At A Long House, we think of Blackness, through art, literature, and critical thinking as a form of long memory. We are excited to be working within and alongside a resurgence of creative and young people led digital platforms across the African diaspora. Writing is a solitary practice but publishing is not. Literature that goes through any kind of institutional process is usually the result of multiple eyes looking over, working on, and producing what eventually becomes the finished material that the public engages with. 

Today, in Africa, after almost a century of modern literature as we know it now, the continent has produced many solitary stars (which, in some quarters is a measure of success) but there are still a lot of lapses in the structure around the institutions that produce said literature. One of the more obvious lapses, a deficit of an editorial ecosystem (though a lot of young people continue to selflessly peer-read and support each other), is what has guided our impulse in creating a fellowship geared towards fostering editorial talent on the continent.

In creating this fellowship, we asked ourselves what tradition we could follow to indicate the continuation of a lineage—someone whose work, though not much talked about, changed the trajectory and development of literature on the continent—and we immediately thought of the great Rajat Neogy, who founded Transition when he was just 22, and for years labored selflessly, curating and publishing the best minds on the continent, sometimes for the very first time. It became immediately clear to us that this was a way to honor his work, dedication and memory. Transition as an institution (now domiciled at Harvard) alongside Rajat Neogy’s family have agreed with us that this is an important history that needs to be preserved. 

We are hereby announcing the Rajat Neogy Editorial Fellowship at A Long House.

Here’s how it will work:

1. There will be an open call from August 15 – Sep 28, 2021 for applications to be considered for the fellowship.
2. Fellow for the 2022 tenure will be announced in November 2021.
3. There will be a $1000 award for the fellowship.
4. Fellow will work with A Long House throughout the one year tenure of the fellowship.

Eligibility

1. Only persons between 18 – 35 years will be considered for the fellowship.
2. Fellow must be an African resident on the African continent.
3. To be eligible, fellow must demonstrate a deep interest in African literature and the ecosystems that nurture it.
4. We encourage applications across the multiple intersections of gender and sexuality.

Responsibilities of the Fellow

1. Work with founding editors on editing works of contributors.
2. Manage communication with contributors.
3. Oversee publication schedule and curate a newsletter. 
4. Reach out to/suggest new contributors.
5. Work with founding editors on themed issues.
6. Work with A Long House team on the Long Talk series.

How to submit

To apply, please upload a motivation letter of not more than 500 words, alongside your CV together as a single pdf.

Select “Rajat Neogy Fellowship” as category.

To submit your application, click here or enter https://alonghouse.com/submissionsmanager in your browser.

Please note the following:

1. If you are submitting for the first time you have to sign up to create an account on the submissions system. The submissions system allows you to monitor progress with your submission.

2. After you’re done signing up you will see a confirmation page. Here, the system will ask you to confirm the data you have uploaded. Click “continue” if you are satisfied with the data you’ve uploaded. Please note that if you do not click “continue” here your account will not be created.

3. You can sign in at any time with your email and password to view progress with your work.

4. Please feel free to write us alh@alonghouse.com if you have any questions, but do not send your submissions to the email.