Bongekile Joyce Mbanjwa was born in Pietermarizburg in 1962. She attended Zwartkop Primary School, Imbumbu Primary School, Mpande Secondary School and Qoqisizwe High School. She continued with tertiary education at SACSSP, University of Natal, KwaZulu-Natal Sign Language Academy and UNISA.

She worked at the Natal Society for the Blind, and is now employed at Epilepsy SA as a social worker. She also works part-time at Endumezulu Adult Centre as a teacher and at UNISA as a tutor. One of her stories was published in Botsotso 13 and five poems were published in the anthology of women’s poetry and photography, Isis X.

Nadine Botha was born in 1979 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, and holds an Honours degree in Theory of Art from Rhodes University. She currently works in Cape Town as editor of Design Indaba magazine. Her poems have been published in various magazines in South Africa, including Donga, Southern Rain Poetry, Litnet, Sweet, New Coin, Ons Kleintjie, Laugh It Off and Botsotso.

Ronelda S Kamfer has entered Afrikaans literature like a Guy Fawkes’ rocket at Pentecost. This remarkable poet was born in 1981 to parents who lived in Blackheath in the Cape. At the age of three, she went to stay with her grandparents, labourers on a Grabouw fruit farm. At ten, she returned to her parents in Blackheath and later moved to Eersterivier on the Cape Flats where she encountered firsthand the legendary gang culture.

Samuel Edward Krune Loliwe Ngxekengxeke Mqhayi was born in Gqumashe in Alice, Transkei, in 1875. He grew up in Centane, in Gcaleka, and died in 1945. The poet’s autobiography, entitled UMqhayi waseNtabozuko, published in 1939, is a rich source of information about this intriguing legend, considered by many to be the father of Xhosa poetry and awarded the honorific ‘the Shakespeare of Xhosa’.

Stephen Gray is a giant of the South African literary landscape. One of the country’s most prolific authors, he has established a reputation as a leading academic and critic, with a substantial publication record in a wide range of genres including novels, poetry, biography, essays and a play. In his editorial capacity he has overseen a prodigious output of South African anthologies.