vangile gantsho is healer, poet and co-founder of impepho press – a Pan Africanist intersectional feminist publishing house. She is the author of two poetry collections: red cotton (2018) and Undressing in Front of the Window (2015), holds an MA, from the University Currently Known as Rhodes (UCKR) and is a graduate of the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute. In 2018, she was named one of Mail & Guardian’s Top Young 200 South Africans. Her poetry has been published in various literary publications around the globe, including New Daughters of Africa (2019). gantsho has participated in festivals and literary programmes across three continents. She has curated and produced in-person and online international programmes and co-created a poetry and film meditation called forgetting. and memory. with Toni Giselle Stuart and Vusumzi Ngxande. She has taught at institutions including UCKR, Wits University, New York University, Rowan University, CUNY La Guardia and State College. gantsho dedicates herself and her work to creating and/or supporting spaces that encourage (black feminine visibility and) healing. Her current obsessions include Ukuthula, a creative writing resistance to gender based violence, and smallgirl rising connecting the Divine Black Feminine, an international intergenerational poetry healing initiative.
Source: What the residency offers
Source: Biographies of the ten chosen residents – Roger Robinson (UK), Jaimee A. Swift (USA), Keston Perry (Trinidad & Tobago), Lori L. Tharps (USA), Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza (Zimbabwe), vangile gatsho (South Africa), Nzube Nlebedim (Nigeria), Noor Elfaki (Sudan), Abdulrazak Salihu (Nigeria), Denoo Edinam Yawo (Ghana)
