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The Hope Prize Mentorship Program
• The Hope Prize Mentorship Program
The Hope Prize Mentorship Program
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The Hope Prize Mentorship Program is a six-month virtual mentorship from July to December offered to a single writer from that year’s shortlist. The program aims to support one emerging Zambian writer by pairing them with an experienced professional in their genre. The mentorship will be mentor-led, including one-on-one virtual check-ins, writing and submission advice, and craft discussions. There is no separate application process; all runner-ups to that year’s Ubwali Hope Prize will be considered.
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2026 Mentors & Protégés
• 2026 Mentors & Protégés
2026 FICTION MENTOR
NATASHA OMOKHODION holds an MA (distinction) in Creative Writing from Kingston University London. Her debut novel, No Be From Hia, was selected as a Graywolf Africa Press finalist in 2019. Published in Zambia, the book has reached readers across multiple international markets. Her second book, Even if the Stars Should Fall, was acquired by Narrative Landscape Press. She has served on the judging panels for both the Afritondo and Kendeka Prizes. Her short fiction has appeared in Hotel Africa (Short Story Day Africa) and Relations (Harper Via). Natasha’s short story “Her Sweetie, Her Sugarcane” was shortlisted for the N’goma Award in 2023. Natasha teaches creative writing classes with a focus on bringing diverse voices to the Zambian literary landscape. She lives and works in Lusaka with her three children.
2026 FICTION PROTÉGÉ
NATASHA N. MUKAMBA is a Zambian writer and storyteller. Her work explores love, the complexities of family, and the emotional landscapes of African womanhood. She is the author of Bits and Pieces, a 2025 COPPA Book Award–nominated nonfiction book for young women, for which she was a runner-up. Natasha’s fiction and essays appear in Ponmo is a Bird That Has No Place in a Cultured Culinary Sky and Other Stories (Noisy Streets), Alone and Other Short Stories, the Sister Wives Anthology (Myaambo), and WOMEN’S WORDS: Experiences and Realities (The African Dialogue). She has been featured on The Girl Table’s GT Story Project, The Stripes Literary Magazine, and other platforms. In 2025, Natasha received the Frances Ogamba Scholarship Award for African Writers from Ubwali Literary Magazine. She was honoured with the Creative Woman Award in Literary Arts at the HER Night Awards in Lusaka. Read Natasha’s shortlisted story here.
2026 CNF MENTOR
GLORIA MWANIGA ODARY a writer and educator from Kenya, has an MFA from the University of Memphis where she was also the managing editor of The Pinch Literary Journal. Odary is fascinated by historical revisionism and the intersection between research and imagination. She is a recipient of the 2024 Georgia Review Prose Prize, the 2024 Isele Nonfiction Prize, the 2021 African Land Policy Centre Story Prize, and a Miles Morland Writing Scholarship. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Isele, Lolwe, Weganda Review, The White Review, Porter House Review, CRAFT and elsewhere.
2026 CNF PROTÉGÉ
MUTINTA NANCHENGWA is a writer from Lusaka with a keen eye for human-interest stories. She was shortlisted for the inaugural Kalemba Short Story Prize and nominated for the 2026 Pushcart Prize. Transitioning from features writing to digital communications, Mutinta now crafts fiction that examines the hearts of humans. She is passionate about digital rights and human rights, and often weaves storytelling into her advocacy work. Whether through journalism or prose, her goal remains the same: to tell stories that matter and explore how we relate to one another. Read Mutinta’s shortlisted essay here.
2026 POETRY MENTOR
SIHLE NTULI is a South African poet, editor and curator born and living in Durban, South Africa. His writing has been supported through fellowships and residencies by the Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Studies in South Africa, The Centre for Stories in Australia, The Caselberg Trust, in collaboration with the Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature in New Zealand, and Literaturhaus Wien in Austria. He is a 2024 Best of the Net winner and the winner of the 2024/2025 Diann Blakely Poetry Competition. His most recent release is the poetry collection Owele (2025), published by uHlanga.
2026 POETRY PROTÉGÉ
BWALYA S. KONDWANI is a Zambian writer, spoken word poet, and medical student at the University of Lusaka. He won the 2023 Myaambo Short Story Prize for Mzimu Wachikondi, later featured in an anthology of the same name, and the 2025 Stanley Umezulike Prize for African Thriller. He was also placed third in the 2025 Wakini Kuria Prize for Children’s Literature at the African Writers Awards. His work has appeared in several anthologies and literary magazines, including Ubwali Literary Magazine, Asterlit, Writers Space Africa, Sotrane Publishers, and MUD Journal. Beyond the page, Bwalya works with The Expression Lab, helping facilitate creative writing and spoken word workshops for students across Zambia. His work often explores human vulnerability, memory, and the emotional weight of lived experience. Read Bwalya’s shortlisted poem here.
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2025 Mentor & Protégés
• 2025 Mentor & Protégés
2025 PROSE MENTOR
CHIDO MUCHEMWA is a Zimbabwean writer and academic currently based in Toronto. Her short stories have previously appeared in Augur, Baltimore Review, Catapult, FIYAH, Lolwe, and Prism International amongst others. She has been shortlisted twice for the Short Story Day Africa Prize. She is a 2022 Miles Morland Scholar, and she has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Wyoming. Muchemwa is the author of Who Will Bury You And Other Stories, listed by the Boston Globe, Open Country Mag and Brittle Paper as one of the best books of 2024.
2025 PROSE PROTÉGÉ
MWINJI SIAME is a culture and arts writer who also enjoys writing fiction. Her work has appeared in the Bosphorus Review, Art Düsseldorf, the Feminist Food Journal, and the Republic, amongst other places. She is also an aspiring visual artist. Read Mwinji’s shortlisted story here.
2025 POETRY MENTOR
CHINUA EZENWA-ỌHAETO lives in Lincoln, NE, where he is pursuing his Ph.D in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a focus on creative writing (poetry). He became a runner-up in the Etisalat Prize for Literature, Flash Fiction, 2014. In 2018, he won the Castello di Duino Poesia Prize, the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (EOPP), the recipient of New Hampshire Institute of Arts Writing Award, and the recipient of the New Hampshire Institute of Art’s scholarship to the MFA Program. In 2019, he was the winner of the Sevhage/Angus Poetry Prize. Winner of the 2022 Special ANMIG poetry prize, organised by Centro Giovanni e Poesia di Truiggio, Italy. In 2023, he was shortlisted for the Alpine Poetry Fellowship. His full-length poetry manuscript, The Naming, is coming out in fall 2025 via APBF. His works have appeared in Isele Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, Oxford Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Frontier, Palette, The Common, Southword Magazine, Colorado Review, Mud Season Review, Notra Dame, Anmly, The Republic, Up the Staircase Quartely, Ruminate and elsewhere.
2025 POETRY PROTÉGÉ
DACIOUS KASOKA is an economist, poet, writer, and machine learning engineer. A 2023 Best of the Net nominee, his writings have been published or are forthcoming in World Voices Magazine, Writers Space Africa Magazine, Agape Review, Arts Lounge Magazine, The Kalahari Review, Spillwords Press, OBBLT Review, Ubwali Literary Magazine, Pepper Coast Mag, News Diggers newspaper, The Shallow Tales Review and elsewhere. He lives and writes from Lusaka. Read Dacious’s shortlisted poem here.
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2024 Mentor & Protégé
• 2024 Mentor & Protégé
2024 MENTOR
ADEDAYO AGARAU is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and a Cave Canem Fellow. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Agbowó Magazine: A Journal of African Literature and Art. Fordham University Press will release his debut collection, “The Years of Blood,” in the fall of 2025.
2024 PROTÉGÉ
ANNA ZGAMBO was born at Lusaka’s Kalingalinga Clinic in November 1989. She holds an English degree from the University of Pretoria, wrote a literary dissertation at the University of Zambia, and studies creative writing at Open Window University in Kabulonga. She is a ZEPH author, Ngoma Awards finalist, Zed Rasta Awards Winner and 2024 Idembeka Creative Writing Fellow. Thorn Bird Literary Agency represents her. She lives in Mtendere. She was shortlisted for the inaugural Ubwali Hope Prize for Three Poems.