Iread

For Nigerians, it's a really long break this weekend; the Easter break till Monday and the Tuesday break for voting. So, here's a list of interesting online reads...enjoy!

Ben Okri Interview in Granta

"You write poetry, essays, short stories, novels . . . How do you choose how you will tell your stories?

It is as if some sleeping self wakes for a moment and expresses a note of wonder Before a novel is born in the mind of the writer, it isn’t a novel. Before a short story is conceived, it isn’t a short story. A poem is often an incomplete swell of feeling, or maybe even just a beat that latches on to a wandering theme. The point I am trying to make is that, before they become what they are, all these forms are an insubstantial swirl of a mood inside us. How often has the mood or an idea of a short story become a novel? Or the mood or idea of a novel become a short story? It is all in its original, pre-creative state. This becomes the germ of an idea, and depending on its inner potential for drawing all sorts of related elements in one consciousness, it will take a certain form. Which form this is depends on the inner magnetism of the idea itself. So I stress the idea of listening – you hear an idea, but what is it? The form of a thing doesn’t reveal itself in the import of its creation, or even in the nature of its unfolding. Sometimes things are grown way beyond their destiny and sometimes things are under-nurtured and abbreviated. So I think one of the most difficult things in a writer’s life is knowing what a thing ought to be."

Ellen Cantarow: Energy Is Ugly: Tar Sands Make Their Mark

"Will a pipeline leak one day kill off his old growth hardwood trees, foul his three natural springs, and poison the deer now roaming his land? If TransCanada’s checkered history is any guide, it’s a real possibility. Energy kills. In Japan. In the Gulf. In Appalachian mines. And in the Corn Flake capital of the world. If Winnsboro, East Texas, is added to the list, it won’t be a surprise, not to David Daniel anyway. He knows what we all know now: in the hands of corporations whose only concern is profit, energy is ugly."

Story South, Best Online Stories in 2010, Igoni Barrett;s story "I am Joy" in Fox Chase Review was mentioned (excerpt below).  

"She is drunk, he isn’t. Her weight on his arm is what causes him to stumble every few steps, to walk lopsided, like his broken wing is dragging in the dust. Her heels clatter on the asphalt: clak-a-clak-a-clak. When he stumbles she teeters, her hands fly out and claw his arm, his shoulder, his neck. Her mouth jerks open, ejects noises that turn to laughter. His anger has become a raw taste in the back of his throat—each time her fingers rake his skin, each time her beer-breath washes over his face, he feels the sourness eat deeper into his oesophageal lining. He endures. With each wave of anger he overcomes he feels himself become a stronger man, a better person.

Drunk or not, he will fuck her this morning."

Seun Kuti's Interview in Guardian UK (We love the writer's style, really nice! It feels like you were in the room when he had the interview. )