WEALTH OF IDEAS

Organizations like Pamberi Trust, Kubatana.org, artsinitiates, BWAZ and others based in Zimbabwe continue to function as helpful sources of arts and culture news. The artsinitiates publishing initiative is growing, and I am happy to report that they have just published a chapbook (monographs) of my stories, the Mukoma series. I am waiting for my copy,but a friend already told me over the phone that he had just received his copy. This is great since the stories were originally published online (artsinitiates website) and now are available for audiences that don't always have access to the internet. Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe's Blogazine continues to grow from strength to strength. The website has featured at least one piece on me (it always feels good to know that friends out there think about us, and it feeds the vanity in us), but recently it has also begun to feature articles by established writers. The revealing article by Charles Mungoshi appeared in Issue 3 ....

In July, 2008, I blogged about the importance of genre expansion in African Fiction , branching off into sci-fi/fantasy, romance, horror, and other neglected genres. Around the same time I discovered there were African writers doing this already,from the detective fiction guru Alexander McCall Smith of the now popularised The Number 1 Lady Detective series on HBO, Lauri Kabuitsile of Botswana who is a full-time writer producing multi-genre literature,to my friend Ivor W.Hartmann whose science fiction piece "Mr Goop" won the Baobab Fiction price for young readers. The much-awaited story has just been published for the first time on African Writing , a nod of approval from this very literary African journal. Even as I have written about the need for such genre expansion, I have continued to stick with the literary fiction in my writing and, to a great extent, in my teaching. Most of the students coming to our fiction workshops in colleges bring many vampire and machine storie...

The new issue of African Writing Online is out.It is so rich that I need a whole weekend to enjoy it. This issue features Petina Gappah (A review and a long interview), Brian Chikwava (a review and an interview), and there is the award-winning story by Ivor Hartmann, "Mr Goop". In addition to the Zimbabwean writers, there are other high-quality writings by other African writers: poetry, more reviews, short stories, and so on. Sarudzayi Barnes , founder of Lion Press Ltd, reports success. Waterstones Bookstore is now going to carry Lion Press publications. New books are coming out, and the number of writers continues to grow: A C Moyo, Ignatius Mabasa, David Mungoshi, Memory Chirere, Chris Mlalazi, and many others, are scheduled to publish with Lion Press. This is a timely opportunity for these writers, who have so much to say, so much expected, but cannot find publishers easily in Zimbabwe. I just received my first copy of a Lion Press book and I was impressed by the quality ...

You know a name works when you open a package and tell the kids that you just received a book on African Folktales for Children by Uncle Blenblen and soon your five-year-old is laughing and singing "Uncle Blenblen! Uncle Blenblen!" That's the pen name of Jonathan Masere, who has released his collestion of tales with Lion Press Ltd in the UK. This, together with Sarudzayi Barnes's The Village Story-teller , is an addition to the growing list of African fairytale collections being published in and outside of Africa. They tap into the rich story-telling tradition of Africa and have a great potential to grip the hearts of many readers in the world. Let me tell you why story-telling, in its traditional sense, is important. As student populations' attention spans continue to be affected by the excess of electronica, teachers everywhere are figuring ways to engage students, and story-telling keeps coming up. Teaching through story-telling, but where are these stories? Th...

I knew it! I knew that once things began to settle (the the extent that they have) in Zimbabwe, the literature would make a mark. It has begun, and according to Melissa de Villiers of The Times (South Africa), "while the politicians might have run out of ideas, the writers are just getting started." Read her brilliant overview of the works of the new writers in this Times article . Petina Gappah and Brian Chikwava are dominating Book Review pages in UK newspapers. Some of the reviewers seem to miss the point in their reading and understanding of the concerns of the books, but I found this one by The Independent to be a promising sign that someone is getting the message. Besides, you know what they say about publicity, especially if it's coming from places like The Guardian , The Independent , The Observer .... And wait until the books knock the doors of North America. As the books enter literature syllabi and discussion circles, I speculate, people with the time to read ...

"If you want to know a country, read its writers. The reality of life in Zimbabwe, a country that has lost its way, is brilliantly conveyed by both these startling new talents," concludes Aminatta Forna in her two-in-one combo review of Harare North and An Elegy for Easterly . The review appeared in The Guardian .

I usually don't talk about textbooks, but this one caught my attention. I remember when I had a meeting with my McGraw-Hill college representative two weeks ago, she said she was sending a book that would impress me, and this one has. It's Literature: Craft and Voice by Nicholas Delbanco (University of Michigan) and Alan Cheuse (National Public Radio), who are prolific creators of literature themselves. Perhaps classroom anthologies prepared by writers have a certain depth to them? Maybe not? But this one makes a powerful statement about the American literary canon, one which is consistent with the present state of literary production in the country. Chapter 9, which deals with "Theme", features Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian-born writer who is the current McAthur fellow for literature. The case study for the chapter is her story "Cell One", which is included in her recent short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck . Students will get to read...

Internationally renowned novelist and man of letters Nuruddin Farah is the Regent Lecturer for Spring 2009 at University of California, Berkeley. This second lecture takes place in Maude Fife Room (315 Wheeler) today at 5 pm; a reception will follow the lecture in 330 Wheeler Hall. Nuruddin Farah is one of the major African authors writing today and a leading figure on the world literary scene. He is the author of ten novels, including "From a Crooked Rib" and the acclaimed trilogies "Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship" ("Sweet and Sour Milk", "Sardines", "Close Sesame") and "Blood on the Sun" ("Maps", "Gifts", "Secrets"). Two volumes ("Links", "Knots") of a third trilogy have appeared, with the final volume forthcoming soon. His novels have been translated into seventeen languages and have won numerous awards. Farah was named 1998 laureate of the Neustadt Inter...

"In March, I was one of 20 writers invited to attend the 12th Time of the Writer Festival in Durban, South Africa. The event ran from 9-14 March and was hosted by The Centre for Creative Arts, University of KwaZulu Natal. It was a fun-filled, educational and informative week, during which I interacted with experienced writers from other countries", says Valerie Tagwira in a blog post at PETINAGAPPAH , where you can read the full entry. As Petina pointed out in her introduction of the post, Valerie Tagwira is one of the busiest writers. Even as she was working full-time and studying for my Masters in Public Health exams in London and preparing to travel to South Africa for the conference, she managed to prepare her short story submission, "A Walk in the Night", which is now featured in the March/April issue of Munyori Literary Journal . Perhaps when she is done with her exams, we may start asking her about the possibilities of a sequel to Uncertainty of Hope , a n...

Danny Romero and Tim Kahl will be reading at the Woodland Public Library, 250 First Street, Woodland, CA 95695. Tuesday April 21, 2009 at 7:00 PM Danny Romero was born and raised in Los Angeles. He has degrees from University of California, Berkeley (BA, 1988) and Temple University (MA, 1993) in Philadelphia, where he taught writing (part-time) for many years. Romero’s poetry and short fiction have been published in literary journals throughout the country, including Colorado Review, Drumvoices Revue, Green Mountains Review, Paterson Literary Review, Pembroke Magazine, and Ploughshares. His work can also be found in such anthologies as West of the West: Imagining California (1989), Pieces of the Heart: New Chicano Fiction (1993), Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (2003), Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets (2006), Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (2008) and Pow Wow: Charting the Faultlines in the America...

If in the past we have slouched towards the novel, perhaps we are now speeding towards poetry? We might as well, since where I am, it's National Poetry Month and I am seeing poetry everywhere around me. Rumor even has it that we may start seeing poetry excerpts posted inside buses and trains. That's just good stuff. But what am I thinking about (right now,) or to use Facebook's words, what am I doing? For one, I am preparing myself for an emotional poetry reading that will feature me tonight, at the 15th Commemoration of the Rwanda Genocide, an event occuring at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. I am also thinking that the recent upsurge in the interest for the short story may also help poetry: the love for short but rich creative things, that's what it is. It seems fashionable nowadays for publishers to seek short story collections from writers first before giving them contracts for novels. And a good number of our contemporary short story writers have become...

I have a feeling that I already did a post on this contest, but here it is (again): Artintiates, the online Zimbabwean Literary and Cultural Journal and UK-based Lion Press Ltd have launched a new short story contest. The details are as follows: Lion Press ( London ) and artsinitiates-zimbabwe are calling for entries in a short story competition running from May 1 till June 30 2009. The stories selected will be published in an anthology expected to be out by December 2009. Ten entries will win prizes. Monetary prizes will be given to the best five stories while material prizes will also be given to the other five winners. First prize winner will get US$200, second prize is US$100, third prize US$70, fourth prize is US$50 and fifth prize is US$25. Mobile phones will be given to the other five winners in the ten-winner group. The stories can be on any topic, must be not less than a 1000 words long and be in English. Lion Press Ltd is a publishing company founded by Zimbabwean writers in ...

Again, as I have pointed many times before, I enjoy visiting the Search Engine Terms feature on my blog Moments in Literature, to get a sense of what my visitors are looking for nowadays, and the exercise is revealing. I get to see the frequency of search on certain search engine terms, most of which are names of writers, titles of books, and concepts in literature and writing in general. Once in a while some people get to the website through a search for my name (and that's cool too). Recently, the majority of searches have been of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her new book The Thing Around Your Neck. I have featured partial reviews of the book on the website and I talk about Adichie whenever an opportunity presents itself. After April 2, many hits were directed by searches of Brian Chikwava's Harare North, coupled with terms like "innovations in African Literature" "North Harare", "new Zimbabwean writing", and "new characters in Zimbabwean li...

Stop by Petina Gappah's blog and read an update on Elegy for Easterly . It's out in Europe and in South Africa. The comments section of Petina's post is worth taking a look at--there are remarks even by her Swedish translator.... In writing and publication, process matters. Petina Gappah has exemplified a passion for her work, publicly, updating her readers on the progress of book, telling us when she was going to be on a hiatus, so we would know she was reading her proofs, etc. And she has also kept her readers updated on what media coverage her book receives: We knew when she struck the two-book, tans-Atlantic deal with Faber & FSG. We knew when her author website was created by Faber. Although she has a fantastic agent, a great publisher, an excellent editorial team and an outstanding publicity team, she still worked to promote her new baby. That's the nature of writing and publishing in the new age; demistify and promote yourself and your own work. When you go t...

Here is some financial advice from the narrator of Harare North : "Money is like termite. The more desire you have to catch it, the more you scare it down into its hole. You don't try to catch it by its head, but let it crawl out of the hole first....You have to have big patient style with these things" (68). "You owe someone hundred dollars, then it's your problem, but if you owe them a million dollars, then it's they problem...." (115).

Friends of Rwanda (FORA) presents the 15th Annual Commemoration of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda. DATE: April 18, 2009 TIME: 4:00 to 8:00 pm VENUE: Raymond Great Hall University of the Pacific 3601 Pacific Ave, Stockton, CA 95211 Contact Number: 209-946-2452 PROGRAM 4:00 Arrival and Registration 4:30pm—5:00pm Feature Power Point Presentation 5:00pm—5:10pm Introductory Remarks 5:10pm—6:30pm Memorial Mass Select Speakers 6:30pm—7:30pm Reception and Dinner 7:30pm Closing remarks I am reading a short poem at the beginning of the program .

Last night I had the priviledge and honor to host my colleagues Lisa Dominquez Abraham and Dennis Hock at the Sacramento Poetry Center. They are fine poets who sculpt words with care. Here are a few images. Lisa reading some of her new work. Her published work is entitled Low Notes , published by Sacramento's very own Red Wing Press. Fellow poets at Dennis and Lisa's reading. Dennis Hock: he read from The Secret Cup and from a folder containing new pieces.

CHICAGO — Fanny Howe and Ange Mlinko are the winners of Poetry Foundation's sixth annual Pegasus Awards. Howe is the recipient of the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Established in 1986 and presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition, the Ruth Lilly Prize is one of the most prestigious awards given to American poets, and at $100,000 it is one of the nation’s largest literary prizes. Poet and critic Ange Mlinko is the winner of the Randall Jarrell Award in Poetry Criticism. The prizes will be presented at the Pegasus Awards ceremony at the Arts Club of Chicago on Tuesday, May 19. In announcing the Lilly Prize, Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine, said: “Fanny Howe is a religious writer whose work makes you more alert and alive to the earth, an experimental writer who can break your heart. Live in her world for a while, and it can change the way you think of yours.” “The selection of Fanny Ho...

mark jackley Mark Jackley , a regular contributor to Munyori Literary Journal , has published a new poetry chapbook entitled Cracks and Slats . Edited by Cindy Kelly, the book was published by Amsterdam Press. Some of the poems in this book were featured on Munyori, a fact the author has indicated he is proud of. The Munyori Staff (Shevonna, Doeba and yours truly,) are pleased to hear this and give our best wishes to Mark in his endeavours.

WASHINGTON, DC —“The Deaf poet is no oxymoron,” declares editor John Lee Clark in his introduction to Deaf American Poetry: An Anthology (Gallaudet University Press, $35.00 trade paperback). The anthology contains 95 poems by 35 deaf American poets. According to Clark, the poems in this volume are a remarkable record of development parallel to the verse of better known poets during that period. From James Nack’s early metered narrative poem “The Minstrel Boy” to the free association of Kristi Merriweather’s contemporary “It Was His Movin’ Hands" and "Be Tellin’ Me,” these Deaf poets display mastery of all forms prevalent during their lifetimes. Beyond that, E. Lynn Jacobowitz’s “In Memoriam: Stephen Michael Ryan” exemplifies a form unique to Deaf American poets, the transliteration of verse originally created in American Sign Language. The anthology is a unique showcasing of the best work of deaf poets throughout the America’s history — John R. Burnet, Laura C. Redden, Geor...

I think sometimes instead of reading I just admire the books. Since it's Spring break I can read anything, so I settle on a Dickens' biography, you know, the one by Peter Ackroyd, which has been described by some as a bad book, and I chose to understand the slang meaning of bad , and told myself I should read it. But here I am just holding it for the photo, of course. A panel discussion at the Sacramento Poetry Center on Saturday, April 4. These were the day's faculty.

Only on Saturday I discussed Peter Godwin with a Facebook (now real life) friend at the Sacramento Writers' Conference. When she found out I was from Zimbabwe she told me she had just finished reading an amazing book by a Zimbabwean author, entitled When Crocodile Eats the Sun . I knew the title but I had forgotten that it was written by Peter Godwin, but because we were talking about memoirs, I ended up telling her that I had loved Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa , a book which came out in 1997 (Harper), right when I was beginning to miss home. So anything that reminded me of home, food items, newspapers stories, books, anything, would have sufficed. Mukiwa was extraordinary in its balanced approach to the story of growing up in Zimbabwe, marketed by Harper Perenial as Africa. My friend said, "Well then, if you liked Mukiwa , you will love When Crocodile Eats the Sun." "I'll look for it, " I promised. Then today I visited Zimbabwe's Artsinitiates websi...

Reading Marechera at the Sacramento Poetry Center, February 2008. The state of Zimbabwean literature would make Marechera proud if he was alive. The writing has reached the level of creative risk that Marechera was already experimenting with in the 70s and 80s and most readers then,African and to a great extent American (Marechera's House of Hunger was a commercial failure in the United States) could just not get to the heart of what Marechera was trying to do. But contemporary Zimbabwean writers seem to have gotten IT, and our readers, most of whom are outside of Zimbabwe, like his were, seem ready to see what's coming out of Zimbabwe these days. He would have been proud. We are proud of him too. And on May 15, Oxford University (which expelled him in the 70s) will be honouring the man and his works. Marechera scholars from all over the world are presenting papers at the conference and a new House of Hunger edition will be released by Ayebia, alongside Brian Chikwava's ...

Quite a few of my friends will be presenting papers during the Dambudzo Marechera celebration at Oxford University. The main question so far has been, "Are you going to go and present something too?" I am not going to present; in fact, I am not going, but I have in mind the early wish of organising an event like that in the United States. That being said, I am happy that this event is taking place at Oxford; it's a great honour for Marechera and a happy moment for his readers and proteges. Two books will be launched at the event: Dambudzo Marechera's House of Hunger as published by Ayebia, and Brian Chikwava's Harare North . I will follow the events of the two-day conference closely, and will post on this blog related things (don't know what those things are yet). So here is a link to the full schedule: Dambudzo Marechera: A Celebration .

I am working on a short story inspired by the UCD Whole Earth Festival, which I attended in 1996. That's how long it has taken me to turn this experience into art, and as you know, it could be several months before a satisfactory final product comes out. They converge on Davis from all over California; some come from Oregon, others from Washington; they come here for one purpose, to celebrate the earth through art, music, and food. Exhibits showcase West African batiks, Southern African sculpture, Asian Pacific clothing and jewelry, but what fascinated me when I attended the festival were the drumming circles. Each group had at least one African person playing the drums or leading the dances, while everyone else seemed, or acted, possessed. The theatricality of it all sent a strong message about appreciating one's culture. Not all the dances are African; the idea of the festival is to showcase as much of the world's cultures as possible. The festival happens during Mother...

Workshop participants during the final Saturday panel discussion by the faculty. Kate Asche, I, and William O'Daly, during the lunch break. Kate is a member of the SPC board, and Bill is the Neruda translator. I bought one of his translations, World's End. another Asche, Sigauke, O'Daly pic. I think these three photos are different, if you look closely. Workshop presenters. Front row, from left to right: Camille Dungy, Camille Norton, and Susan Kelly-DeWitt. Back: from right to left, San Francisco-based poet Matthew Zapruder and a workshop participant. Left to right: Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Matthew Zapruder, Camille Dungy, Indigo Moor, Camille Norton. This was at the end of the workshop.

Camille Dungy was one of the workshop faculty at the Sacramento Poetry Center on April 4, 2009. In a discussion I had with her after the workshop, I liked her perspective on language use in creative writing, especially in writing that crosses linguistic boundaries. She believes that a text may be disorienting and unsettling to the readers, demanding that they move out of their comfort zones and experience what the text has to offer, even if it contains untranslated portions of a language the reader does not understand. If the writer has done a good job, the untranslated parts of the text shouldn't be much of a distraction.

The poetry reading and reception at the Sacramento Poetry headquarters Friday night marked the beginning of the Sacramento Writers' Workshop. The three readers, William O' Daly, Libby Kovacs, and Susan Kelly-DeWitt, are a talented lot. Daly is the famous translator of Pablo Neruda (he has translated eleven Neruda collecions). He read from his different translations and gave us a taste of two of his poems. He believes that after working on Neruda for twenty-five years, he is ready to focus on his own writing. William O'Daly. Libby Kovacs was married to the Pulitzer winning poet James Wright, whom she left in 1962 when she made her own expedition to San Francisco where her own writing career took off. She shared her experiences as a daughter of Greek immigrant parents and as a wife of James Wright. Libby Kovacs. Susan Kelly-DeWitt, who has been a member of the Sacramento Poetry Center since its beginning in 1979, has published eight chapbooks and one volume of poetry entitle...

First they will click their name out, then they perform. This group from Sacramento City College is fast becoming famous in the valley, taking their performances from the classroom to stages that vary from Lunas to the California legistlature. On Monday, March 30 they peformed at the Sacramento Poetry Center, a performance dedicated to Oak Park. Their basic message was that there is more to Oak Park than the ghetto images of violence, drug dealing and poverty. There are people there with dreams, aspirations, ambition. There is talent and the celebration of life. The group mixed music, poetry and theater in solo and collaborative performances that kept the audience captivated. The question and answer session at the end gave the performers a chance to explain their art and what it means to them. Most of the performers said that when they enrolled in the ethnic theater workshop at SCC, they were new to poetry and performance and they now felt that they could pursue the art further. Here a...