P.S.: If you are interested in joining us, please apply ASAP!

More than $3000 of the $12000 goal has been raised for our friend and first-prize 2024 ILS East African Fiction Contest winner Gloriah Amondi to attend the Master’s in Creative Writing program at Concordia University! Please continue to donate and share:

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Your donation is much appreciated, even a small amount helps. 3/3.

financial requirement, an astronomical amount for her with relatively short notice, and we want to help her reach her goal through a GoFundMe fundraiser so she can pursue her dream of being a storyteller. 2/3.

Our friend and first-prize 2024 winner of the ILS East African Fiction Contest, Gloriah Amondi, has a unique opportunity to attend the Master’s in Creative Writing program at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. However, to get a Canadian visa, she must meet a minimal 1/3

. The Maasailand Writer and Artist Retreat runs May 16-28, with 12 people. Contact Professor Mikhail Iossel about the retreat at iosselm@gmail.com. Photo by Mikhail Iossel.

East African participants in the workshops, and exposure to an international literary community benefits the East African participants as well. In Nairobi and Lamu, the ILS program runs July 7-22, with 26 workshop participants. For more information and to apply go here: 🧵.

Saunders and Iossel share a rich writerly companionship, the kind you could have too, with other international participants and East African writers and poets. A distinguishing component of the ILS program is that international participants benefit from their shared time with 🧵.

George Saunders highly recommends the International Literary Seminars in his March 28 Substack, with a special treat from ILS Creative Director Mikhail Iossel reading Isaac Babel’s “Guy de Maupassant” in Russian: 🧵

friends, outside of writing and talking about writing during the ILS Program: July 7-22. Apply here, or encourage someone else to apply: 5/5.

from the warm Indian Ocean spray. From the boat, you connect the stars to constellations, to the stories behind the constellations, to the stories you’ve shared and created with your new friends during the International Literary Seminars. This is how it could go, 4/5.

giraffe tongues or any tongues for that matter. Everywhere in Kenya, you smile when you think that the bananas are so delicious, it’s bananas! And then you eat baked chocolate bananas. More bananas! . On Lamu, you eat fresh-cut passion fruit on a boat, slightly salty 3/5.

but it takes a few days to understand that people in Nairobi are communicating on a level you previously didn’t realize even existed. They seem to intuit where they need to be. On an excursion outside of Nairobi, you wonder why you had never before given much thought to 2/5.

This is how it could go, friends: . You arrive in the dead of night and wake to the city of Nairobi singing. The picture in your hotel room shows a vase of flowers, the image extending onto the frame. You think you know how to navigate people-filled sidewalks and streets, 1/5

outside of writing and talking about writing during the ILS Program: July 7-22. Apply here, or encourage someone else to apply: 5/5.

the warm Indian Ocean spray. From the boat, you connect the stars to constellations, to the stories behind the constellations, to the stories you’ve shared and created with your new friends during the International Literary Seminars. This is how it could go, friends, 4/5.

giraffe tongues or any tongues for that matter. Everywhere in Kenya, you smile when you think that the bananas are so delicious, it’s bananas! And then you eat baked chocolate bananas. More bananas! . On Lamu, you eat fresh-cut passion fruit on a boat, slightly salty from 3/5.

but it takes a few days to understand that people in Nairobi are communicating on a level you previously didn’t realize even existed. They seem to intuit where they need to be. On an excursion outside of Nairobi, you wonder why you had never before given much thought to 2/5.

where you can write while experiencing the local culture and wildlife:.Maasailand Writer and Artist Retreat, May 16-28. 12 people, 13 days. More information and photos can be found here. Only a few spots remain! Contact Professor Mikhail Iossel at iosselm@gmail.com. 5/5.

and the Gods, featuring former 2022 ILSers Kyra Simone and Radhiyah Ayobami. Save the date for the launch party on April 28 at Torn Page for those of you in New York. Or, if you want to get to Kenya even sooner (this May!), join for an unofficial retreat in the Maasai Mara, 4/5.