Writer's Residency Opportunity

The Martha’s Vineyard Writer’s Residency was established in 2007 with a simple mission: to give writers of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and plays a place in which to create or complete new works.

Residencies are held each October and last from two weeks to one month. Each resident is given a private room with a bath in an historic inn in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Eight writers at a time are invited to form an intimate community of peers. The colorful gardens, covered porch and ample common rooms provide several venues in which to work, gather, contemplate or simply to relax.

To apply please fill out the online application form and submit, via email, a short statement of purpose specifying the project you plan to work on, a brief bio including publication history, the dates you’d like to stay and other residencies you have attended, if any, along with up to 20 pages of prose or non-fiction, one act from a play, or six poems to justenahren@hotmail.com. Please be sure to attach manuscript in Word.doc format. If you can’t email, you send manuscripts to Martha’s Vineyard Writer’s Residency PO Box 1041 West Tisbury, MA 02575. Applications and manuscripts are reviewed each spring from March 1st to May 31st.

Look here for more information.

Azuah Azuah at Abuja Writers Forum

The tenth edition of the Guest Writer Session, an Abuja Writers’ Forum (AWF) initiative, features Ms Unoma Nguemo Azuah on May 30. 

Azuah teaches Composition and Creative Writing at Lane College, Jackson, Tennessee. She is an MFA graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia. She also has an MA in English from Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio. Her undergraduate degree in English is from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. As an undergraduate at Nsukka, she edited the English department literary journal—The Muse and received the awards of the best Creative Writing student for two consecutives years: 1992 and 1993. Her other awards include the Hellman/Hammett award, the Urban Spectrum award, the Leonard Trawick award and the Association of Nigerian Authors/NDDC Flora Nwapa award for her debut novel Sky-High Flames.

Azuah is also involved with “The Griot Collective,” a poetry group that organizes workshops and readings for adults and high school students in the West Tennessee area. She has conducted writing workshops for incarcerated mothers and women in prison as a way of creating outlets for their expressions. Part of her focus in such workshops is to assist women in channeling their energy into literary expressions as a way of freeing their spirits in spite of their physical imprisonment.

Ms Azuah has shared her works in cities like Pomona, Los Angeles- California, Washington, DC, Little Rock, Arkansas, Cleveland, Ohio, Eugene, Oregon, New York City, Kingston, Canada, The University of Humboldt, Germany, Nigeria and Jackson, Tennessee among others. Part of Ms. Azuah’s project has been to explore the political disillusionment suffered by Africans due to corrupt government and their subsequent urge to migrate to the west even when they face alienation and homesickness. These themes are the focus of a poetry anthology called “On Broken Wings,” which she recently edited.

She was the publicity secretary Women Writers of Nigeria, and was also the Secretary, Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos State Branch and is currently working on her second collection of poems entitled “Home is Where the Heart Hurts”.

The reading session will hold later in the day by 4pm at the regular venue, Pen and Pages Bookstore, White House Plaza, Plot 79, Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja and will include the usual side attractions of poetry performance, mini art exhibition and live music.

Read an interview with Unoma Azuah on TBB soon!

Alice Munro wins Man Booker International Prize...

We always try to break the news to you...first on Bookaholic. Here it is:

Alice Munro has been declared winner of the third Man Booker International Prize. The Man Booker International Prize, worth £60,000 to the winner, is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage. It was first awarded to Ismail Kadaré in 2005 and then to Chinua Achebe in 2007.

Best known for her short stories, Munro is one of Canada's most celebrated writers. On receiving the news of her win, she said, ‘I am totally amazed and delighted.'

‘Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels.  To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never thought of before.'

Her latest collection of short stories, Too Much Happiness, will be published in October 2009. 

Read more about the prize here; read press release here; about Alice Munro here.

CBBC Writing Competition...

CBBC: New Stories for the Next Generation

In Nigeria, today, May 27 is Children's Day. So, this has to do with writing stories for Children...

Do you have stories to tell that we've never seen before? Can you create characters the audience will fall in love with?

We want to find the next generation of CBBC writers with fresh perspectives, original voices, and the ability to create unforgettable characters.

This opportunity is open to any writer who wants to write Children's drama for the 6-12 age range. We are looking for 30-minute original TV scripts of unmissable and infectious storytelling, offering fresh cultural perspectives, tales combining authenticity with hope and joy, stories from a child's point of view, characters that will engage and surprise the audience, scripts that are powerful, emotional, and contemporary, shows that will work for the CBBC audience and channel but can dare to take risks.

Click here for more information.

Sefi Atta Nominated for southStory Million Writers Award

Sefi Atta's story Grief Mongers, an excerpt from her novel Swallow is on the nomination list ofstorySouth.

storySouth aims to prove that the internet is not just a medium of flash and style; that excellent writing can attract attention without programming gimmicks and hard-to-read fonts. To this end, storySouth practices clean, simple web design.

For more Sefi Atta and her work see here, here and here.

To vote for your favourite story, go here.

Must-go-to events...

Mark your calendar...

Ahmed Yerima: 52nd birthday presentation of Yerima's new book Discourse on Tragedy & Command Performance of his play, Mojagbe. Cinema Hall 2, National Theatre, Lagos. 4pm-6pm. May 25.

Rainbow Book Club: Discussions and reviews of The Girl Entrepreneurs by Ibukun Awosika. Le Meridian, Ogeyi Place, Port Harcourt. 10am-11.30am. May 28.

9 Writers in Warri: Nationwide writers' tour; featuring: Eghosa Imasuen, Toni Kan, Abimbola Adunni Adelakun and others. Flomat Books, Airport Road, Warri. 12 noon-5pm. May 30.

Wole Soyinka's The Trials of Brother Jero, performed in a tripartite production. Cinema Hall 2, National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos. 5pm. May 29-31.

AWF Creative Writing Workshop: Unoma Azuah leads a workshop organised by the Abuja Writers Forum. AMAC Plaza, Abuja. 9.30am. May 30.

Mirrors and Images: An exhibition of new works by the visual artist, Victor Ehikhamenor. Terra Kulture, Tiamiyu Savage Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. Till May 29.

Oyerinde Olotu's exhibition: Opening of Oyerinde Olotu's third solo exhibition of drawings and paintings titled; ‘Nigeria and Beyond'. Quintessence, Falomo Shopping Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos. 4pm. May 30.

Exploring the World of Zahrah...

Nnedi Okorafor Zahrah The Windseeker
Farafina, Lagos (308 pages)

Zahrah the Windseeker is not only an eponymous story of Zahrah Tsami, the protagonist of the story; it is a book of adventures, possibilities, and unknown realities. The novel beckons us all: young and old into a world where all things are possible, a world without borders, free from the restrictions that our reality places on us. Zahrah was born a ‘dada’ a child with dreadlocks with green vines woven into it. This implies that she has supernatural powers that she did not get to know until she was thirteen, after her first menstruation. Initially her uniqueness was a burden that separated her and made her the clown of the class.

The world of Zahrah is a world with a magical stint. A world of CPU seeds, digibooks, netevisions, talking compasses, hydrogen and flora-powered cars, leaf-clipping and mending beetles, to mention a few. It is a world that connects the present with the distant past and the unknown future; a world of in-betweenness’.

Now to the story: Zahrah and Dari are friends; Dari continues to search for knowledge, he believes that there is more to the world than Ooni kingdom. This passion for the unknown fuels his drive for adventure as he visits the Dark Market (a mythical world of evil) which is not entirely true.The Dark Market is the beginning of their exploration into the world of the unknown. They meet Nsibidi, another windseeker there. Their thirst for knowledge leads them into the Forbidden Green Jungle. A jungle on the outskirts of the village, an entirely different civilization shrouded by myths of evil, intended to stop people from discovering it. On one of their journeys to the jungle, Dari is bitten by a war snake; the effect: a coma; the cure: an unfertilized elgort egg. What is an elgort? According to the Forbidden Greeny Jungle Guide: it is a nasty beast, the most deadly in the Greeny Jungle, the Ultimate killing machine.

Zahrah takes a noble decision, to save her friend and get an unfertilized elgort egg. This is the crux of the story. She encounters beasts: the whip scorpion, a giant tortoise, a talking frog, bush cows, gorillas, with great civilization, the carnigourd, talking panther and finally the elgort.

This book has been tagged different names: magical realism, science fiction, mythical story. For me, it is the story of a girl on a noble course to find a cure for her friend’s sickness, and while on that journey she discovers her real self, situations bring out her real self. She finds out that contentment with the present reality is not sufficient, only when you explore will you discover the real you.