Mambo Writers Circles was established in 2005 at a workshop organized by the Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe (BWAZ). The initiative reduced in membership when BWAZ Gweru chapter became defunct about six months after the launch of the project. 2010 has been dubbed a year of re-launch following the returning of other members from economical and political exiles.
However a few dedicated writers remained and adhere to the principles of the initiative. There is a periodic writer’s clinic, members’ conduct reviewing and readings of each other’s work – mainly poetry and prose.
To date the organization has organized many writers’ workshops in Gweru which were facilitated by Mambo Press and individual published writers. Mambo Writers Circle has participated in public readings in Gweru and Bulawayo including the recent one which was attended by John Eppel, a prolific Zimbabwean contemporary writer. Mambo Writers Circles has managed to secure space in a local weekly community newspaper to publish poetry under Poetry Circles.
Mambo Writers Circle has survived without recognition of the general public, but is powerfully driven by the principle of promoting a reading culture.
The photos show Drew Shaw, a visiting research fellow and lecturer at Midlands State University, and John Eppel, a prolific Zimbabwean writer, with some of the Mambo poets at a recent public reading.