Femrite celebrates 10 years

By Bob G. Kisiki

YOU want to reach a specific destination. But you neither know the way nor have the means to get there. Then along comes a stranger, who is able to take you to where you want to go. But because people don’t believe in free things, they don’t go to the stranger in droves. The few who go, therefore, travel with the stranger to Gleeland. That is the story of women writers in Uganda.

Only a decade ago, publishing in Uganda was a preserve of the learned who could write ‘selling’ texts and political manuals. Fiction was a rarity.

Then some women came together and started an organisation called the Uganda Women Writers Association (Femrite). Chaired by Mary Karooro Okurut and coordinated by Goretti Kyomuhendo, the organisation was meant to facilitate and publish women writers. The journey thus far has been incredulous, but as Femrite marks 10 years, we shall just consider a few cases of fruits borne of this effort.

Young writer and then novice journalist Anne Ayeta was among the women who believed the stranger’s tale of a free lift to Gleeland:

“Ten years indeed… it has been a long time, from the Shimoni Road office where we first published New Era magazine with so many errors, but we launched it in a big way. With former presidential aspirant Nelson Ocheger as editor. Then the process of luring some of us to be cover girls for the magazine. I remember being so shy, I couldn’t face the camera and in the end it was a crowded cover with lots of us girls.

“But as Femrite ages, I can say most of us have grown bolder. Even those who came in shy like myself and I think Glaydah…”

Those were the beginnings, but a lot has happened since. Over the years, the organisation has published 14 books and hosted renowned (mostly) African writers, including Ama Ata Aidoo, Okey Ndibe, John Ruganda and Taban Lo Liyong. They have also organised several writers workshops and conferences. A readers’/Writers’ Club was founded and used to sit at Femrite’s new offices at Bukoto. It is at this forum that many young writers sharpened their writing skill, as these testimonies show.

Ayeta continues:
“Remember the start of the readers’ club. We drew in a crowd. Many guys. I remember Goretti joking that the guys came to look for babes, and I think there were some sparks before it came down to serious business on looking at how words look on a page. I grew from listening to criticism from my peers. I grew in confidence.”

One of the most notable beneficiaries of the young writers is a formerly timid mid-wife who went to Femrite and spoke to Kyomuhendo through a spokesperson. Glaydah Namukasa now speaks for herself:

The journey? It has been walking one step ahead, then ten steps backwards. You think you have written a best seller, only to learn that you’ve poured murram on the bypass which you have to walk over and over again to make it concrete, with no grader to ease the work.

“I was dreaming of becoming a novelist… You know, that constructive criticism from the Readers Club, exposure to the Crossing Borders, (a programme born of a marriage between the British Council and Femrite, to train writers). What can I say now? Success? My novel Voice of a Dream winning the Macmillan prize, publishing another, The Deadly Ambition, which won me a writers’ fellowship in Vermont, USA.”

And that is not all. Jackee Budesta Batanda and Monica Arach have also won international acclaim. Jackee writes:

“I learnt that writing about Uganda was indeed ‘cool’ if not for the reason that I should define myself, at least to contribute to a rather empty space in Ugandan literature. I published my first short story in 2001. It was also the year my short story was accepted by an international publisher. Since then, the success has come along with the moments of dark days, what I refer to as the writer’s curse – block that sometimes I would want to trade it for normalcy. But writing sticks on my like a birthmark.

“In 2003, I was declared Africa Regional winner for the commonwealth short story competition. My story was broadcast on radio stations around the commonwealth and on the BBC World Service. Further successes have involved being highly commended for the Caine Prize for African Writing and the Macmillan Writers Prize for Africa. One of my short stories was adapted into play as part of the Fair Trade campaign ahead of the G8 Gleneagles conference and was performed at the London Eye.”

Men too have benefited from Femrite. Patrick Mangeni says, “As writers, we need an honest mirror to return our images. We need critical walls against which to bounce our voices and learn from the transformations that our echoes return. Monday meetings were a space to listen to my voice through the interpretive inferences of others.”

As Femrite marks 10 years of growth, I would rather I called it a celebration. The journey has been tough with money shortages and other hindrances, but with scores like those above, who can say it was not worth it, following the stranger? Gleeland is round the bend for the girls.