03/01/2026
SUBJECT: CALL TO SUBMIT YOUR AUTHOR INFO TO THE BOTSWANA WRITERS WEBSITE
REPLY TO: reading.botswana (at) gmail.com
Scroll down to see CALL, TEMPLATE, and SAMPLE
Dear Writer,
I am writing to you as co-administrator of the soon-to-be launched Botswana Writers website. Mary Lederer and Tjawangwa Dema maintain the site. Individual writers provide the information that they choose to put on the site.
The purpose of the webpage is to provide a publicly accessible, growing list of Botswana’s writers which includes pertinent details such as author biographies and bibliographies. This will be a resource for general readers as well as for researchers, who often have a difficult time accessing applicable information on Botswana’s literature.
* Eligibility: Published writers who are Batswana or who have been residents of Botswana for at least five years and whose published work is set in Botswana or about Botswana.
Please find attached a word document. Feel free to share it with other Batswana writers.
1. Interested writers should carefully read then complete the word document, following the instructions exactly.
2. Please also attach one headshot. Label this photograph with your surname.
3. Double check facts and formats and submit the information in a SINGLE Word document attachment, not a PDF and not in the body of an email.
Whether you are a literary organization, a writer, or otherwise, if you have detailed information on a deceased Motswana writer, please consider completing the form and indicate in your email that you are submitting on their behalf.
By submitting a photograph and biodata you are giving us permission to share this information on our website.
Mary and I look forward to hearing from you,
TJ
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Tjawangwa Dema
tjdema.com
Poet | Educator | Arts Administrator
Research Associate - University of the Witwatersrand
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO THE BOTSWANA WRITERS WEBPAGE
Mary Lederer and Tjawangwa Dema are creating a simple website that lists Batswana/Botswana writers. The purpose of the site is to be a resource for those looking for information about literature from Botswana.
Eligibility: Published writers who are Batswana or who have been residents of Botswana for at least five years and whose published work is set in Botswana or about Botswana.
Published work can be in any language.
Please follow the format in the SAMPLE below for Bessie Head. For technical reasons to do with creating the web pages, it is necessary that submissions follow the template EXACTLY (see the example for Bessie Head to see what your information should look like). Submissions that do not conform to the specified format will be returned to the writer until they do (in other words, we are not doing any editing or tidying up).
Interested writers should please provide the information below in a SINGLE Word document attachment, not a PDF and not in the body of an email. Additionally, please provide one high-resolution headshot as a .JPEG attachment. File names must follow this format: yoursurname.docx (for the text) and yoursurname.jpeg (for the photo).
Please note that we will not publish email addresses or other contact information, since we do not wish to act as intermediaries or agents.
Indicate in your email if you are submitting for yourself, or if you are submitting on behalf of another person.
DEADLINE: Our submission period for the first version of the website is December 1, 2025 to February 27, 2026. Any submissions received after this date will be held until the next submission period, in 2027.
Please submit your author page and photograph to:
BESSIE HEAD SAMPLE, filename head.docx
BESSIE AMELIA EMERY HEAD
Born 6 July 1937 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Died 17 April 1986 in Serowe, Botswana
Novels, short stories, essays, history
AUTHOR BIO
Bessie Head was Botswana’s most famous writer. She trained as a teacher in Durban and began her writing career in Cape Town in the late 1950s. She continued writing after she moved to Botswana in 1964: Her first published novel, When Rain Clouds Gather, is set in Botswana, as is all her subsequent fiction. She wrote one novel while she was still in South Africa, The Cardinals, published posthumously in 1993. She wrote numerous essays about a wide range of issues; she was also a letter-writer, leaving behind thousands of letters in the archives of the Khama III Memorial Museum in Serowe, Botswana (the Bessie Head Papers). Her full biography by Gillian Stead Eilersen, Bessie Head: Thunder Behind Her Ears. Her Life and Writing (Wits University Press, 2007) also contains a complete bibliography.
LINKS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Head
http://thuto.org/bhead/html/
https://sahistory.org.za/people/bessie-amelia-head
BIBLIOGRAPHY
“The Isolation of ‘Boeta L.’: Atteridgeville in 1964,” New African, vol. 3, no. 2, 1964, pp. 28–29.
When Rain Clouds Gather, multiple editions, originally published 1968.
Maru, multiple editions, originally published 1971.
A Question of Power, multiple editions, originally published 1973.
The Collector of Treasures: Botswana Village Tales, multiple editions, originally published 1977.
Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind, David Philip, Heinemann, 1981.
“The Old Iron Cooking Pot of Europe,” LIP from Southern African Women, edited by Susan Brown, Isabel Hofmeyr, and Susan Rosenberg, Ravan, 1983, pp. 5–7.
A Bewitched Crossroad: An African Saga, Ad Donker, 1984.
TEMPLATE BEGINS HERE
AUTHOR NAME
Date and place of birth
If submitting on behalf of a deceased writer please indicate date and place of death.
List of genres you have published in: poetry, non-fiction, young adult, sci-fi, short story, and so on.
AUTHOR BIO
Please provide a short bio. The bio must not be more than 150 words. The bio must be in the third person. If you are not a citizen of Botswana but meet both the eligibility criteria listed above, feel free to indicate your country of citizenship (disclosure not mandatory).
LINKS
If you have them, please provide a maximum of 3 links to websites or webpages that specifically detail or profile the author’s work. This could be a Wikipedia page, personal website, or author page on a publisher’s/book seller’s website. Please ensure that the link is correct and live/active.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Please provide a list of published works in the following format.
Book Title (in italics), publisher name, year.
“Story or Poem Title,” Title of Book/Anthology, edited by name, publisher name, year, pages.
“Story or Poem Title,” Journal Title, vol., no., year, pages.
“Story or Poem Title,” Magazine or Newspaper Title, date of publication, page number, url if available.
If there is no traditional publisher and you have self-published the book please specify ‘Self-published’ instead of publisher: Title, self-published, year.
TEMPLATE ENDS HERE
BESSIE AMELIA EMERY HEAD
Born 6 July 1937 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Died 17 April 1986 in Serowe, Botswana
[photo]
Novels, short stories, essays, history
AUTHOR BIO
Bessie Head was Botswana’s most famous writer. She trained as a teacher in Durban and began her writing career in Cape Town in the late 1950s. She continued writing after she moved to Botswana in 1964: Her first published novel, When Rain Clouds Gather, is set in Botswana, as is all her subsequent fiction. She wrote one novel while she was still in South Africa, The Cardinals, published posthumously in 1993. She wrote numerous essays about a wide range of issues; she was also a letter-writer, leaving behind thousands of letters in the archives of the Khama III Memorial Museum in Serowe, Botswana (the Bessie Head Papers). Her full biography by Gillian Stead Eilersen, Bessie Head: Thunder Behind Her Ears. Her Life and Writing (Wits University Press, 2007) also contains a complete bibliography.
LINKS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Head
http://thuto.org/bhead/html/
https://sahistory.org.za/people/bessie-amelia-head
BIBLIOGRAPHY
“The Isolation of ‘Boeta L.’: Atteridgeville in 1964,” New African, vol. 3, no. 2, 1964, pp. 28–29.
When Rain Clouds Gather, multiple editions, originally published 1968.
Maru, multiple editions, originally published 1971.
A Question of Power, multiple editions, originally published 1973.
The Collector of Treasures: Botswana Village Tales, multiple editions, originally published 1977.
Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind, David Philip, Heinemann, 1981.
“The Old Iron Cooking Pot of Europe,” LIP from Southern African Women, edited by Susan Brown, Isabel Hofmeyr, and Susan Rosenberg, Ravan, 1983, pp. 5–7.
A Bewitched Crossroad: An African Saga, Ad Donker, 1984.
Bessie Amelia Head was born on 6 July 1937, in the asylum her white mother was committed to after being classified insane for her relationship with Head’s black father. Head lived first with foster parents, then at an Anglican mission orphanage. She trained as a primary school teacher and taught f...
