These are the individuals who have volunteered to put together the first edition of the festival. If you would like to help with organizing the festival, in any way, send us a message and we shall be happy to have you on board.
Dilman Dila
Dilman Dila is a writer and filmmaker. His books include Where Rivers Go To Die, which was shortlisted for the Philip K Dick Awards (2024), and The Future God of Love. He was shortlisted for the BSFA Awards (2021), the Nommo Awards for Best Novella (2021), and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2013), among many accolades. His short fiction appeared in The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, and in The Best of World SF V.2, among many anthologies. His first novel, Dreams of a Yellow Balloon, is coming in 2028. His films have won multiple awards. For more of his life and works, visit www.dilmandila.com
Racheal Kizza
Racheal Kizza is a Ugandan cultural practitioner and literary enthusiast. She is the host of Meet Your Author, a podcast spotlighting African writers across the continent. She previously served as Cultural Coordinator at Goethe-Zentrum Kampala/Ugandan German Cultural Society (GZK/UGCS) and worked as Project Coordinator at African Writers Trust. She holds an MLitt in Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling.
Atukunda Rachael Mutabingwa
Atukunda Rachael Mutabingwa is an award-winning author, editor, and poet whose work delves into the emotional, mythical, and transformative aspects of the human experience. She is the author of Adavera, Kunda, and Mbegu — dark fantasy and speculative fiction blending ancestral memory, power, and resistance. Her accolades include the 2020 North Street Book Prize for Kunda, an African Writers Trust Fellowship for Adavera, and an Honorable Mention in the 2025
North Street Book Prize for Mbegu.
For Atukunda, writing is a space to process, reclaim, and reimagine—a practice where internal struggles can be externalized and past experiences reframed through narrative. Through her storytelling, she invites readers to approach fiction not just as craft, but as a path toward understanding, agency, and healing.
Sanyu Sandra
Sanyu Sandra is a Ugandan poet and filmmaker. Her work as a filmmaker spans writing, directing and producing. One of the films she produced, Asiimwe’s Gift, won 4 awards in the Uganda Film Festival Western Regional 2025. She is also a student of Animation and Visual Effects and continues to explore storytelling across film, literature and visual art.
Hadijjah N. Sebunya
Hadijjah N. Sebunya is a fiction writer and public policy analyst. She is an organizer at AfricanBookshelf, a community of readers in Kampala. Her work has appeared in the CANEX Anthology, Wasafari, itsuganda, KAS, and elsewhere.
Maureen Andinda
Maureen is a lifelong reader whose relationship with books is as much about contrasting perspectives as it is about the exploration of new ways of being. As the Proprietor of Folded Pages Co. Limited, a bespoke bookstore aiming to expand Uganda’s access to a vast array of titles, books have shaped not only what and how she reads but also how she runs the store, affixing within the daily work the philosophy of curation over volume and conversation beyond transaction.
At Folded Pages, Maureen has built a space where sourcing decisions are personal to the needs of the reader. Spanning several years of her own diverse reading, together with her team, she combines thoughtful reader engagement with industry expertise to expand access to a multitude of titles.
Her eventual arrival to book curation, sourcing, and selling was inevitable. As an ardent reader herself, her personal experience has deeply shaped how Folded Pages responds to the needs of the fervent reader. Maureen believes in the collective effort required to fashion change and is applying her reverence for reading alongside its ability to stir ideas and conversations on the inevitable journey towards connection.