AUTHORS’ SMALL BIO GALLERY : Countdown to GET TOGETHER

Virginia Phiri (pictured)– “My Job is to Write”

Phiri will be presenting a paper titled “Writing – Eyes, Ears, and Mouth” on the day of the writers’ year-end get together. Born in 1954, she has published three novels, namely, Desperate, Destiny, and the latest Highway Queen. Together with other members of the Zimbabwe Women Writers, she participated in the project commissioned by UNICEF (1994) of writing readers for primary schools. These readers contained biographies of prominent women occupying unusual jobs, such as pilots, bus drivers, medical doctors, and painters. She has contributed to several anthologies published by ZWW. In 2003, she participated in the Book Fair in Prague (Czech Republic). Virginia Phiri is also an orchid expert and an orchid, “Polystachia Phirii”, was named after her. (taken from We hold on to the word of Lizard, Alena Rettova, 2004)). This is a brief sketch of Virginia 's bio, she has done a lot in supporting the cause of female Zimbabwean writers.

WINZ Newsletter, Issue No 8

It's almost a week to go before writers and poets level the literary vibes at the popular Book Café in Harare. The ‘End of Year Writers Get Together’ roars into life on December 11 2010 at the said venue from 10 am to 1 pm, with some of Zimbabwe’s talented writers and poets set to render ‘thirst-quenching’ speeches, readings, and performances. The event is running under the theme “Building a Future through Writing”. Renowned dub poet and musician Albert Nyathi will speak about the origins of spoken word/praise poetry in Ndebele culture, and of course he will give you a taste of “My Daughter” and other poems of his. New generation writer Tinashe 'Mutumwapavi' Muchuri will explore "the paucity of training workshop facilities for aspiring poets"; distinguished poet Julius Chingono will read from his exciting yet gripping poems. There will be a lot more performances by younger, gifted poets.

Above -Samuel Mahuntse performing at Win-Zimbabwe's Literary Treats (ZIBF 2010)

Above- Albert Nyathi

Julius Sekai Chingono