Two of Zimbabwe's finest thespians, Lucian Msamati and Chipo Chung, are set to perform three of the stories from Petina Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly. Writing on her blog recently, Petina expressed excitement at the development. "I am really excited about this," she wrote, |in fact, I cannot stop grinning. The stories will be broadcast on the BBC's Radio 4. Lucian is a brilliant actor who was first bitten by the bug as a schoolboy. He went on to do a number of productions with the comedy troupe Over The Edge and has done a lot of theatre both in Zim and in the UK .

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Weaver Press is proud to announce that in the ‘Literary Arts’  section of the 2010 NAMA Awards:

• Absent: the English Teacher by John Eppel has been shortlisted in the category

‘Outstanding Fiction Book’

• An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (distributed by Weaver Press)
• Harare North by Brian Chikwava (distributed by Weaver Press)
• The Trek and the Other Stories by Lawrence Hoba (published by Weaver Press)

Have been shortlisted in the category

‘Outstanding First Creative Published Work’

The winners will be announced at a Ceremony on 20th February.

The National Arts Merit Awards  (NAMA) are sponsored by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe.

At its cultural policy seminar and subsequent Steering Committee meeting in Nairobi in November 2009, it was agreed that Arterial Network would establish a number of in-country reading groups of 3-10 participants who would meet fortnightly (or at least monthly) for two hours to read about, debate and write responses to current international cultural discourses and themes.

The purpose of these reading groups is to develop greater understanding of these themes, to develop responses to these from within varying African conditions and to help to build African leadership in the ongoing debates.