Reading Club. Spend your Saturday afternoon with a book and drink while surrounded by other readers.

When: Saturday 25 April
Time: 14:00 - 16:00
Cost: R60 per person (includes a drink)
Where: Bridge Books Barbican, 89 Helen Joseph Cnr Rissik

30/03/2026

Every scratch, scribble, and stain of red ink is the city’s score.

“Instead of a pestering cacophony, I heard layers of sound that had an orderly-chaotic, balance—from children laughing to screeching tyres, from chirping birds to drunk adults hollering about nothing.” — Thabang Matsaung

This artwork emerged from the Windybrow Arts Centre, a dynamic space deeply embedded in Hillbrow, and forms part of the ‘Atlas of Uncertainty: Transforming African Cityscapes’ book.

Contributing artists ages 14 to 20:
Thandeka Masango
Reneilwe Leopeng
Thabang Matsaung
Genoc Kalongo
Khayalethu Ndlovu
Lesedi Udeh
Caleb Nyanguila
Zandile Dube
Lungalethu Mahlangu

Base map designed by Rebecca Potterton

Public opening: 18 April
RSVP: [email protected]

📍 Origins Centre, Wits University
Johannesburg
18 April – 3 July 2026
🔗 https://atlasofuncertainty.com/

Artist credit: I am the graffiti on the cracked wall — proof that galleries are not the home of art. Courtesy and copyright Windybrow Arts Centre.

African Centre for Migration & Society, Wits University Wits - University of the Witwatersrand Origins Centre Museum Columbia University Frame45 Northern Council for Global Cooperation

16/03/2026

Thank you to American writer Jeffrey Renard Allen for a reading and discussion that led us through the politics and poetics of distortion, via the burnished cry of Miles Davis’ horn, and the charged possibility of a meeting between Francis Bacon and Jimi Hendrix. A session of riffs, ruptures and revelatory detours, where sound became image, image became thought, and distortion opened onto new ways of seeing, hearing and writing. Thank you Jeff!

15/03/2026