Wanjeri Gakuru is a freelance journalist, essayist, curator and filmmaker.
A cross-section of her writing has appeared in Transition Magazine, The Elephant, CNN, The Sunday Times, Nataal, LA Times Magazine and The Africa Report among others.
Wanjeri is an alumna of the 2014 Farafina Creative Writing Workshop. She was selected as the 2018 Literary Ambassador for Nairobi by Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel and is a 2021 Baraza Media-Fringe Graph Fellow. Wanjeri is a 2021 Docubox Short Film Grant winner, a 2022 Interfilm Script Pitch finalist and the curator of the 2023 NBO Litfest.
Between 2018 and 2020, Wanjeri served as Managing Editor of pan-African writers’ collective, Jalada Africa. She worked as Co-Curator and Festival Producer during the Collective’s inaugural Jalada Mobile Literary and Arts Festival covering Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, DRC and Rwanda (2017). In 2021, Wanjeri was appointed Jalada Africa’s Board Secretary and Project Lead on Translation Issue 02.
She is a founding member and the Partnerships Director of Rogue Film Society (RFS), a collective of multi-talented African filmmakers and thespians working in film, TV, theatre and advertising.
Wanjeri has contributed variously to curatorial projects and publications including Just A Book (Goethe-Institut Kenya, 2016), #RafikiZetu: Kenyan LGBTIQ Stories, as told, by Allies (Denis Nzioka, 2019), Family Matters (Goethe-Institut Namibia, 2021), Kazi ya Mkono (SoLab, 2022), Archive of Forgetfulness (2022) and Love Letters to Cinema (2022). She hosts and curates the Mengi Mengi Film Club in partnership with Book Bunk, a social impact organisation restoring Nairobi’s public libraries.
Wanjeri co-wrote feature films, Supa Modo (2018) and Lusala (2019) as well as Kenya’s first Netflix TV drama series, Country Queen (2022). The independent filmmaker made her directorial debuts in short fiction and documentary in 2019 and 2020 with the mockumentary, Get Laid (2019) premiering at Shorts, Shorts and Shots Festival in collaboration with NBO Film Festival and the documentary film project, Nielimishe (2020); respectively.
She has worked in Communications & Content Production at GoodTimes Africa (2016). Wanjeri was previously an Editorial Assistant at Kwani Trust (2015-2016) and also served as Associate Editor at Mondeas Limited – UP Magazine, Kenya Concierge (2010-2013).
Wanjeri worked as Media Liaison on SPOKEN WOR:L:DS Nairobi (2013) and the Etisalat Prize for Literature Nairobi Tour (2014 – 2016).
