TROPICAL FISH, ETC: October 2010

Doreen Baingana: Profile

Photo: Jerry Riley

Doreen Baingana is the Ugandan author of Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe, which won the AWP Short Fiction Award and the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book, 2006. She has also won a Washington Independent Writers Fiction Prize, an Emerging Writer’s Fellowship from the Writer’s Center, and was a finalist twice for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her stories and essays have appeared in journals in such as Glimmer Train, African American Review, Chelsea, Callaloo, The Guardian (UK), Chimurenga and Kwani. She has a law degree from Makerere University and an MFA from the University of Maryland and was a Writer-in-Residence there and a Bread Loaf Writers Conference Fellow. She worked for ten years at VOA and has led creative writing workshops in the US, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda. She is the managing editor of Storymoja, a Kenyan publishing house that organizes the Storymoja Hay Festival. She lives in Nairobi with her son.

Three Beautiful Covers for One Book!

These are the covers for the South African edition, also distributed in East Africa. I was surprised when my editor showed me three covers, but now I love them! The artwork representing the three sisters is by Mustafa Maluka.

Readings in the US in November 2010

I will visit the US in November 2010 to research my Pilgrimages book and for a series of readings.

First stop, The Writer's Center, Bethesda, MD, on November 5th for the Story/Stereo. See details here.

Next, Boston University on November 10th for the launch of AGNI 72, Portfolio of African Fiction, which includes an excerpt from my novel-in-progress. See details here.

Then I'll head to Northwestern University on November 12th for a panel discussion on Migration and Mobility. See details here.

On November 17th, I'll read at College of St. Benedict, MN (brrr!). See details here. I'll be a guest writer at this college and it's partner, St. John's University, for two weeks.

Last stop, the Miami Book Fair on the 20th and 21st of November. Watch this space for the program.

Hope to see you at one of these events.