UGANDA FAITH WRITERS ASSOCIATION By Betty Kituyi Mukhalu




It is one of those days when you have some time on your hands and you find your knowledge-hungry self in a bookshop. You want to take your eyes on a book tour, to read something substantial, to illuminate your imagination and take you closer to the search for God, who is ever present but not obvious.

You may be at the crossroads of life or you may even be facing a crisis in your faith, wondering whether the same questions lingering in your mind have been experienced by others. You want to hear from someone who lived in the same hills and ate the same diet of millet, matooke or posho, say that ‘God is on this mountain and I met Him on a rugged mud path in the valley when I had been abandoned by my husband.’

You are here to find just one book written by someone who pronounces the same syllables in a language you both understand. So you browse the bookshelves to discover that the popular Christian literature is all by foreign authors like Francine Rivers, TD Jakes or CS Lewis, all wonderfully written, but the stories are far removed from your situation and have little in common with the day-to-day grapples of your life. You find that your story and the story of your people are missing on the bookshelves of Uganda.

Or you are one of those few Ugandans who love crafting words into verse, essays or even music and when you find a writers’ group to share the craft, you soon discover that God is edited out of their literature as if the word is taboo, and you feel as if the umbilical cord of your writing has been cut from its source, just because you want to see the gripping mystery of your Creator reflected on the page.



It is such sentiments that caused the Founders of UFWA to create a sacred space for Christian Writers and other faith-seeking people to have a sense of freedom to explore their spiritual experiences on the page. We strive to produce books that are creatively crafted and deep enough to enrich the reading landscape of Uganda’s faith-seekers now and for generations to come.

In 2008, UFWA was founded with the aim of nurturing the creative muscle of the Christian writer. We want to develop a community of writers who feel called to share the gospel of Christ through the written word, also to encourage reading by publishing home-grown literature, as well as to avail Christian writers with the tools to build their writing skills. Eventually they will have work that is strong enough to get published, and thus contribute to the spread of the gospel through the written word until the knowledge of God fills the earth as the waters cover the sea.

To achieve its mission, UFWA has developed intensive writing programs, referred to as Writing Seasons, under its publishing arm, aptly known as Quiet Garden Publishing. For eight weeks, three times a year, interested writers hone their writing by steeping themselves in the Basics of Storytelling, Poetry, Scriptwriting and Writing for Children.

Writers are faced with taking their writing call seriously, and are developing their stories with passion. We pray that the writers who pass through our doors will grow to contribute to a new generation of Ugandan writers capable of changing Uganda’s literary landscape.

Please visit our website: www.ugandafaithwriters.com

Email: ugfaithwriters@gmail.com

Comments

  1. Congratulations, Betty Kituyi! This post promotes your concern very well. We feel your longing for writers and books that really reflect your culture and everyday experiences, and point to God in a relevant way. I wish you well. God bless you in your efforts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the way this is written, and am glad to hear about the UFWA initiative :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. So lovely to read of UFWA. I pray God will bless you greatly in your work. It is excellent and much needed work that you are doing. Praise God for your hard work. Thank you for sharing it with us.

    ReplyDelete
  4. So lovely to read of UFWA. I pray God will bless you greatly in your work. It is excellent and much needed work that you are doing. Praise God for your hard work. Thank you for sharing it with us.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hope UFWA is blessed and it is great to hear of things like this.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Betty, you have really blessed and encouraged me with this post. Thank you for sharing. May the Lord bless you and your endeavours equally.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Betty, great to read your post. I especially needed to hear about writers taking their call seriously.... Thank you. Mandy

    ReplyDelete
  8. Very good to know about UFWA, about the encouraging writing courses, and of course it is so necessary to have books which reflect Ugandan culture, not the Western lifestyle! I have friends who worked in Uganda and I shall be passing on your news to them, they will be very interested.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The work of UFWA is interesting and important. Thank you for telling us about it. Many blessings on all you do.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Twikyirize Mercy12 January 2017 at 08:05

    UFWA has indeed done a great work in my life. Talk about having a hidden treasure! that's what I was before joining UFWA. A writer who didn't know she writes! UFWA helped me realize my potential. Forever grateful

    ReplyDelete
  12. God bless you beloved

    ReplyDelete
  13. I want to join book writing in Uganda ,gospel book writer, I need some one to nature me ,I'm gospel minister located in Eastern Uganda 🇺🇬 it will be of great privilege to be counted as part of the team 😊

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment