10 Jul 2024

Local author, Winnie Mpala will attend the 3rd Funda Mpondo Literary Festival in Eastern Cape, South Africa in September.

The festival is the brainchild of Nomawele Njongo, the founder of KwaziThina Publishers, an initiative intended to revive the culture of storytelling culture, reading and writing.

Mpala will be one of the speakers at the festival themed: Brewing stories, building communities. She said the theme was aligned with her passion for storytelling and community empowerment and that her topic for the festival was Telling our truths: How storytelling can heal and unite communities.

The Maun-born author is a teacher at Nata Senior Secondary School and has expressed her excitement at the invitation, saying it offered attendees the opportunity to explore different perspectives and cultures through books, discussions and interactions with other authors.

Moreover, she said the festival would provide a platform to connect with publishers and like-minded authors to foster relationships and professional connections. “The festival will benefit me a lot as it will give me more exposure because it attracts different authors and publishers from different countries to share experiences on how to promote literacy and impact communities,” she said.

Mpala writes under the pen name Winnie Winani Mpala and has published Lea’s Secret, a novel that has won multiple awards. In addition, her poetry has been featured in an anthology of African and Asian writers and artists.

Furthermore, Mpala is the founder and editor in chief of Colourful Chronicles, an online lifestyle magazine. 

She also served as the editor in chief of Kasapa Inhouse magazine, a publication based in South Africa and was a senior columnist for Image magazine, a prominent publication in South Africa.

She was nominated for the Zikomo Awards in 2023 and also shortlisted for the Botswana Literature Awards in the same year. Still in 2023, he received an African award and was honoured with the Mulher Forte African Literature Award in 2024 for the best novelist. 

Besides her accomplishment as an educator and writer, Mpala prides herself about being an inspirational speaker, having delivered inspirational talks at numerous summits, boot camps and other events. Ends