WEALTH OF IDEAS

Toni Morrison's Paradise , a haunting book. I am always reading, and it seems books can't leave me alone. I am talking about old books, new books, soon-to-be-new books--lots of books, but I am not complaining. Now I am thinking of doing themed readings for each month, certain books can be read in February, then others in March, April and so on. This idea is not new, really, but the difference is that I will make a conscious effort to set aside certain books for specific months. In March I am participating in a Women History Month panel, where we will be discussing women characters in poetry and fiction. When I was approached to participate, I agreed without a clear idea of what my contribution would be, but I remembered that the last time I participated in a Women's History month event, I told a story, honoring all the women who told me stories when I was growing up in Mototi, Mazvihwa, Zvishavane, Zimbabwe, Africa. It was while I was telling a story in front of a big crow...

The 2011 PEN/Studzinksy award shifted from covering the whole of Africa and it is now open only to writers from SADC countries. As I pointed out in the post about Penquin African Writers' Series (PAWS), sponsors and publishers of African writers are free to map things as they see fit. So while debates might arise in reponse to this shift, it is important to remember that the power to decide belongs to PEN/SA. The SADC comprises these countries: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe . The £10 000 2011 PEN/Studzinsky Literary Awards are judged by JM Coetzee.The winner of the inaugural PEN/Studzinksy award was Karen Jayes, who received the £5 000 first prize at the 2009 Franschhoek Literary Festival. Andrew Salomon took the £3 000 second prize, while Ceridwen Dovey and Nadia Davids shared the £2 000 third prize. Perhaps this geographic shift will ...

Zimbabwe's NAMA awards cover diverse fields of the arts, but I will just share information about the literary awards. The results of the 9th NAMA awards in this category are as follows: Outstanding Fiction Book • The Fading Sun by David Mungoshi (Other nominees were: Absent: The English Teacher by John Eppel and Many Rivers by Christopher Mlalazi) Outstanding Children’s Book • The Man, Shaggy Leopard and the Jackal by Ignatius T. Mabasa (The other nominee was: Kolobeja by Phathisa Nyathi) Outstanding First Creative Published Work • Harare North by Brian Chikwava (Other nominees were An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah and The Trek and the Other Stories by Lawrence Hoba) Congratulations to the winners and all the nominees. This is very inspiring, considering that I have followed some of these books since their manuscript and galley phases. I know the authors as hardworking, no-nonsense people committed to literature, and this is a deserved honor. Two of the winning books, a...

Africa The shortlisted writers for Africa's Best Book are: Trespass by Dawn Garisch (South Africa) The Double Crown by Marié Heese (South Africa) The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) Eyo by Abidemi Sanusi (Nigeria) Tsamma Season by Rosemund Handler (South Africa) Refuge by Andrew Brown (South Africa ) Kings of the Water by Mark Behr (South Africa) The shortlisted writers for Africa's Best First Book are: I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani (Nigeria) The Shape of Him by Gill Schierhout (South Africa) The Shadow of a Smile by Kachi Ozumba (Nigeria) Come Sunday by Isla Morley (South Africa) Sleepers Wake by Alistair Morgan (South Africa) Jelly Dog Days by Erica Emdon (South Africa) Harmattan Rain by Aysha Harunna Attah (Ghana) You don't see Zimbabwe on the list? That's because Mugabe got the country kicked out of the Commonwealth.

To the first question in this post's heading, Akin Ajayi says, "Yes." In a Guardian write-up on the Penguin African Writers' Series, Ajayi says of the series's five publications: "Classics, yes; contemporary, no." Notice the article shows a photo of Chinua Achebe, the visual cue for being stuck in the past. The "who cares" question is mine...perhaps because I am tired of reading about the politicization of African writing, or its de-politicization for that matter. African writing is at a good place right now, the writers are taking more risks and experimenting with new styles, some with old ones. In other words, for publishers on the continent and those elsewhere, Africa has a lot to offer, a lot to tap into. So Penguin decides to represent classic African works? Let them, or allow them to allow themselves to let themselves choose a niche, a focus, and perhaps, Farafina Trust, or someone else, AmaBooks, Modjadji, Lion Press, Weaver, or somet...

Lawrence Dinkins, Indigo Moor, and Emmanuel Sigauke . Poets Terry a O'neal, Lawrence Dinkins, and Indigo Moor delivered a good show at Cosumnes River College today. Here are some event photos: Terry O'Neal gave us a taste of her upcoming publication, and read pieces from her published books as well. Her poetry establishes links with Africa, and dips into Black History in America. lawrence dinkins . As I predicted, the students loved his lively performance of pieces that deal with the ordinary American lives, also hinting at important moments in the history of Black America. Indgo Moor . He read all my favorite pieces in Tap-Root, his award-winning first collection and he gave us taste of his new collection, which is going to be published in April 2010; it won Northwestern University's Second Book Prize. This was a great line up.

at the Sacramento poetry Center, Feb 15, 2010 Lawrence Dinkins and I, and members of the Sacramento Poetry Center, hung out with dynamic poets: Dawn Dibartolo, Laura Cook, Anna Marrie, and Sean Young. The hosts got to read too: Lawrence read from Langston Hughes, I read Charles Mungoshi and Ignatius Mabasa, and honored Chimanimani by reading my pieces based on Rusitu Valley. It was a great night--very inspiring. Here are some more photos: Dawn Dibartolo. She kicked off the reading with poweful pieces from her new pieces. In her poetry, every word counts and moves. Anna Marie . I stated in a previous post that I love her style--she transforms the stage. She has tentatively agreed to an interview for Wealth of Ideas and Munyori Lit Journal. She treated us to "Poet's Handbag", "Concrete Corners", and a poem about cooking, and many more. Laura Cooks . Dynamite. I first heard her poetry at Queen Sheba restaurant last year, so it was great to listen to her perfo...

The Stuff of Thought Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought , published in 2007, looks like a good resources to writers. I was drawn to its subtitle: Language as a Window into Human Nature. Since writers rely on language to open (sometimes close) this window, I think most writers would find this book interesting. Pinker looks at words and how they convey whole worlds, shows how we conceptualize ideas and lock them in language, or how we capture language and lock it into our thought processes. Language expresses what goes on in our minds and the words we choose communicate much more than we realize. I wouuld add that as writers, the words we find ourselves using, the words we choose to keep in the final drafts of our writing, are key to an understanding of of what we write and read. Pinker also takes the Lakoff route and examines metaphor, calling it "metaphor of metaphor", because, I suspect, if language is already metaphorical, what we often call metaphors are metaphors ...

February is Black History Month (BHM). There are celebrations in many spheres of (black) life in America, but nowhere are the celebrations highly evident than in colleges and arts organizations. In line with this spirit, I will be involved in two black poetry events next week. On Monday, I join Sacramento poet Lawrence Dinkins, popularly known as NSAA (pronounced "ensa"), at the Sacramento Poetry Center, where we will co-host the BHM reading/performance. One mic, four dynamic poets, and as my friend Terry Moore would say, "some of Sacramento's hottest poets". Names like Anna Marie, Laura Cooks, Sean King and Dawn DiBartolo. If you haven't seen Anna Marrie in action, you better show up on Monday. She performs/recites most of her poetry, and as you are tranformed by the words (transformed on the spot) you see the poet transforming too (seizing not only the stage, but also the entire space inhabited by poet and audience). Dawn DiBartolo has a new publication. ...

I would like to thank all the poets who have sent hundreds of submissions to Munyori Literary Journal , which, after all, started as a poetry journal. Keep sending! We have also seen an increase in fiction submissions, thanks mainly to Indian and Zimbabwean writers. We recently made a call to submissions for a publication of an Indo-Zimbabwean short fiction collection, and that's a project separate from the regular Munyori Lit Journal . We have also received works for this project. Keep them --the short stories--coming. Submissions to Munyori should be sent to fictioneditor@munyori.com, with a copy to manu@munyori.com. Submissions to the Indo-Zimbabwean short fiction collection, which I will co-edit with two committed Indian writers/scholars, should be sent to indozim@munyori.com . Flood our emails with your submissions to this project; we plan to look for the highest quality, and will take our time until we have a collection that sings...something to that effect. I am also involve...

From left to right: Memory Chirere, Emmanuel Sigauke (gowned) and Jabulani Kanchi. I remember now: UZ had an open day for high school students. Memory Chirere, Jabulani Kanchi, Eresina Hwede and other campus "writers" met with Chenjerai Hove, then the Writer-in-residence and we said, "We have to do something on this important day." And Hove said, "Do something." We set up this table, people stopped by to know what we were doing, and later that day we recorded some poetry and fiction in a studio on campus, and I laugh each time I listen to the tape....with all these voices of young, ambitious writers. I read a chapter of my "novel"-in-progress called Wipe Your Tears , Cleopus Gwakwara read a chapter of his published Shona novel Kwadinorohwa Matumbu , Eresina Hwede, the only female author at the recording, read sections of her Shona novel manuscript, while Memory Chirere read most of the poems that would appear in College Press's Tipeiwo Darir...

Specific details are important in story writing. This sounds obvious, which is why I have to talk about it now. I am usually attuned to conciseness, sometimes only concerned with telling the key details of a story, avoiding saturating the text with the obvious. But, working through my Mukoma manuscript, a collection of connected short stories, which I should not be talking about because I am still working on it, I have noticed that I am happier with drafts that are generous with details. The stuff of life in Mazvihwa, in Harare, in Gweru. I even find myself describing "these people", the people in the world of my characters. I am aware that these are details which will not sound obvious to a lot of my readers, including those who know the context and setting of my stories. The stories are informed by my experiences, and when I share them, I have to give sufficient details for my readers. It feels great to add a little fat to the fiction.