This masterclass is a crash course in turning your ideas into a draft manuscript. It will offer insights on how to outline your novel. You will also learn about creating memorable characters with distinct voices and the idea of setting as characters. Additionally, Mubanga will equip you with practical tools to finish your novel, including strategies for revising and committing to them and, importantly, balancing your creative process with the rest of life’s demands.

Mubanga Kalimamukwento is a Zambian writer and lawyer. Her debut novel, The Mourning Bird, won the Dinaane Debut Fiction Award in 2019. She won the Kalemba Short Story Prize (2019), the Tusculum Review Poetry Chapbook Contest (2022) and the Drue Heinz Literature Prize (2024). Her work has appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, adda, Overland and Menelique.

The Building Blocks of a Novel with Mubanga Kalimamukwento