7/7: Imagine an African Superhero and a Giveaway-Closed

1. Gorreti Kyomuhendo, The Director of African Writers Trust is leading Kampla’s application to join the Unesco Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature. The UNESCO Creative Cities Network was created to connect cities which want to share ideas, experiences and best practices for cultural, social and economic development. There are currently 41 member cities from around the world. If successful, Kampala will join Edinburgh, Melbourne, Iowa, Dublin, Reykjavik, Norwich and Krakow and will be the first African city to be a City of Literature.

To be approved as a City of Literature, cities need to meet these conditions:

Quality, quantity and diversity of publishing in the city
Quality and quantity of educational programmes focusing on domestic or foreign literature at primary, secondary and tertiary levels
Literature, drama and/or poetry playing an important role in the city
Hosting literary events and festivals which promote domestic and foreign literature;
Existence of libraries, bookstores and public or private cultural centres which preserve, promote and disseminate domestic and foreign literature
Involvement by the publishing sector in translating literary works from diverse national languages and foreign literature
Active involvement of traditional and new media in promoting literature and strengthening the market for literary products.
Important infrastructure related to cinema, e.g. film studios, film landscapes/environments, etc.;
Continuous or proven links to the production, distribution and commercialization of films;
Experience in hosting film festivals, screenings and other film-related events;
Collaborative initiatives at a local, regional and international level;
Film heritage in the form of archives, museums, private collections and/or film institutes;
Filmmaking schools and training centres;
Effort in disseminating films produced and/or directed locally or nationally;
Initiatives to encourage knowledge-sharing on foreign film

What would it mean for Kampala to be designated a City of Literature?

Goretti Kyomuhendo says: The benefits are far-reaching and apart from the opportunities to network and showcase Kampala’s literary heritage internationally; the Cities of Literature work together to build strong global partnerships: encouraging literary exchanges, creating cross cultural initiatives, and developing local, national and international literary links.

Read all about it here.

2. Granta, one of the world’s most prestigious literary magazines, is accepting unsolicited submissions. Read all about it here and find out how to submit here.

Read this very informative article on how to submit your writing to literary magazines.

This article is designed to be a complete and thorough guide for anyone who is interested in having their short story or poem published in a literary magazine, but doesn’t know where to start. You’ll probably find it most useful if you’ve never sent out your work before, or if you’re just beginning to try and get published. This guide is also quite specific to literary magazines. If you’re looking to publish an article, interview, review or feature then the process is quite different. If however it’s a short story, poem or other piece of creative writing that you want to publish, read on!

3. Have you lived in Kampala? Or do you have certain images and expectations of Kampala even though you have not lived in Kampala before? Babishai Niwe Poetry Award is calling for submissions of poems about Kampala.Poems in any language from all parts of the world are welcome till 10^th February 2015 at 11:59pm Uganda time. More details of the call are here: Kampala Poetry Anthology. Call for Submission.

4. If you have not read The Adventures of Chandler and Frasier by Ernest Bazanye? Download it here for lots of happy: The Adventures of Chandler and Frasier.

5. Have you read Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuaga Makumbi yet? No? This is me giving you more reasons why you should read it: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s ‘Kintu’ Made Me Want to Tell Our Stories

6. If you didn’t know already, the second issue of Lawino Magazine is out with some really amazing stories.

“It has just occurred to me that, in all the time I’ve used taxis, and I’ve used taxis for a very long time, I’ve never sat in one in which a passenger has farted.”opens Davina P Kawuma’s Babysitting Sweetheart.

Here, download Lawino Magazine.

…and for our giveaway:

Source: http://blackletterm.com/blog.html

7. If you are in Kampala tomorrow, Wednesday November 19, Dilman Dila, the Ugandan Storyteller, will be reading from his new book, A Killing In The Sun at the Goethe Institute on Bukoto Street in Kamwokya (Please take note of the venue. I went to their old offices on Mackinnon Road, where Google will tell you to go, some weeks back and I bounced). The reading will start at 7pm and there will be copies of the book on sale.

Blackletter Media, the publishers of A Killing In The Sun, were generous enough to give us a copy to give away here on Sooo Many Stories. The stories in the collection have been described as : “…set in a futuristic Africa, where technology has transformed everyday life and a dark force rules. Others are set in the present day, with refugee aliens from outer space, ghosts haunting brides and grooms, evil scientists stalking villages, greedy corporations creating apocalypses, the walking dead, and alternative worlds with themes any reader will identify with.”

All you have to do is tell us: If you could create an African Superhero, what name would you give him/her/it and what would they be able to do?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms:

1. The winner receives an autographed copy of the book.

2. The winner will be chosen by a random selection widget.

3. Giveaway is open to Ugandan residents only.

4. Giveaway closes on Friday November 25 at Midnight Uganda time.

Good luck and tell your friends about it.

Offbeat: On men and their entitlement to women’s bodies…

Photo by Edward Echwalu https://echwaluphotography.wordpress.com/ — Photo by Edward Echwalu
https://echwaluphotography.wordpress.com/

I interrupt our regular programming to bring you something I could not post anywhere else but strongly feel about. Bear with me, will you?

Last weekend, an article I wrote ran in one of Uganda’s daily, Daily Monitor. Here is an excerpt:

I hope there is something in this for us to learn. To re-learn that a woman’s body is her own and should not be used as and when a man feels like. That we should take back our bodies and not accept the assault we have settled for. That we (and the justice system) will know that a man does not have to rape you for him to sexually assault you. For us to know that we have the right to feel safe in our bodies and in our homes and in our friends’ homes without worrying about a man’s entitlement to our bodies. I hope that parents, while telling their daughters to dress decently, will tell their sons that a woman’s body is her own.

Please read the rest of the article here: Stop letting them get away with it

A friend of mine, we shall call her Dee, sent me the email below as a response to what I wrote:

“Nyana,

Just finished reading your very pertinent article. I think one of the reasons such invasion of our privacy (and bodies) eventually becomes normalised is that after a while, you no longer want to be the person that’s complaining and (or) telling them off. Telling off every boda man and every shop attendant in kikuubo eventually becomes tedious. And it can be very dangerous, too. Once, I told some guy off for touching me. You know those bu stalls of second hand clothes opposite Mukwano Arcade? Yeah, that’s where I was. I was just passing through, on my way to the Old Taxi Park. I didn’t want to buy anything, but men kept touching me. So this one guy grabs my wrist, just like that, he grabs my wrist! At first, I play it down. I tell him to let go of me. He refuses. I ask again. He refuses. So I blow a fuse and tell him off! But—guess what happened? All his bu shop-attendant buddies surrounded me. They didn’t just threaten to beat me for feeling ‘wo’, they kept asking who I thought I was, and why did I think I was too special to be touched, they also insulted me. On my way back home, I thought about what had just happened and decided it wasn’t worth it. It just gets to that point where, between threats of physical violence and letting some man touch you, you choose the latter. It’s not right and its not ideal, but that’s what happens in societies like ours.

Anyhow, I scrolled down to the comments section and look what I found from a one ‘Zigamba’:

‘There will come a time when man won’t even look at a woman ! Ugly woman are usually the ones that make a lot of noise and complaints.’

I don’t know whether to be angry or depressed or both. These are the sorts of reactions men give regarding the invasion of women’s spaces (and bodies). And the worst bit is that these sorts of reactions are much more common than we think. So, clearly, men don’ just feel entitled to our bodies, but they feel entitled to our voices. We can’t complain, without their permission. And we certainly shouldn’t complain if we aren’t good-looking. As if a ‘beautiful’ woman is more entitled to her space than an ‘ugly’ woman is. I had a long, winding conversation with a friend, about this. I think I should re-open the discussion here. Kubanga the sexism (and misogyny) in this country depresses me.

Ps. Isn’t it ironic that, at the exact same moment the poet was harassing the poet[ess], her friend, Wambui, was moderating a discussion on ‘misogyny in the media’?

Pps. For me, my beef is as much with the ‘witnesses’ as it is with ‘the harasser’. Coming out, on Twitter, to ‘support’ her and to testify to having seen it all go down, was not, in my opinion, very supportive. Because it was after the fact. I would like to have heard that the ‘witnesses’ called him out on what he did soon after he did it. As far as I am concerned, that would have been truly supportive. No matter what he did to her, regardless of whether it was groping or touching, everyone who was present should have rallied around her (and against the harasser). The truth is that things like that keep happening because we, men and women, are all complicit. Men protect men who do these things, and sometimes women protect men who do these things. The least the ‘witnesses’ could have done was close all the doors and force him to apologise. They shouldn’t have just stood by.”
-Dee

Do uninvited touches from men count as sexual harassment? What can we do to have our spaces and bodies respected? Please share your thoughts and experiences.

7/7: Introducing Emigane and Wordrite

1. Mildred Barya, a Ugandan writer and poet launched a site, Emigane, which will feature trickster stories from across cultures and languages.
She says, “My favorite stories are in the trickster tradition. We didn’t have the coyote or Ananse, but we had the hare, sometimes called Kalulu, sometimes just Mr. Hare.In the stories he is celebrated for outwitting everyone. Sometimes he falls short but is quick to get himself out of the trap. Always a he. Crafty, cunning, cheating. Perhaps that says something about my community; what males were more likely to do compared to females since there is a belief that animals symbolize humans. This site for a start aims to share trickster stories across cultures and languages.”

This is such a great way to preserve our stories that were mostly told orally and to relive some of the stories that brought us so much pleasure as children. Do have a look at it and find out how you can be a part of it.

2. WORDRITE, an e- journal from Femrite is calling for articles, short stories, flash fiction, plays, poetry and book reviews for publication. Up to three poems, a short play and one short story (2,000 words max) per author will be accepted. Please e-mail submissions and inquiries to reginaasinde@yahoo.co.uk and julietk321@gmail.com
Deadline for submissions is Monday 17th November 2014.

3. If you are in Kampala this evening, pass by the Femrite Readers/Writers Club and meet Waalabyeki Magoba is a Ugandan novelist, playwright, folklorist and journalist who writes in Luganda. The Club starts at 5:30pm and they meet at the Femrite Offices on Kira Road.

4. Read Dilman Dila’s interview with the Uganda’s Daily Monitor: Another Ugandan Ventures Into Fiction and another review of Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi here: Kintu: Telling The Storty Properly.

5. To celebrate 4,000 followers across their social media platforms, Africa in Words is giving away a copy of Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. All you have to do is tell them what you like about Africa in Words via twitter, Facebook or by commenting on their post. The favourite response will win a copy of Kintu.

6. Read Mehul Gohil’s Madagascan Villa here: http://jalada.org/2014/10/22/madagascan-vanilla-by-mehul-gohil-2/.

The story is part of Jalada’s Sext Me anthology.

7. Saraba Magazine released a poetry chapbook by Umar Sidi, The Poet of Sand. In this collection of 34 pages, Sidi’s poems are bold, defiant, enchanting and metaphysical. Umar Sidi is a helicopter pilot with the Nigerian Navy. His debut collection of poems Striking the Strings is coming out with Origami (Parresia) soon. He lives in Lagos.
The chapbook is free and downloadable here: www.sarabamag.com/the-poet-of-sand-chapbook-by-umar-sidi

Have a great week!

7/7 is Sooo Many Stories’ way of helping you beat the Monday blues. 7 things that are making me happy in the literary world that will make you happy too!

7/7: #UgBloggers7Days and other blogs I am loving

1. Last week, Ugandan bloggers were challenged to blog for seven days because for a while now people have been talking about the declining blogging spirit in Uganda. I know this very well especially after the discouragement I felt after I interacted with the vibrant blogging community in Kenya last month.

While at Uni, I had a personal blog (Sorry. Even Google does not remember it). There were quite a number of bloggers at the time. We were not professionals in any way the way people are now; we just wrote about our jobs, our failed and flourishing relationships, our school work, our hobbies. We had a language of our own, inside jokes and we started great friendships. We just did it for the love of writing and community. I missed that so much until this past week.

I spent last week reading a number of blogs per day and could not be happier about the number of new Ugandan blogs right now. There was so much to read, so much to love, so much to laugh about and enough to motivate us to continue doing this.

I hope these words, by blogger Nevender, will light a fire in us to do this more often (I have practiced some self-restraint there and not turned on the CAPS on this entire paragraph):

This is no longer a challenge. We are calling for a culture. A culture of Ugandan-ness in her different forms. A culture where we do not merely get on TweetDeck in the morning and simply share stories from The Verge, Time, Telegraph or BBC. Yes we are in a global world but aren’t we fading into the crowd?
Where are the stories from Entebbe? Arua? Kabarole? Jinja? Kampala? Is our source of content meant to be only Ugandan press? Tabloids? What about the introspection, the soliloquies? Are we ever going to look outside?

Nevender listed the blogs that were posted over the last seven days. Check them out and bookmark them. Or just check #UgBloggers7Days. And to close the #UgBloggers7Days challenge, there is a Bloggers Happy Hour today at 6pm at The Sound Cup. I hear there is cake!

2. Last week, Jalada released a prelude to the Afro future anthology that will be released on January 15, 2015. Moses Kilolo, Managing Editor Jalada says:
The Prelude, which features Binyavanga Wainaina’s profile of Wangechi Mutu, and her art, is a perfect expression of this shared dream among African artists to redefine how we envision future Africa. A group of Jalada editors are hard at work on the submissions, and here is what they have to say about it all.

Read: “Wangechi Mutu wonders why butterfly wings leave powder on the fingers, there was a coup today in Kenya” by Binyavanga Wainaina or download the pdf.

3. If you have read Americanah, you will be pleased to know that Ifemelu’s The Small Redemtptions of Lagos is now a real blog. If you are dying to know what happens between Ifemelu and Ceiling after Americanah, this is where to find it.

Now live: Ifemelu's blog. — Now live: Ifemelu’s blog.

4. I loved reading this independance day tribute by Peter Kagayi Mutanga to Benedicto Kiwanuka, Byron Kawadwa, Rose Mbowa, Alex Mukulu, Robert Sserumaga and Philly Bongole Lutaaya. Read it here: On this 9th night of October of 2014, I light a candle to remember…

5. I wrote about the launch of BNPA’s A Thousand Voices Rising here. Here is a review of the anthology.

And for our poets…

6. You should be interested in The Brunel University African Poetry Prize where you have to submit 10 poems for a chance to win £3,000. The prize is for ten poems to encourage serious poets. These poems may, however, have been published. Only poets who have not yet had a full-length poetry book published are eligible. Poets who have self-published poetry books or had chapbooks and pamphlets published are allowed to submit for this prize. Last year, Ugandan poet Nick Makoha was a runner-up.

Read the rules here and submit.

7. If you have been busy working on your poetry manuscript, submit it for the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. The winning poet will receive $1,000 and publication through with the University of Nebraska Press and Amalion Press in Senegal. Here are the rules for submission. You have up to December 1, 2014 to submit.

Tell us, what blogs are you reading?

7/7 is Sooo Many Stories’ way of helping you beat the Monday blues. 7 things that are making me happy in the literary world that will make you happy too!

Until There Is No Ear To Hear | Joel Benjamin Ntwatwa

Until there is no ear to hear the prophets.
It shall come to pass
That as long as men pursue themselves
In the pursuit of happiness
In the pursuit of dominance
In the pursuit of gratification
That they shall only destroy one another
Until there is no ear to hear the prophets.

For the white man shall drain the black man’s land
The black man shall sell his brother for some silver coins
The Christian shall preach their Jesus as long as his coffers are full
The Muslim shall use his coffers to destroy the Jew
The feminist shall denigrate the man
The man shall subjugate the woman
The father will provoke his child to wrath
The child will rebel against his father
Until there is no ear to hear the prophets.

The irie man shall harvest his leaves
The Mexican man shall sell these leaves
The American man shall kill for these leaves turned to powder
And some unknown teenager shall acquire a masterful addiction
And smite his veins with needles
And lay in his couch for hours
And drown out every other hint of life
Until there is no ear to hear the prophets.

The media man shall broadcast the good news of sex
And shall invite the poor Hispanic to bare her body
Even the desperate black girl shall come
With her white sisters as anchors of this salvation
And men shall read this gospel
And empty their loins
And lose their minds
Until there is no ear to hear the prophets.

Indeed the weak and even the strong
Shall not suffer this unfair tension
And the gun will seduce the host
Albeit it shall be the bomb
Worse still the gas that kills
And many shall fall at their feet
And cower in despair
When the winds and pungent smell of death
Fill their eyes with tears and mouths with wails
Until there is no ear to hear the prophets.

As long as men shall pursue themselves
There can only be one end,
And this end with a scythe appears
But its forms and cloth are a varied lot
It will come as famine, as disease
As the wars that ruin fertile lands
It will come as murder in the streets
Dissension in the bungalow homes
And there will be division even unto death
And no one will be able to use their ears to hear the prophets.

Joel Benjamin Ntwatwa loves art and its aesthetics. Keen on poetry, prose and drama in that order. He has been a silent observer of the Ugandan literary scene for over two decades and is planning to add his own work to it. Currently, his prose and poetry is available on Hope…Never Runs Dry.

Read his other poem: Becoming A Man

7/7: #100DaysOfAfricanReads and other fun ways to read more

In the recent past, I have had quite a number of people come to me and confess that reading books is not their thing. In the past, I would have judged them for this poor, poor choice in life but I am learning that we can’t all be the same. They probably feel the same way towards me when they are going out dancing and I say, “Have fun, guys. I’ll just go home and chill.” I wouldn’t want them to judge me for that choice so I will let them be.

However I have also met a couple of people who are not in the habit of reading books but wish they were. And I know sometimes we book lovers make it seem like reading is an earth-shattering activity but sometimes, let’s be honest, it isn’t. I have been thinking of ways one can read more books without sometimes having to buy more books. So far this is what I have:

1. Reading challenges. You can set a challenge for yourself (with other people) to read books. The books would depend on your taste or whatever more you want to read. To make it work, it is wiser to set a deadline so that it does not become like that “Go to the gym” resolution you set at the beginning of the year that you have not gotten round to yet. There are so many ways to go about this. You can choose genres, authors by continents, or complete works by particular authors. Personally I have never been a fan of sci-fi books and it’s one challenge I will be taking on in the near future.

Day 1 of #100DaysOfAfricanReads with Angela Wachuka. Photo by Msingi Sasis

For today, I would like to point out an exciting campaign that was launched on October 10 by Kwani? Director, Angela Wachuka. The challenge, #100DaysOfAfricanReads, is supposed to celebrate great African writing. So far, Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe), Song of Lawino by Okot p’Bitek (Uganda), Children of the Revolution (published as The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears in North America), by Dinaw Mengestu (Ethiopia) and Search Sweet Country by Kojo Laing (Ghana) have been featured for the first four days.

I love this campaign because it is such a great way to add to your “To read list” and a chance for you to share the African books that have changed your life. You can be a part of this by liking the page Sisterkilljoy on Facebook or follow @sisterkilljoy on Twitter. If you can have some portraits of yourself taken with your favourite African book, add the hashtag #100DaysAfricanReads so we can see the books you are celebrating or a leave a comment on the Facebook page to get to know how you can be featured.

Wanjeri Gakuru reads Song of Lawino Photo by Mutua Matheka #100DaysofAfricanReads — Wanjeri Gakuru reads Song of Lawino Photo by Mutua Matheka
#100DaysofAfricanReads

2. Book clubs are another fun way to get into the habit of reading. I am told that there was once a big book club in Kampala that used to meet at the National Theatre. No one seems to know what happened to it. I know very few book clubs that have passed the test of time. People get busy, maybe even bored and forget why they started in the first place. The few successful one that I know have worked among friends who have decided to make it more than just a book club. There is one I was told of recently that shares recipes as well and has some sort of cookout. After cooking together, they sit to discuss the book as they eat. Food and books? You would have me!

Here is a link on how to start a book club and another checklist that might help. If you can, get people who stay in the same area as you so that getting across town to your home isn’t one of the excuses for not showing up.

3. Book swaps. At a book swap, a group of people meet with their books and exchange them. If it is a group of 10 people and each brings five books, that means there are 50 books to be exchanged. This gives the reader a variety of books to read and you can spend a while without worrying about not having something to read.

4. For poetry, recitals and poetry sessions are the most fun ways to get to know new poets and enjoy the performances. In Kampala, look out for recitals by the Lantern Meet of Poets every couple of months, Poetry in Session and Open Mic. Kwivuga is also back! A book swap at any of those poetry gatherings would be a great idea!

5. Modern fireplaces is an idea I have not tried out but I think would work well. Just hear me out. I constantly worry that I do not remember most of our folktales, proverbs, myths and legends. The last time I fully encountered these was back in my literature classes at university. It would be a shame if we lost these completely and personally, I would not want to read only Jack and The Beanstalk to my kids. So I have been thinking of ways these could be revived. How about you organise a modern fireplace night with a couple of friends who can tell some of the folktales that they remember? If they do not remember any, how about they speak to parents or older relatives for some of those stories? Imagine the number of stories you can learn from as many parts of Uganda as possible. Would you be willing to try this?

6. Game nights for books lovers. How about a game night based on books of different genres? Famous first or last lines, actors in movie adaptations of books, outstanding characters in books, sonnets, poets, authors, places where the books were set etc? The next time you have a game night, try a book theme and see if this won’t make you want to read even more.

7. Here is a brilliant thing happening in Nairobi where books are put in a cab so you can read while you ride. And if you want to take a book, you have to leave one of your own. Isn’t that brilliant? I do not know if it would work well with our cab system but this is an idea that could work in a restaurant, I think.

How are you making sure you have enough books to read? Which one of the above would you be happy to try?

7/7 is Sooo Many Stories’ way of helping you beat the Monday blues. 7 things that are making me happy in the literary world that will make you happy too!

Haram | Pamela Orogot

With her old hands she mingled endlessly
The metallic pan held tightly between her legs
Sweat dripping down her gravity-trodden chest
As she chanted to herself-
Boys are haram.

So I stared at haram
Looked deep into his face
Remembering this old woman’s chants
Never forgetting her sons dragging her by the hair
Her bulky man staring with disinterest at the ongoing clamour.

But girls like me like boys
We have no escape from them
Even if old women’s tales pull us by the skin
Following us like ancestral prayers.

We learn to deal with our guilt
Plastering our womanly parts with salaam…
Opening up to haram
Flouting society in our quest!

Pamela Ayaso Orogot is an avid reader and poet. She has been published in A Thousand Voices Rising, a poetry anthology, which you can buy at Aristoc (Uganda) or online.

2014 Storymoja Festival: Books with our names on them and random notes

A couple of days before the Storymoja Festival, while registering for master classes, I threw a tantrum because all the master classes I wanted to attend were happening at the same time. In retrospect, it is good they were because I ended up choosing what I really needed. I cut out the ones I would be attending because of the people (My God Bikozulu!) and went for the ones where I needed to learn something.

I have never been to a big festival so I was bound to be impressed. My love for Nairobi is well documented but this time, she upped her seduction and was all sunny and warm and my poor heart stood no chance!

Ugandans at the 2014 Storymoja Festival — Ugandan writers at the 2014 Storymoja Festival

I ended up attending masterclasses on self-publishing, writing for teenagers and young adults and how to blog. I also attended discussions led by different panellists and moderators on outrageous fashion sub-cultures in Africa, Africa 39, how Africans kiss, art and democracy and of course the Wangari Maathai lecture delivered by Prof. Wole Soyinka. In between all those, I went around to take photos of Ugandan writers that were teaching master classes, were part of panels or launching books. So many new books, random new experiences, new friends, old familiar faces and I could have sworn I was in heaven.

New friends and familiar faces. Some of Jalada Kenya

I learnt so much from all the events that I attended. The ones on blogging by the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) were extremely relevant and informative as far as Sooo Many Stories goes. I was quite envious of not just the vibrant blogging community but how they have a body that not only just gives awards to the best ones but also trains and looks out for bloggers.

Blog roll: Leo Tunapika? Afromu, Brainstom Ke, Safari254 and Dear Doris — Blog roll: Leo Tunapika? Afromum, Brainstom Ke, Safari254 and Dear Doris

The most fun panel for me was the “How do Africans Kiss” panel. Did you know there is such a thing as an African kiss? A kiss you can describe in your novel and people will say, “Yes! That sounds like a kiss between Africans!” There was a lot of giggling and a lot of confessions about lips and what kissing means to different people!

I could never write about each and everything I learnt but there are discussions I hope to share along the way, to see how we can make them relevant to Uganda. But I will tell you want my biggest take out was.

Please note that I do not assume a lecturer’s tone when I say this because this challenged me as well. We need to do whatever we can to get published! Everywhere I looked, writers had books with their names on them! I saw writers from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, putting their hands in their bags and emerging with a novel or poetry anthology, signing autographs and getting paid for those books. There was even an eight year old Kenyan Boy talking about his book. I kid you not! Of all the Ugandans that were there, there were only four of us with books, two of them anthologies. And I am glad those four were there to make a mark but I wish we were more. As you know, Sooo Many Stories started because of my fear that we are not read and how could we if we are not published? You could argue that not all those books could have been really good books but how shall we ever improve the quality of our writing if we are not even trying? I felt such a fire to just stop sitting around and get the work done. To write and look for the many publishing opportunities I am told exist. I like that there are writers who send in work to #SmsUg and are really serious about their craft and I am really hopeful that it will get better. There were panel discussions on Nigerian writing and South African writing and I hope next year there will be one on Ugandan writing. This can’t happen with good writers being satisfied with writing Facebook notes.

Because I can’t compress my five days into a blog post , this is a peek into my notebook where I wrote random thoughts and quotes during the Festival:

With e-publishing, it does not have to be the book of the year. It should be fun because fun reads are easy to sell.
Make it easy for people to buy your book.

Why are there few people writing for teenage boys? What do teenage boys like even?

If this were a school, Bikozulu would be that shining star student that no teacher will stop talking about.

Kenyans once held a competition for a national dress. I wonder how that would go in Uganda. A Gomesi top and shuka bottom? How to represent the Karimojong?

Soyinka: Just as a tree does not make a forest, so does one gender not make humanity.

If one more Kenyan says Champala I swear to God my reaction will not be Christian at all!

Baingana: I read differently as a writer. Sometimes I look at the technical bits but if a writer makes me forget the technicalities and lets me dive right into the story, then that’s great!

The #Diaper Mentality exhibition is hilarious!

Words not to use when describing kissing in a book: Suck. Saliva. Ha ha ha!

Words most used by writers I have met today: validation. Affirmation.

What each kiss means: Hey, I missed you, Hi babe, Oh let’s do this!

No one has used the word nuances today. Are these even real writers?

Okwiri: I am a stoic and unapologetic feminist but I am not interested in making a pamphlet. I am interested in making art.

What is an African kiss? Why the labels? Did the French actually invent the French kiss? How else was everyone kissing before this French invention?

Baingana: Yes I am a female writer but I do not write with my breasts.

Yvonne Adhiambo (author of Dust) is a babe!

Auma Obama: How do we light a fire for people who are silent? Show them that they exist.

They make noise on twitter but won’t come out to protest. Will the revolution be retweeted?

Yvonne Adhambo: Get out of the way of the story!

Teju Cole: Words I have never read on Twitter: I don’t know.

Brenda from Brainstorm Kenya: The internet gives you options. If you do not like the blog, close it. As bloggers, we can ALL shine. Why do I write? To understand…

Thanks so much Storymoja for being wonderful, thoughtful hosts!

And thank you readers for reading. The rest of the photos will be up on Sooo Many Stories’ Facebook page.

A Thousand Voices Rising and Spoken word vs Written form

Just before I took off to Nairobi for the The Storymoja Festival, I attended some Babishai Niwe Poetry Award events. This year, the award was extended to the rest of Africa, having targeted Ugandan women for the previous five years. September 16 was BNPA’s award night, the search for Africa’s new voice finally coming to an end. The previous day, BNPA had launched the African Poetry Library and the shortlisted poets had visited the Femrite Readers/ Writers Club. I missed both events but I plan to visit the library soon and let you know about it.

By now you already know that Tom Jalio (Kenya) won the award for his poem There Was Once Something Special Here. That night, a new anthology, A Thousand Voices Rising was launched as well. It was really wonderful to see previous winners of the BNPA poetry award recite their poems and there were quite a number of poets I had never even heard of! We can’t say people are not writing!

Clockwise: Lydia Nyachiro (TZ), Saba (Sudan/Kenya), Peter Kaggayi (Ug), Sophie B Alal (Ug), Dorothie Ayebazibwe (Ug) and Nakisanze Segawa

A Thousand Voices Rising does not only feature Ugandan poets but poets from quite a number of African countries. I need a lot of patience when I am reading poetry so I can not give my review yet but if I must give you a reason to read this anthology (and this is very biased) all the ladies in my writing club are in there. I am the only one that is not a poet in the group but Davina Kawuma, Lillian Aujo and Harriet Anena have some great poems in there. You get a copy of the anthology at Aristoc or here and see for yourself.

Harriet Anena and Davina Kawuma sign my copy of A Thousand Voices Rising, while Lillian Aujo recites her poem, Sodt Tonight at The Storymoja Festival. Remember these names, people! — Harriet Anena and Davina Kawuma sign my copy of A Thousand Voices Rising, while Lillian Aujo recites her poem, Soft Tonight at The Storymoja Festival. Remember these names, people!

The most interesting discussion of the day for me was the discussion on whether spoken word poetry is making written form old-fashioned. In the past couple of years we saw more and more poetry events become a part of the Kampala social calender. I remember in high school reading about a poetry night at Iguana (then called Wagadugu) and it read like one of those gatherings of pseudo-intellectuals trying too hard to prove that they were relevant. That event did not go on for so long. Years later, I attended Lantern Meet’s first poetry recital in that small, stuffy room at the National Theatre. The lighting was bad, the room was stuffy but we all agreed, nodding our heads enthusiastically, that the poetry was top notch. And then came Kwivuga (which I have heard will be coming back), Open Mic and Poetry in Session.

We now know these spoken word poets by their voices, we root for them and sometimes we demand that they do the poems that we have come to love them for. Mention Jason Ntaro, Peter Kaggayi, Melissa Kiguwa, Roshan Karmali, Laura Byaruhanga and we say, of course we know who these people are. But is putting up wonderful recitals enough? Would publishing these poems add anything to what they have already?

Most of the panelists agreed that both spoken form and written form are important. Patrick Mangeni actually pointed out that spoken word is not as new as these now flourishing recitals but that it goes back to our oral recitations of our great, great, great grandparents’ days. However most of us have no clue what stories our great, great grandparents told because they were not recorded, they were not written down, they were not immortalised.

Panelists: Lydia Nyachiro (Tz), Peter Kaggayi (Ug), Roshan Karmali (Ug), Saba (Sudan/Kenya), Patrick Mangeni (Ug).

So you say people have become lazy and they would rather have a production than read but what if we want to interpret these poems for ourselves, away from the performers’ interpretations, where do we go if they have not been written?

My other concern was that whereas written form undergoes a lot of editing, all details paid attention to, spoken word does not. It is very easy for a performer to make you feel a certain way about a poem even though it may not be a good one. He can use music to change the mood, his voice, rising and falling to add meaning to what might not be meaningful. They can even use stage props and lighting to make you feel a certain way. Where the written form relies on the meaningfulness of the words to make it great, the performer employs all these other things. How then do we make sure even our performers are giving us great poems, poems that can stand alone as poems without any adornment?

What are your thoughts on this? Is written form still relevant? Would you like to actually read the work of these spoken word poets that you love or are their recitals enough?

Ps:The rest of the photos can be found on Sooo Many Stories’ Facebook Page.

7/7: Workshops, M.As, prizes and why else you should be busy writing

I apologise for being a bit quiet on the blog. Last week I got back from the Storymoja Festival in Nairobi and I convinced myself that I was suffering from “buslag”. It is a real thing, people. I just googled the symptoms of jetlag and they include anxiety, constipation, diarrhea, confusion, dehydration, headache, irritability, nausea, sweating, coordination problems, dizziness, and even memory loss. My buslag (no air quotes here because it is real) symptoms were not that intense (and this could be why it is not yet considered a thing), but my neck really got messed up and I missed my bed too much.

Plus running across the border to fill in cards to welcome you back into your home country in the middle of the night can be traumatic: What is my date of birth again? Where did this journey start? Who even reads this stuff? Why are the people on the Ugandan side this slow? Of course I don’t look like the photo in my passport; it’s the middle of the night. I don’t look like any of my photos!

But I think I have fully recovered from the buslag now and I will be putting up my highlights of the festival soon.

For today’s 7/7 we are going to focus on opportunities writers should know about. Opportunities to learn, to study, to improve your craft, to set time off to write and to win.

1. The 2015 Writivism Creative Writing Workshops
The Writivism workshops are back! The three-day non-residential workshops will take place in January 2015 in five different African cities: Lagos, Gaborone, Kampala, Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg. You will attend the workshop in the city closest to where you stay. The workshops will include daily two-hour master classes on fiction writing, group sessions of critiquing of draft stories and private time for participants to re-write their stories. Participants who produce high quality work in the workshops and show commitment to their writing shall be assigned mentors at the end of the workshop. They shall work on two flash fiction stories to be published in newspapers and online and a short story for submission to the Writivism African Short Story Prize under the guidance of the mentors. They shall also be required to review assigned work by the mentors and also apply to various writing opportunities on recommendation by the mentor.

You have up to 31st October to apply for this. Have a look at the application guidelines here and go on and apply.

2. Remember that prize that Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi won this year, for her story Let’s Tell This Story Properly? You can now enter your story for the same prize, the 2015 Commonwealth Short story Prize. Each year, five winning writers from five different Commonwealth regions are selected. The overall winner receives £5000, and the four regional winners receive £2500 each.. Read the eligibility and entry rules here. You have up to November 15 to submit your story.

3. You can also register for Rhodes University’s MA in Creative Writing for 2015. The university is now accepting full time applications for 2015, with a closing date of 30 October 2014. The programme is committed to innovative work that expands the possibilities of writing. It is open to students working in all forms of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and playwriting, and welcomes writing that challenges the boundaries of existing genres and literary modes, including flash fiction, prose poetry, and genre fiction (such as science fiction, fantasy, crime writing etc). The programme runs over one year for full time students based in Grahamstown and two years for part time students living elsewhere.

Check out the MA programme in Creative Writing website for more information and application forms.

4. Have a look at The Fine Arts Work Centre which offers a unique residency for writers and visual artists in the crucial early stages of their careers. Located in Provincetown, the Work Centre provides seven-month Fellowships to twenty Fellows each year in the form of living/work space and a modest monthly stipend. Residencies run from October 1 through May 1. Fellows have the opportunity to pursue their work independently in a diverse and supportive community of peers. Each year, the deadline for the Writing Fellowship applications is December 1, and the deadline for The Visual Arts Fellowship applications is February 1. Fellowships are open to writers and visual artists in the emerging stages of their careers from any country. Please find out if you are eligible for this and how you can apply.

5. If you want to find out about other residencies, here are 20 Amazing Writing Residencies You Should Apply for This Year.

6. And if you are just starting out and would like to join a group of people with whom you can share your work and get some feedback, join the Femrite Readers/Writers club that meets every Monday (rain, sunshine or hail storm) at the Femrite Offices. They meet at 5:30pm. Besides the feedback you will get on your work, you will have a cup of tea and the best boiled maize.

7. And lastly, on the relevance of creative writing courses, here is So you want to be a writer…

“What lies, or ought to lie, beneath the growth of creative writing as a subject is the conviction that a good deal of the best writing derives from conscious craft, if not all of it. Commentators sometimes say that writing can’t be taught; that beginning writers either have “it”, in which case they don’t need to be taught, or they don’t have “it”, in which case money and time is being wasted by the exercise. But writers can perfectly well have native ability, a feel for language, an inventiveness and a keen eye towards the world and still not quite understand how they can do something well, not once, but repeatedly. A good creative writing course will explore underlying principles of good writing – not to impose invented “rules” on writing, but to introduce ways of thinking about writing that are strong and purposeful. You could teach yourself how to make a chair by taking a lot apart, and experimenting with joists. A furniture-making course might school you in some unsuspected skills, and save you some time.” Read the rest here.

I hope this gives some direction to our writing this week.

7/7 is Sooo Many Stories’ way of helping you beat the Monday blues. 7 things that are making me happy in the literary world that will make you happy too!