Online Creative Writing Course

Are you thinking of an online Creative Writing Course? You may consider this tailored-to-fit course with friendly and supportive professional writer Liz Ashworth.

Develop your fiction, poetry, journalism or drama to publishable standard or just enjoy the trip! Single sessions or ten-session package at you own pace, with free creative writing handbook on enrolment.

Contact Liz Ashworth by sending an email: liz@lizashworth.com

Visit her website or just Google (trust me, it works).

CREATIVE WRITING COMPETITION

Happy new month to all Bookaholics!

We welcome you to July with this however don't let the seeming illusion that the deadline is far off be a clog in your writing wheels; start writing NOW. Well, that's if you are interested in winning 1,000 dollars!

Topic: Nigerian Women and Development: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

The competition is open to young women and men between ages 20-40 years to develop skills in writing, designing and creating short plays, essays and poetry and to stimulate their interest in issues regarding the changing roles of women in society. Interested participants are requested to send in an original scholarly writing in form of prose or short play or poetry to express their ideas about the selected theme.

Submission of entries: Participants should submit soft copies electronically to info@chdafrica.org and 2 hard copies to Centre for Human Development, Suite 1 , First Floor, New Adeoyo Road , Off Ring Road , Ibadan , Oyo State.

Prizes: $1,000 will be awarded to the winner in each category of the competition.

Deadline: December 31st, 2009.

More about the Competition:

Within the framework of its strategy of educating the youth on Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, the Centre for Human Development (CHD), with support of the Ford Foundation in Nigeria, is organising a writing competition on the above theme to underscore the important role of the Nigerian Women’s Movement in the quest for women’s empowerment, gender equality and sustainable development. This Creative Writing Competition is designed to celebrate the productive roles and achievements of women in national development in the last 50 years, stimulate enquiry into the changing roles of women in society and institute a gender sensitive representation of arts and culture.

For further enquiries call 08089803557, 08098060004 or visit the Centre’s website.

A Good Book Is Priceless: EC Osondu

Three adjectives that best describe you
This is little hard for me. The question, I mean, puts you in a hard place. I have a tendency to ramble but I also adore precision I don’t know if that makes me quirky. I like contrariness, sometimes for the sheer heck of it.

Which talent would you most like to have?
The ability to play a musical instrument. I have this fantasy in which I walk up to the stage and casually take the saxophone from say Fela or Miles, cut to this reaction shot of the audience sneeringly wondering what this upstart could possibly be up to and then I begin to play and they start to applaud.

Why did you write ‘Jimmy Carter’s Eyes?’
The story was written in response to the phrase-The road to hell is paved with good intentions, good intentions here referring to the sometimes misguided dogoodism- for lack of a better phrase- of Western charities and of course the universality of such human impulses as greed and selfishness.

What is the last thing you read that made you laugh?
A couple of aphorisms make me chuckle each time they come to mind:

• A man shouldn’t be angry with the sun because it failed to light his cigar
• Anyone who insists on calling a spade, a spade should be made to use one.
• There is only good writing and bad writing, there is no such thing as Christian writing, after all, there is no Christian way to boil an egg.

Who is your perfect audience?
A well read audience.

What is the worth of a book?
I am sure you mean a good book-priceless of course.

When is the best time for you to write ?
Any time is a good time. I e-mail my work in progress to myself so I can access it at any time and everywhere.

Name your five favourite books and why?
This is like asking me to step into the same river twice-impossible. I fall in and out of love with books all the time. There are a few writers that I return to often and again:

• James Baldwin’s collected essays for their candence, humor and Old testament- like rhythm
• Ben Okri’s short stories for their magic, musicality and almost perfect exquisite charm
• Jose Saramago’s Blindness for its parabolic and fabular wisdom
• Cormac McCarthy’s The Road for its pessimistic optimism and its cautionary tale quality
• And of course VS Naipaul’s essays for his unflinching and unafraid gaze.

What is your most treasured possession?
Ah I’m not gonna reveal that one o, make dem no thief am

About nominations and awards
They are good insofar and they make you realize that the world is paying attention. But the work is the thing really.

What is your advice to young writers?
Keep reading and keep writing. Easy, right?

What books are currently on your bedside table?
Books are scattered everywhere in my house including a bunch piled around the commode. Here are a few in no order-The Yacoubian Building, The Price of the Ticket, Fugitive Pieces, The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing and The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders.

Best decision in writing career
Going to Syracuse University for graduate studies in creative writing.

Greatest challenge
Leaving meaningful marks on the blank page.

Your first words when you made the Caine shortlist...
Actually, a friend heard the news first and congratulated me on my wall on Facebook, so I was like O’l boy you sure abi is this a hoax? I was excited of course .

What would a story about your life be called?
Look and laff to paraphrase Fela that inimitable wit and chronicler of the Blackman’s condition.

What is your greatest fear?
I wake up one day and discover inspiration has fled never to return

If you could make a wish right now, what would it be?
To close my eyes and by the time I open them I’m in Nigeria. To suddenly have the ability to speak the foreign language of any person I meet, now that’ll be so cool.

What is the first piece you wrote and when?
I started out as a poet and you don’t even want to see my early pieces, quite frankly they were cringe-worthy and just talking about them now fills me with fear and loathing.

Education or experience: which is more important to a writer?
Get some educative experience but also experience some education.

How will you introduce your child to reading?
Read that which interests you and when s/he develops a love for reading, they’ll read everything.

How do you overcome writer’s block?
I wish I knew how. I think the same way you overcome a hangover-biting the hair of the dog that bit you. Simply attack the page even if you end up writing crap it makes way for all that good stuff to come later.

How do you relax?
This question presupposes that I work a lot and that I need to create a special time to relax which is not the case. I relax so much that I think the question should be when do you find time from your life of relaxation to do some work?

What is your philosophy of life?
To be a good man, and a good writer. By the way I borrowed that from Hemingway.

EC Osondu has made the shortlist for the Caine Prize twice (2007&2009). As we await the announcement of the winner on Sunday, July 6, 2009, we pray he hits the bull's eye this time around. We wish him all the best!

The Blogging World Of Fashion

Fashion Bloganistas, Where Art Thou?

Where are all the true true Fashionistas that walk the walk, talk the talk and blog the blog? Please tell me where I can get a daily if possible a 3 square balanced meal of all things fashion from a fun but intelligent perspective with some snack catwalk goss in between? If only wishes were horse in Naija-Blogaria! We will get there, YES WE CAN!

Ok now that we’ve passed the Obama Intro or is it the JENIFA mini skit that’s reigning now? Anyways moving on, it is not really as bad as I have put it. When I started doing research for this piece, I had already started looking for blogs about fashion because I think I caught the fashionpreneurial Bug-I’m actually on my way to becoming a world class fashion designer courtesy of House of Henri Fashion and Art Academy, many a magazine a pull out that I pore over weekly, presenting on television (you gotta look the part even if you’re talking about the weather) and now a budding fashion writer (check me out in ThisDay Style, TW Magazine and more to come), so WATCH THIS SPACE!

You have to give it up for J’adore who rightly clinched the prize in the Naija Bloggers Award for the best fashion blog. She knows the real Coco not the one we drink or D Banj’s, she is on top and on par with the West and whenever I need some help with all the fashion grammar, I know where to go. I love how she lives out what she preaches-FASHION. Whether she features in the pictures or not, you cannot leave without being inspired to up your game…dressing wise. Recently, she does a throwback on cropped tops and reminisces on how she wore them in her high school days to parties in the coal town-Enugu.

Haute Africa is a website with a blog which is regularly updated depending on what’s going on (Naija weekend events are very popular here). So you know where to go and sometimes there are some fashion nuggets from around the world. The Haute blog has the latest from this year’s ARISE African Fashion Week 2009, very cool pictures. The website also hosts tabs for Art, Designers, Art, Events, Features, Haute Spots, Haute Tv, Models, People & Tributes, Street Stylin’ and Discuss (for the interactive forum). Well done Wadami for still finding time to manage the site as well as her round-the-clock job as the Ediatrix of Hi Magazine.

Read the rest here. The website is very insightful and regularly provides general overview reviews of the blogging scene albeit the Nigerian ones. So even if fashion is not your thing you can check out the literary reviews like 'We Write' and 'Literature Is A Minority Affair'.

A DAY TO MAKE THEM READ IN KADUNA

THAT THEY MAY READ...

Reading has suddenly become unfashionable and the seeming financial reward and fame in comparison to the glamour burden entertainment industry is helping to make it less fashionable! This realization and preempted future consequences prompted the Editorial Board Community Development Club of the National Youth Service Corps Scheme, Kaduna State to organize a reading campaign aimed at reversing the downslide in reading among young people.

The Editorial Board is a Community Development Group registered within the ambits of what the NYSC represents. Over the years, the Editorial Board with the help of corporate bodies and general public, has continually been at the forefront of Community Development through innovative projects and selfless service.

To further add value to the event which held on the 3rd of June, 2009, Onyeka Nwelue, author of The Abyssinian Boy was around. The event was in two stages: the first at Command Secondary School, Sabo, Kaduna South and the second at the Faculty of Arts, Kaduna State University. The author, at these events, read from his book, interacted with the audience and also presented a paper titled - Regenerating the polemics of reading culture in Nigeria at the university.

Onyeka Nwelue was born in 1988. He won the Thompson short stories competition when he was eleven. In 2004, he was described in the Guardian Newspaper as the ‘teenager with the steaming pen’. He received a grant from the Institute for Research on African Women, Children and Culture (IRAWCC) in 2008 and has been selected as Writer-in -Residence for the month of July by the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos. His debut The Abyssinian Boy was published this year and is being made into a movie by Danish film maker Lasse Lau together with Nigeria’s Tunde Kelani.

At the Command Secondary school venue of the literary and current affairs quiz competition, seven schools competed. The competition saw Queen Amina College emerge 1st , Royal International college was 1st runners up and Christ ambassador’s college was 2nd runners up. Other schools that participated are Oxford International School; Government Secondary School, Kakuri; Danbo International College; Command Secondary School, Sabo and Rimi College, Ungwarimi, who had their students come as observers. Questions for the literary segment was pulled from The Last Duty by Isidore Okpewho, The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta, Sizwe Bansi is Dead by Athol Fugard, On His Blindness (Poetry) by John Milton and contemporary Yellow Yellow by Kaine Agary.

Books worth N50,000 were shared among the participating schools. The book gifts were donations of literary materials by Destiny Bookshops, Kaduna; El-nukoya, award winning author of Nine Lives; Kaine Agary, the NLNG award-winning author of Yellow Yellow; Macmillian Publishers, Zaria; Dada Books, African First Publishers and the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Kaduna Branch whose donation of cash and financial literary materials helped to swell the programme.

The Kaduna State Library Board was at the event represented by Alhaji IbrahimBuba.The Dean of Students’ Affairs, Mr. Audee T. Giwa was at hand to join cause with the Editorial club team. Also apresent was Mrs. Ogwuche Victoria, the staff adviser of the editorial board who challenged the ladies to pick up reading as a pastime and also encourage their siblings to do same.

At the university, Onyeka presenting his paper submitted ‘I could be weird at times. Once in my university, a lecturer had asked us, the students, to Google up a topic, copy, paste it on MS Word, print, write our names on them and pass for assignment. (Hilarious, isn't it?) I was instantly taken aback. But what can one do in such a lousy situation? The truth is that we can only save Nigeria through extensive research.’

Naming Game: Who are your Favourite Writers?

We believe on Bookaholic that one of the secrets to being a fantastic writer is to read about good writers (their works and interviews); we snooped out this one for you...

Pambazuka interviews Binyajavanga Wanaina, Kenyan founding editor of Kwani here; he talks about many things including his desire to start an online course in Creative Writing soon. When asked for five favourite authors, Binyavanga mentioned six:

• Kojo Laing, writer of Search Sweet Country, the greatest novel to come out of Africa.
• Saul Bellow – love his riff and sentences...
• Ahmadou Kourouma, Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote, was a beautifully structured novel, and worked sooo well.
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun, is a book of true commitment and love – I love many things about it, most of all I love the idea of somebody writing about Biafra, which happened after she was born. A huge task, fraught with risks, but she did it.
• Chinua Achebe – I love all his work, feel very privileged to work with him at Bard College.
• Witold Gombrowicz – love his absurd, dense books, with so many tiny human and natural transactions…

Who are your favourite writers? Let us know on Bookaholic...

When I Born, I Black

When I born, I black

When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you grey

And you calling me coloured?

I found this poem sometime last week and that was my first time of reading it. Read on the internet that it was written by an African child and was nominated as the UN poem of the year for 2008.

There are so many beautiful things about this short and sweet poem, but quick question: is there anybody on earth that is white (as in White) or Black (totally black)?

Let us know what you think...