10 Reasons Why You Should Submit to Umukarago

You are a creative soul with a passion for writing. You have a compelling poem, a captivating short story, a thought-provoking book review, or an engaging creative non-fiction piece that you want to share with the world through Umukarago. A dream? Absolutely not. Let me give you ten reasons.

1. Umukarago’s mission is to amplify the beauty and significance of your work. We want to showcase the rich diversity and creativity of writers and poets of Rwandan descent and foreign nationals residing in Rwanda. We’ve realised that most Rwandan writers still find it hard to get published in international literary magazines. Umukarago was created just for you! It is here to help you showcase your creative writing.
2. You’ll get the experience of working with (and learning from) our editors, which can help you become a better writer. If your work is accepted for publication, we will leverage it to its best version. And if your submission is unsuccessful, you will still receive constructive feedback from our editors.
3. Every time you score an acceptance letter from our editor, you gather proof that your writing is in demand. When one editor takes note of you, others tend to follow suit.
4. If you are hoping to connect with a literary agent, getting published in Umukarago is especially helpful to you. You might be surprised how often this happens! Literary agents often check out literary magazines or journals to find up-and-coming new writers. When a literary agent notices that editors and readers are taking real interest in your creative writing, he or she will be more likely to take interest as well.
5. You’ll get to connect with new people in WSA community and around the world — and networking is never a waste of time. A simple submission to Umukarago could lead to great exposure and networking opportunities.
6. Publication credits in Umukarago provide evidence that you are writing quality material.
7. Short story collections, poetry collections, and essay collections are especially difficult to place for writers who have not published any of the works within a collection. Because collections of poems, stories, and essays are generally not as profitable as other books, agents and editors may feel better about a book’s sales potential when a writer can prove some pre-existing popularity within the literary magazine market. Submitting to Umukarago can help you achieve that.
8. If you have your own website or blog, a linked list of online publications including Umukarago, makes it easy for people to browse your writing and become familiar with your work. Obviously, that isn’t possible if your best short stories, poems, or creative non-fiction works are available only in print journals or books sitting on physical shelves. Moreover, physical journals and books go out of print, but your short story, poem, or creative non-fiction published in Umukarago will be available in our archives indefinitely.
9. Umukarago is willing to post a link to your author website or blog in the biography section. That’s good news for your link-building efforts: The more sites that link to your writer website or blog, the more popular — and visible — you will be in search engine results.
10. You retain the copyright to your work. That means you can still publish it elsewhere. We only request you to credit Umukarago as the first publisher.

There you go! It’s time to Submit to Umukarago.