Dear Friends,
In conjunction with IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) Ghana, The British Council, Accord Literary and African Bureau Stories, Golden Baobab organized a week-long Fiction and Illustration Workshop in Ghana for authors, editors and illustrators of African children and young adult books. The workshops were organized as part of the 2019 IBBY Africa Meeting, held this year in Accra, Ghana. The workshops were led by a remarkable group of facilitators whose experiences include winning the prestigious Hans Christian Anderson award to editing of the Harry Potter Series. The facilitators included Sarah Odedina, Editor and partner at Accord Literary, Sophie Hallam, Editor at Tiny Owl Publishing and world renowned illustrators: Roger Mello, Piet Grobler and Ken Wilson-Max.
The focus of this unique partnership was to provide an opportunity for local and international writers, illustrators and editors to collaborate through practical one-on-one sessions and lecture style trainings. The workshops covered many themes including creating compelling fictional characters, building believable worlds in children’s stories and art, helping authors find their voice, and helping editors to know how to engage with writers and illustrators to bring the best out of their work. There were practical exercises to allow for a deeper level of participation and group feedback sessions to critique published content, as well as works created during the workshops.
We are grateful to our committed donors who give to our cause and support us to nurture the skills of talented African children’s writers and illustrators. Through such nurturing opportunities, we ensure more children’s content is created and enable the growth of the African children’s literary industry.
With Gratitude,
Golden Baobab
Dear Friends,
This year, the Golden Baobab Prize is expanding its activities in publishing to prioritize more opportunities for talented African children's authors and illustrators to develop their careers. We are very excited to share that our co-founder Deborah Ahenkorah Osei-Agyekum has secured a deal with Accord Literary, a novel publishing house, to do just that.
The focus of this partnership will over the next months bring the works of many African children's authors and illustrators to a wider global audience. And by developing further strategic alliances with African and global publishers, we plan to ensure that more outstanding stories from the continent are published into storybooks.
Click below to find out more about this groundbreaking collaboration:
And visit the Accord Literary’s website here: https://www.accordliterary.com/
As we commit more time and resources to support African creatives and spread our continent’s stories globally, we hope we can continue to count on your support to grow and expand together.
With gratitude,
Golden Baobab
Dear Friends,
We trust the Year 2019 has kicked off to a great start for you! We are grateful to each and every one of you who has donated and supported Golden Baobab throughout the years. We want to specially highlight and celebrate our new and returning donors from last year, whose generous giving kept our project going. We deeply appreciate you for believing in Golden Baobab’s vision of the world and taking action to be a part of our journey. Thanks to you we had an incredible year! We successfully organized and ended the 2018 Golden Baobab Prize season.
The Prize Jury, was a panel of prominent international publishing and literacy professionals from all over the world. After a rigorous judging process, the jury selected 12 children’s authors and illustrators from six African countries across the continent onto our longlist for Picture Books, Early Chapter Books and Illustrators. Full details about the 2018 Longlist can be found here. After another lengthy deliberation process, the jury announced that the 2018 Golden Baobab Prize will offer awards to multiple entrants but have no winner. The jury concluded that the top entries of the literature prize were more ready for editorial support and mentorship than they were ready for immediate publication. Four stories were selected for the shortlist and awarded a prize package of editorial support, in addition to connections to publishing opportunities. It selected one illustrator for the shortlist commending them for their creative interpretation of the illustration briefs provided.
Our 2018 Shortlist were:
Stories and illustrators from the Golden Baobab Prize have gone on to be published by African Bureau Stories, Penguin Random House South Africa, Oxford University Press, Quramo Publishing and Cassava Republic Press among others, so we are very excited that our new cohort of storytellers will have wonderful opportunities to create more culturally-relevant storybooks for young readers worldwide. We ask that you consider making Golden Baobab one of the charities you contribute to this year so we can continue to spread our continent’s stories globally.
With gratitude,
Golden Baobab
This year, the Golden Baobab Prize celebrated its 10th anniversary and we extended a special invitation to GlobalGiving donors to volunteer virtually on our pre-selection committee to read and evaluate the entries we received, before they went to our jury. We had a very engaging evaluation process and we are deeply grateful to all the donors who joined us and made a direct impact to the progress of our project. We do anticipate that as we move forward to a new chapter, we will have more opportunities to establish meaningful partnerships with our donors and various organizations to increase our capacity to have more African children’s books published by our authors and illustrators.
We are also very happy to share that our 2018 Golden Baobab Prize judging period has successfully ended! It was a rigorous and meticulous process, and our jury was very thoughtful in its deliberations. The jury we presented this year comprises prominent international publishing and literacy professionals who care about getting diverse books to children. They are:
Full details about the 2018 judges can be found here: http://www.goldenbaobab.org/prizes/judges.
This week, we will announce the news of our longlisted children’s authors and illustrators, and we are very excited to find out who made it to the 2018 Golden Baobab Prize Longlist. Do stay tuned!
With gratitude,
Golden Baobab
We are excited to share that submissions to the 2018 Golden Baobab Prize are closed. We received 339 new and original children’s stories and illustrations from 17 African countries, which is an astounding 33% increase in entries from the previous year!
We have began the evaluation process for this year’s entries. We are working with a network of global volunteers and an expert jury to find and award the best African children’s stories and illustrations. The longlisted and shortlisted writers and illustrators will be announced over the next few months, and the winners of the Golden Baobab Prize will be announced in December 2018. The Prize will award $15,000 in cash prizes and guarantee the publication of the winning stories.
We appreciate all the support you have given towards our project! We work everyday to ensure more African children’s books are available and accessible all over the world. We could not have come this far without your generosity, thank you for being a part of our journey.
With gratitude,
Golden Baobab
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