Meet Myne Whitman

I've always been amazed by Myne Whitman's online energy, whatever that means! She not only visits; she comments most times. She always left me wondering who is this person with this 'energy' to be almost everywhere at the same time? And I'm sure I'm not alone on this one! So here she is, meet Myne Whitman...and make sure you allow her mend your heart.

Who is Myne Whitman? Why a name that sounds so European? 

Nkem Akinsoto is Myne Whitman. It's a name I coined myself when I began to write seriously in secondary school. Most of the books I read were in English, and since I was writing in English too, I decided my pen name would be the same. So the pseudonym is a play on some words of my maiden name.

Who is your perfect reader?

Someone who can relate to the stories I write about, someone willing to give life and love a chance and who has an open mind and heart.

What is the last thing you read that made you laugh? 

It has to be some of the blogs I come across in my rounds. I've not read a really funny book in a while.

Why did you write A Heart to Mend? 

Well, I primarily wanted to tell an engaging romantic story about unconditional love set in contemporary Nigeria. In my childhood, I was inspired by romance stories where the protagonist undergoes a lot of trials and heartache but eventually comes out on top, but they seem to have trickled off. So when writing A Heart To Mend, I wanted to do something about the situation.

How long did it take to write the story?

I already had a short story I wrote a few years ago. Making it a novel and polishing it up took roughly a year.

What book do you wish that you wrote? 

I've always wished I wrote romance novels and it now has started coming true. lol..

Is it writing you do fulltime? If not, how do you balance the other things? 

Yes I am a full time writer. But I still have to balance being a wife, daughter, sibling and friend. I also volunteer some days of the week and go for writing workshops with my meet-up group.

Why did you start your blog? What’s the strangest comment you had on your blog?

Some members of my writing group had blogs where they shared excerpts of their work. They advised that I could start one to get more feedback on the story I was writing then, and to know when it's ready for the market. I began a small blog on the Nigeria Village Square before moving to the Myne Whitman Writes blog.I think the strangest comments has been the few where some anonymous either writes in a different language or asks for a riddle because their life depended on it. LOL...

You push your book with this enormous drive that some publishing houses will struggle to keep up with, how do you do it? 

I don't really know, lol. One thing I did though is that while waiting after sending the book to the publishers, I shadowed some online publishers and book promoters. Also the publishing house I used, Authorhouse, has a very good marketing guide for their authors. I use that religiously to map out my strategies.

What are you scared of? I'm scared of losing people I love.

Have you ever imitated another writer’s style? Not consciously I think, but I have read so many books it may be possible to see an amalgamation of different styles. However I like to think my voice and style is unique.

Tell us your five favourite writers and why… 

I love various authors and cannot really narrow it down but some names are; Mills and Boon authors, Barbara Cartland, Francine Rivers, Sidney Sheldon, Robert Ludlum, Leon Uris, John Grisham, and Michael Critchton. And in Africa; Pacesetters authors, African Writers Series, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe and more recently Chimamanda Adichie. These writers can weave a very good story.

Why romance? What are the challenges of writing ‘romance style’? 

Romance because there is a dearth of romantic fiction in Nigeria. Sometimes you hear people wondering if there is even anything like love. I have seen stories of love and I wanted to contribute to the conversation. It is also a delight having to day dream about romantic love for a living. The challenge is  finding a fresh story that makes the journey pleasurable and engaging for the readers. Putting together an  emotional, character-driven conflict that provides tension and excitement, knowing that there is a fixed 'happy-ever-after' ending.

Isn't it limiting to be tagged a ‘romance writer’? Is that all you will do or we should expect something else in the future? I do not find it limiting at all, it is a choice I made. And I'm so happy I chose the title I did for my debut. An interview I had called it "The Heart Mender". I think that is wonderful! LOL...That will be my specialty and I hope to write several more books.

Why did you take the self-publishing route? 

I decided to self publish because I heard some good stories about the process and how it can be successful if you apply yourself. I felt I could follow the route since I was now a fulltime writer and had more time to devote to it.I also knew that the majority of my audience would be Nigerians and it is no secret that the few publishing houses in the country are overwhelmed as it is.

What are you doing to make your book accessible to Africans? 

There are plans to publish in Nigeria which I hope will come to fruition in this first quarter.

What inspires your writing? 

I have to say it is my imagination. I fantasize a lot and being a book worm has not helped matters. I find inspiration from my life, people around me and it could be just a sentence in a newspaper or a line in a movie and my imagination just feeds on it. My brain just churns out these stories even when I am asleep.

What’s one thing that people don’t know about you? 

My life is an open book. I am silent until you start reading me.

What is the hardest thing to write about?

Optimism I think. It's easy to be pessimistic in our current world environment. But writing about love and hope and redemption, that is more difficult to do and I struggle with it too.

What is the worth of a book? 

As much as people are willing to spend their time and money to buy, read and talk about it. The way I see it, the expensive books gathering dust in libraries and bookstores are not of much worth to anyone.

How do you react to criticism?

I welcome criticism, just be gentle with me, LOL. Seriously though I like harsh critics, however I also want to know the way forward. I love discussions, two-way communication, and that is the way i prefer my criticisms to be.

Do you believe in romance? Do Africans believe in it? Some think romance is European, others that it misleads young folks or that it’s utopia; how do you perceive your book will be accepted with these in mind? I totally believe in romance, I refer to myself as a hopeless romantic in that there's no going back. But I think romance is hopeful, it wants to believe in love. Not in utopia, because I'm not an idealist, but in a world with a future. And no romance is not European. Love, and by extension romance, is universal. There is no misleading going on but a bringing to the fore. We know a lot of African marriages are either arranged or functional but we also know of those based on mutual love. Some of our grandparents even had those. That is what I want us to talk about and maybe we can have more of it. 

What do you have to say about the Nigerian publishing scene? 

I think it is in it's infancy. I don't think there are more than a handful if publishers in the literary fiction genre, most are in textbook or magazines. I think they need all the help they can get, from the government, from the private sector and from us the writers and poets. If the country wants everyone to read more, then we should put our money where our mouths are.

List five of your favourite blogs and why… 

I have loads of blogs I enjoy, but the types I enjoy the most are the personal blogs, fiction and poetry blogs, entertainment round-ups, movie and book reviews and finally social commentators.

If you had the chance to write your epitaph, what would it read? 

The Heart Mender! LOL...

Words to upcoming writers

I will say that they should keep at it. A writer has to persevere, have a story they want to share and push till it's in a forms others can understand and appreciate. I wish everyone the best.

What does it mean to be a writer? 

I will like to quote another writer here. Petina Gappah said on her blog "A writer is a person who writes...You, at your computer or with your notebook, writing, and writing, revising and writing, and revising again." I will only add that you need to have a story and a voice to tell it in.

What should we expect from you in the nearest future? More stories.

The 'Travula' Visits Bookaholic Blog

Our Bookaholic Blogger for the month of September is Kola Tubosun, who has quite a huge online presence that's hard to describe. There are however three things you should know:

• Editing this piece was quite challenging, lest we cut off beautiful sections you'd love to read. It's long but will sure not only enlighten you but make you chuckle.
• Kola is a Fulbright Scholar who blogs as KTravula
• He's a September child, so happy birthday to him in advance!

Who is Kola Tubosun?
I’m a young man who has lived most of his life in the city of Ibadan where I was born, raised, and where I had all my education up to the University level. I’ve also lived in Akure, Ife, Lagos, Eldoret, Jos, Ogun state, and recently, Providence and Edwardsville. (He sure likes to tavel!) I like to see myself as an open book on which a few memorable things have been written so far. I can be mischievous, and I like to play fun pranks on close friends, and I try to find fun and playfulness in everything, no matter how dire. I like to sing. I’m a graduate of Linguistics from the University Ibadan, and my curiosities about language have influenced a lot of the things I’ve involved myself in.

What will a book about your life be called?
What’s the Friggin’ Mystery?

Why did you start writing KTravula?
I started the blog mainly to document my observations, impressions and activities while I’m in the United States. I suspected long before I left Nigeria on the Fulbright FLTA programme that the experience would be a memorable one, but I did not know the extent, and I wanted to have some place to write down the things that intrigue me. So you’d be right to say that my first motivation was a purely selfish one. The other reason of course was to be able to keep my friends back home in touch with what I’m doing, every step of the way. That way, they would be able to warn me when I begin to deviate, or change in a way that I may not be able to see for myself. Hence the blog, and a few other private notebooks I have.

What are your blog names/personalities?
My first online personality was “Villageois”, meaning “The Villager” in French. That personality died sometime before I entered the university. Then there was “gwatala” which took me over in school and on Nairaland.com. That soon gave way to IGwatala. I’ve also written with the handle “Baroka” which I adopted when I started writing for Instablogs.com as a freelance journalist, and when I registered my Twitter account. But most times when I write serious stuff like poetry and short story, I use “Kola Tubosun” which, I might add, is also an online personality crafted from my full names that are often too long to pronounce for a lot of people.

When and why did you start writing your blogs?
I started writing on my first blog iGwatala in May 2006 while I was in Jos almost rounding off my National Youth service and when I needed an avenue to connect with the living world. Sometimes the distance and a constant loneliness make it necessary to write something. In any case, there were so many things going on in my life at that moment that I needed to let out steam. Keeping a blog then kept me sane and intellectually active since I always had something to look forward to every time I travelled for up to an hour to the nearest internet cafe. I started ktravula two days before I travelled to the United States to begin my Fulbright programme. That was on August 10th 2009.

Five blogs that you always visit and why?
I visit Jeremy’s Blog to catch his interesting perspectives on Nigeria. He’s an “Oyinbo” Nigerian so his views always give a certain perspective that you may not get from a Naija resident/citizen. I visit Bookaholic Blog to catch the latest gist in Nigerian literary circles. You do have some nice interviews, and opinions too. (thanks for the kind words!) I also visit Story Time, where interesting fiction pieces from all over Africa show up once every fortnight. It’s one of the most active prose fiction sites in Africa today. I frequent Aloofar’s blog, but he seems now to be on a little break. I hope he returns soon. I also go often to Jude Dibia’s, and Jumoke Verissimo’s Blogs to read fiction and poetry. I have so many blogs on my Google Reader all for different reasons. There’s Verastic, Solomonsydelle, Loomnie and Tolu’s Blogs for their very eclectic and often stimulating contents. That’s not more than five, right?

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I’d change nothing, not even my sometimes untameable inclination to break every rule.

What is the last thing you read that made you laugh?
A poem, “The Skinhead’s Lord’s Prayer” by Amatoritsero Ede. It’s published as Hitler’s Children” in his new book.

Who is your perfect audience?
The audience that responds, that speaks back and don’t just listen passively.

What do you bring back from your journeys?
I usually collect currencies, especially the coins. They’ve always intrigued me since I was young, and Nigeria had these beautiful 25kobo coins with images of workers building groundnut pyramids. My father used to have a collection of really old Nigerian currency notes. I loved looking at them. All Nigerians these days have become forced numismatics since they can’t seem to be able to spend any of the government-issued coins anywhere in the country. I also bring back pictures. I can’t get enough of taking pictures, especially of signs, structures, and strangers.

How does it feel teaching young Whites Yoruba language?
It feels great. It’s challenging to me as it is to them and I like the experience. I could connect with them more because they are young people like me, and they are quite eager to learn and discover new things. The experience also gives me a chance to see myself through the stranger’s eyes. I’ve recently asked them to read up a particular short story on Yoruba culture and write what they find strange and different about the people, and what they find equally similar with their culture. These exercises give me an insight into what they see when they look at me. But over all, it is a very fulfilling experience.

What does it feel like to be a Fulbright Scholar?
It feels good to be in company of people like Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Laila Lalami, Arlene Alda the author and photographer, among others, but I like most the fact that it doesn’t carry a burden of too much expectations. That is, I don’t feel obliged to want to prove anything to anyone. I’ve always loved being able to do things that challenge, interest and benefit me intellectually It’s a great feeling to be able to put one’s wishes into reality.

Do Nigerians read? How do you suggest Nigerians can get reading more?
Of course Nigerians read, but they choose what to read. They also lack sustainable access to the modern tools of reading. Not everyone is well-suited to standing up for hours reading newspapers at a newsstand, but we’re not any less open to reading as American or British people, but they have more advanced means of delivering text to their populace. And even then, a growing number of teenagers in developing countries don’t read, and many of them can’t. To get Nigerians reading more, provide more stimulating reading contents, and they will read more.

What is your most treasured possession?
I would say my loyal friends, who put up with all the trouble that I, sometimes inevitably, am.

Mention five of your favourite writers, why?
J.M Coetzee, because of the reach of his mind, and the brilliance of his style. I’ve only read one of his books, “Elizabeth Costello”, but I’ve read a few more articles he’s written. I can’t wait to read more of him. Even his life is an intriguing book. Wole Soyinka for who he is, and for all he’s done on the page, on the drama stage, and on the world stage. His plays are profound, and his autobiographies a classic. And to think he’s still active today as he was long before we were born is truly impressive. Akinwumi Isola, for his dexterity with words, and for his many contributions to the development of written Yoruba literature. Maya Angelou for her depth, perspective and strength. Her fiction is engaging, her poems are deep and her life story even more captivating. I’ll give the fifth spot to both Arundhati Roy and Roald Dahl for their brilliance. For lack of space, let me put Salman Rushdie in a future list. His prose and his power of description are spectacular, and I’ve loved reading The Satanic Verses.

What inspires your writing?
I’m inspired by life itself, and the way in which it throws the unexplainable in our ways sometimes just to reinforce our awe of the unknown. I’ve witnessed more than a few incidents in America that could not have been just coincidences. Serendipity does it for me, most times.

Describe your writing in a sentence?: So far, my writing is a diverse mix of lived experiences of life’s little pleasures, retold to enlighten, to entertain and to inform.

Literature in a sentence: Literature is a collection of varying life perspectives told with the different means most accessible to the teller.

Philosophy of life
Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, if you can.

What is your greatest fear?
I have a great fear for falling down, literally, from a very tall height. I hate to think about it. It’s not so much a fear of heights as it is a fear of falling. There’s a difference. But don’t ask me why I still like riding roller-coasters or why I’m still fascinated by tall buildings. I also have a terrible fear of cold. Those who’ve been reading my blog will be familiar with this not totally unwarranted phobia. Again, don’t ask me why I signed up for the Fulbright Programme to go to the US at winter time. My greatest fear, however, I think, is losing the people I love. I hate to think about it.

If you could write your epitaph, what will you write?
“Here lies he who never stopped living.”

You can read Kola Tubosun's works here and here.

Bookaholic Blogger of the Month: Jude Dibia

Three adjectives that describe you: Complicated, determined, unpredictable.

How do you choose your characters? I think my characters choose me. There has never been a formula to that; it just starts with the story or an idea of the plot and from there, the characters emerge, all fighting to be heard and seen.

Who do you consider a writer’s writer and why? This is a hard question to answer. A literal interpretation of that would be a writer that writes for the pleasure and enjoyment of other writers exclusively. But, I don’t think that this is what you mean. My writer’s writer is Toni Morrison. The beauty of her words and craft is simply awesome; you get swept away by her imaginative prowess.

What inspires your writing? Everything. Life and the all important ‘what if’ factor.

What is the hardest thing to write about? My personal experiences.

What is the greatest problem of the Nigerian publishing industry? Distribution and the basic infrastructure do not exist.

When and why did you decide to become a writer? I never decided to become a writer. It just happened. I loved reading books and then I developed an interest in telling stories. I think it happened organically.

What is the secret to being a fine writer? You have to read a lot to acquaint yourself with what others before you have written and understand what works; why they were successful and be familiar with all the elements that make for fine writing.

What is the oddest job you’ve done? While I was pursuing a diploma in Arts school, I worked behind a counter in a popular evening hangout close to the university serving drinks and making sharwarma (not sure if that’s the right spelling).

Your first story written: I really can’t remember the name, but it was an adventure story much like the ones I used to read by Enid Blyton. I was quite young then.

Greatest achievement in writing career: I think for now, it’s just being able to tell the stories I have told, and the tremendous feedback and support I have received from readers.

What book are you reading at the moment? The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Rainbow by D.H Lawrence and One Hundred Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li.

Five favorite writers and why:
• Toni Morrison – She has a way with language and storytelling that simply leaves me breathless.

• James Baldwin – His novels are simply timeless.

• Virginia Woolf – I’ve always been fascinated by her writing.

• J.M Coetzee – Wonderful writer, almost faultless in his writing.

• The fifth would be all the wonderful Nigerian writers I have been reading lately and mentioning one would mean I have to mention them all.

Why did you write Unbridled? It was a story that simply refused to leave me and I was excited about the challenge of telling it in the voice that I did.

Who is your perfect reader? A patient reader.

What is the last thing you read that made you laugh? A friend’s recent note on Facebook!

How do you relax? Watching television.

Recently, your blog became more like a writer’s workshop, why? My blog is always evolving. I guess after I started receiving emails from people asking me about my writing process etc, I decided to share with them some of the things I picked up since I started writing.

How do you juggle being a writer and work in the corporate world? I wish I knew, but I don’t. I write when I am inspired and that could be late at night or in the early hours of the morning or weekends… I have managed to separate my writing from my career.

Which of your works was the most challenging for you to write? They were both challenging and in the process of writing either, I must have felt at one point of the other that ‘this is the most challenging work thus far!’

What should we expect from you in the nearest future? Well, I have had some short stories published recently in magazines, e-zines and the One World Anthology of short stories. I have just completed what I hope will be my third novel and I will start working on another book similar to my first novel, Walking with Shadows.

What is the value of a book? Good books are priceless. Once a book can achieve most of its goals, and in that, I mean its ability to inspire, inform, entertain and elicit the appropriate emotional reaction, then, it is worth every penny spent on getting it and becomes priceless.

Writing Sample: Excerpt from upcoming novel, Blackbird
Underground City was the real deal, with its smothering intimacy with violence and depravity. A conglomeration of roguishly built shanty homes, it flanked the Sambo creek, a torrid expanse of water snaking its way to the sea. The ‘city’ littered an entire mass of land, giving little or no room for roads or streets. Yet, on the other side of the water, were manicured suburbs housing the rich.

Omoniyi was alert; he had to be. The stories he had heard of how a man could be robbed of the shoes he was wearing if they looked like they could be traded for a wrap of hemp were not to be taken lightly. He also knew that he could be knifed in the back for staring at the wrong person. These worries were enough to keep him cautious. He stayed away from this neighbourhood as much as he could, but Scorpio lived here now and he had come to see him for work.

As Omoniyi walked from the bus, he suddenly felt intimate with this place. It had its own soul and its own vibe, expressed by a cacophony of hooting car horns, mixed with the cadences of tired bus engines that coughed and puffed under the baking sun, overlaid by a multitude of voices that talked, whispered, shouted, traded, cursed, laughed, cried, sang and sighed, all in unison. Once you set foot in Underground City, you felt its touch and its breath on you.

But Omoniyi recalled that it had not always been like this. Back in the 50s, he’d heard, it used to be a respectable settlement called Elnugeja. How had it changed? The story went that a young man called Bayo had returned to his native city with a law degree from England, where he’d been sent after winning a government scholarship. He’d suffered racial abuse there. On his return, he looked for a home––only to find that a colour bar operated in his own country, too. He searched for a home in Ikoyi and Apapa before he realised they were reserved for the colonial Europeans and other so called elite. Why, he must have wondered, did a racial-divide exist here? Why did the whites have a better stake in land and property than the indigenes?