WEALTH OF IDEAS

Thanks to TaniaWrites for the announcement posted on her blog. Gore rino ndoda kumbeodzawo kuita zvemakwikwi izvi. So here are the details of an upcoming Flash Fiction contest deadline: The Dublin Review of Books has announced its second Flash Fiction Contest. They say: "The prize will bring recognition to distinguished flash fiction writing from within Ireland and around the world." Winner receives €1,000. Second and third place will each receive €100. The top three stories will appear in The Dublin Review of Books . Final judging will be made by authors James Ryan, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne and an editor from the drb. G UIDELINES : • Submit up to 3 flash fiction stories of no more than 500 words apiece. Work must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are not accepted. Copyright will remain with winning authors. The drb reserves the rights to use winning entries up to one year after publication. • Manuscripts must include a cover letter containing...

This is one of those posts which satisfy some nostalgic hankering, while opening up creative possibilities. Oftentimes the writer within wants to keep talking about where he grew up, perhaps as a way of affirming, if not deconstructing, a sense of identity, itself a response to some stimuli in the immediate environment, such as, earlier today, driving to work, I saw a clump of trees on the side of Highway 99 that suddently recalled a simiilar feature along the Zvishavane-Murowa road, so I began to think about the setting of my stories, and remembered, perhaps for the hundredieth time, that my starting point tends to be Mototi, in Mazvihwa, Zvishavane, Midlands Province, Zimbabwe. All that is okay, a sense of place, specity of setting, which allows readers to see the familiar in the foreign, like how those trees along Highway 99 recalled Mototi. I often wonder why, with all these choices of setting, my stories still default to Mototi, and ignoring the obvious answer, I begin to make an ...

The following is a call for stories from the Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award: The University of Georgia Press is proud to be the publisher of the Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award series. More than fifty short fiction collections have appeared in the series, which was established to encourage gifted emerging writers by bringing their work to a national readership. The first prize-winning book was published in 1983; the award has since become an important proving ground for writers and a showcase for the talent and promise that have brought about a resurgence in the short story as a genre. Winners are selected through an annual competition. Past winners of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction include such widely read authors as Ha Jin, Antonya Nelson, Rita Ciresi, and Mary Hood. For news and updates about the competition and past winners, visit the Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award on Facebook. The contest is open for submissions from April 1 to Ma...

April "Meet the Author" April 30, 2011 Union City Public Library 34007 Alvarado-Niles Rd, Union City, CA 1:00pm - 4:00pm Writing for the Young Adult Audience Northen California 's Capitol City Young Writers' next "Meet the Author" workshop takes place Saturday, April 30 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Union City Library. Aspiring young writers and avid readers from grades 6 through 12, will mingle with peers, published authors and book industry professionals for an afternoon workshop featuring several guest speakers and a writing workshops. MEET THE GUESTS AND AUTHORS CYNTHIA OMOLOLU Cynthia Omololu's novel Dirty Little Secrets (Walker/Bloomsbury) is about a teen living in a hoarded home. Cynthia also has two other novels due for release, Destined and Fated. www.cjomololu.com NAHEED SENZAI Naheed Senzai spent her childhood in San Francisco, Jubail, Saudi Arabia and England. An avid comic book reader, she was voted "most likely to read a literar...

The Intwasa Short Story Competition is an annual literary event seeking to promote original creative writing talent in both English and Isindebele. The competition has two awards; the Yvonne Vera award for best short story in English and the N. S. Sigogo award for best short story in isindebele. The prize for each award will be $500. There is also a junior section of the competition open to high school students in Zimbabwe. The prizes for the junior sections will be $200 for each award. The English Award is named after the late Dr. Yvonne Vera who is arguable one of the best writers writing in English to emerge out of Bulawayo and Zimbabwe as a whole. The Ndebele award is named after Ndabezinhle S. Sigogo. Mr. N. S. Sigogo was a prolific writer and probably the most published Ndebele writer with over two dozen publication to his name. The Short Story Competition is supported by Hivos, Africalia Belgium, Rural Libraries and Resources Development Programme (RLRDP) and Turn Up College. T...

On May 7, 2011 I will be teaching a workshop called "The Making of a Story" at the Our Life Stories conference. This all-day event is a cross-generational writers' conference by Hart Senior Center and Cosumnes River College. See more details about the conference , workshops , and the faculty . Saturday, May 7, 2011 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Cosumnes River College 8401 Center Parkway, Sacramento, CA Conference Fee - $30.00 (Includes lunch, workshops, and materials) Registration Deadline: April 22, 2011. Space is limited.

I wanted this post to focus specifically on Zimbabwean writers, but it is applicable to most African writers as well. In fact, it's relevant to most writers anywhere. The message is simple: write what you want, or better, write what you feel like writing. The how may be influenced by outside forces, and often, that's good for the prose or the poetry. As for the why , you would have to make it apparent at some point in the process. For now, write what's within your radar (and this is not to say write what you know...but that which gets in the field of your writerly sensors). This post is in response to the feeling I get reading the non-fictional writings, the occasional prose , of some writers who seem to argue that writing about the past takes us to an exhausted field. Since this is a blog entry, I am not going to require myself to prove who these people are; perhaps I am imagining them, but the argument that creative writing should deal with topical issues seems to violat...