Climate fiction is a new fiction genre making waves across the globe. It is a new way to talk about climate change. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report for one, posits that Africa has contributed among the least to greenhouse gas emissions, yet key development sectors have already experienced widespread loss and damage attributable to anthropogenic climate change, including biodiversity loss, water shortages, reduced food production, loss of lives and reduced economic growth. Hence the acute need for dialogue and engagement in every form, targeting all age groups, for the sake of community resilience, and climate resilient development. The proposed project, a creative response to climate change as a run-up to COP27 in Egypt, can no doubt contribute towards that realisation, and significantly advance Sustainable Development Goal 13.

Why Africa:
Climate change cannot be tackled in isolation, this project therefore believes it is vital for us to inform ourselves of other people’s perspectives, concerns, and be motivated.
Project objectives:
– To document history
– To inspire climate change dialogue and engagement in Africa’s adaptation and mitigation efforts by e.g. farmers, tourism operators, innovators etc.
– To make people aware of their changing environment
– To highlight common themes in Africa’s climate change experience
– To make climate change experiences more real than graphs or plots of temperature variations
– To share climate change information that is grounded in science and truth
– To create a permanent home for cli-fi currently being written in Africa
Winning stories are those that will present real science in a credible, fun and easy way to comprehend.

Stories can:
Explore life in an age of climate change incensed droughts, heat waves, floods, season shift etc.
Explore the role of Africans (i.e. individuals or corporations) in contributing to global warming e.g. pollution

Question and/or applaud climate change, environmental, energy etc. policies
Imagine the future if temperatures continue to rise
Urge readers to imagine what climate change experiences are or would be like.
Plainly lay out what is reality and what is not, in a world filled with lies and fantasy and fiction surrounding the truth.
Judging:
The award aims to support and award excellence in the climate fiction genre, hence judging of the award will be as follows:
Stage 1: All entries will be whittled down to a longlist of twenty (20) entrants by volunteer readers sourced from across the continent. Subsequent judging will be undertaken by a team of established writers against the Award criterion.
Stage 2: The judging panel will shortlist 10 stories, and pick their 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winning stories, then submit a short report, less than one page.
Stage 3: Shortlisted and winning writers will be contacted by email before the results are published.
The judges’ decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into. The judging will be fair and independent. The judging panel will be appointed by BSHD and its strategic partners and/or sponsors.

The Awards:
Winning Story
USD500
Second Place
USD300
Third Place
USD100
Eligibility and entry rules
Entry is open to all Africans citizens

There is no age limit
Entries must be made by the writer. An exception will be made for those below the age of 18.
Submissions should be sent to: contactus@bshdngo.org with the subject “Share Africa/Title of Short Story”
Entrants are advised to enter the COP27 in Africa: Share Africa Cli-Fi Award writing webinar scheduled for August 15, 2022.
The deadline for receipt of entries is September 5, 2022. Winners will be announced on October 17, 2022.
Only one entry, 3000 words max., per writer may be submitted.
The story must be the entrant’s own work.
The story must be original and should not have been previously published anywhere in full or in part, or on any media platform.
All entries must be in English.
All entries should be submitted in Times New Roman 12-point font and double line spacing. Entries should be attached as Microsoft Word documents.
The writer’s full name, nationality, email address and phone number should only appear in the body of email. Entries will be judged blindly.
Entrants agree as a condition of entry that the prize organisers may publicise the fact that a story has been entered and/or shortlisted for the prize.
Worldwide copyright of each story or poem remains with the writer. BSHD will have the unrestricted right to publish the winning and shortlisted stories and poems in a compilation, on their web and social sites, and for promotional purposes.
The overall winners and runners-up will be expected by BSHD and its Partners to take part in publicity activities where possible, including social media.

The Share Africa Cli-Fi Award writing webinar will sensitise potential entrants on the climate fiction genre and proffer tips on fiction writing.
When: August 15, 4 PM SAST
Host:
Pato Kelesitse – Founder & Host, Sustain267
Facilitators:
Dr Uche Peter Umezurike – Umezurike is an assistant professor of English at the University of Calgary. An alumnus of the International Writing Program (USA), Umezurike is a co-editor of Wreaths for Wayfarers, an anthology of poems. He is the author of Wish Maker (Masobe Books, 2021) and Double Wahala, Double Trouble (Griots Lounge Publishing, 2021). His poetry collection, there’s more, is forthcoming from the University of Alberta Press in spring 2023.
Cheryl S. Ntumy – Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of fiction in various genres, including speculative fiction, young adult fiction and romance. Her work has appeared in The Goddess of Mtwara and Other Stories; Will This be a Problem; Petlwana Journal of Creative Writing; Botswana Women Write and Apex Magazine, among others. Her novel They Made Us Blood and Fury was nominated for a Nommo Award in 2022.
Use link below to register for the webinar now!
https://forms.gle/rvihJR4AAU6MeKme6
Meet the 2022 Share Africa Award Judges
Video Player

The Share Africa Cli-Fi Award will be judged by a total of five judges. The judges are: i) Samuel Kolawole (Nigeria), Marta Tveit (Norwegian/Tanzanian), Gothataone Moeng (Botswana), Sophie Mbugua (Kenya), and Mariem Khadhraoui (Tunisia).
Samuel Kọ́láwọlé: He was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria and his work has appeared in AGNI, Harvard Review, Georgia Review, The Hopkins Review, Gulf Coast, Washington Square Review, The Evergreen Review amongst other literary journals. His fiction has been supported with fellowships, residencies, and scholarships from the Norman Mailer Centre, International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Columbus State University’s Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, Clarion West Writers Workshop, Wellstone Centre in the Redwoods California, and Island Institute. Kọ́láwọlé studied at the University of Ibadan and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University, South Africa. A graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, he returned to VCFA to join the Faculty of the low-residency MFA program. His novel is forthcoming from Amistad/Harper Collins. Kọ́láwọlé teaches fulltime at Pennsylvania State University where he is a tenure track Assistant Professor of English.
Gothataone Moeng: She is a former fiction fellow in the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. Her writing has also received fellowships and support from Tin House, where she was a 2019 Summer Workshop scholar and from A Public Space, where she was a 2016 Emerging Writer Fellow. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from Ploughshares, the Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, One Story, A Public Space and the Oxford American, amongst others. She holds an MFA Creative Writing (Fiction) from the University of Mississippi. She currently lives in Serowe, Botswana, where she was born.
Mariem Khadhraoui: She is a climate and green energy reporter (National press agency- Tunis Afrique Press Agence). She is also an investigative Journalist, and Editor in Chief of the Economic and Financial Desk (Tunis Afrique Presse Agency – TAP). Khadhraoui is a member of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ-Jordan), a member of the Clean Energy Wire (CLEW) Journalism Network, a member of the African Journalists Network on Sustainable Development and Climate Change, Africa 21. She is a Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue (BETD) 2018 Media Fellow and a Climate Tracker, COP24 Fellow. Khadhraoui is an ANME (Tunisia) Reporting on Energy Award winner 2021.
Sophie Mbugua: She is a Science Journalist specialising in climate change reporting based in Nairobi, Kenya. Sophie spends her days shaping the African climate change narrative through radio, photography, online articles, social media and helping organisations bridge climate change communication gaps by facilitating and coordinating their press relations.
Marta Tveit: She is a PhD-candidate with the University of Oslo, working within cultural studies on African climate future narratives. She has an MA in global media studies from the school of Oriental and African Studies and and MSc in African Studies from the University of OxfordAdditionally, she has a few years behind her as a freelancer in journalism and content-production. Recently she created a podcast series about young Norwegian-African identity, a series about gay transgender people in Zimbabwe and edited the anthology “Foul play in the Congo” on the French and Moland case. Now she writes permanently, in the column “Kulturuka” (Klassekampen).
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Share Africa Cli-Fi Award
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