WEALTH OF IDEAS

Pan Macmillan South Africa has announced the 2011 Citizen Book Prize longlist . According to a report by Books Live, "The Citizen Book Prize is the only South African literary award voted for by the people. The winner gets R 10 000 from the Citizen and, either publication by Pan Macmillan SA or a spot on a top SA creative writing course." Out of the longlist of novels, the jury has shortlisted ten carefully-selected synopses. Two of these are by emerging writer Mbonisi Mbotse Ncube, who is also featured on the shortlist of the 2011 Intswasa Short Story contest . Another story of his is going to appear in the 2011 edition of African Roar: An Anthology of African Fiction . The winning book for the Citizen Prize is determined by online voting on the Books Live website . Below are the synopsis for Mbonisi Ncube's entries: The Nocturnal Life Of Mrs Smith by Mbonisi P Ncube SENIOR detective Miles Ncube and his rookie partner, Morrison, have a mind boggling c...

Time : Monday, August 29 · 7:30pm - 9:00pm Location : Sacramento Poetry Center 1719 25th St. Sacramento, CA Poets and activists delight you with a poetry reading benefitting Amnesty International. There is an encouraging source of social justice in written and spoken word. This very special evening features: Al Rojas, Emmanuel Sigauke, Brian Ang, Catherine Fraga, and Michael Gorman. Free. Refreshments. Biographies AL ROJAS worked intimately with Cesar Chavez to improve working conditions for farmworkers, and has, for decades, remained a...t the forefront of advocacy for latinos and workers. The activist is a CSUS alumnus and founded UFW, one of the most influential labor unions in California. Rojas began as a farmworker himself, organizing labor from 1961 to 1979. He became SEIU Local 1000 labor leader -- and then, California State Deputy Labor Commissioner. He is currently vice-president of the Sacramento Labor Council for Latin American Advancement. Many of EMMANU...

Marechera died on August 18 in 1987; that's the year I was introduced to his work by someone from Chakavanda village in Mazvihwa. I was an ambitious secondary school student who already walked around declaring (often silently), that I was a writer. I had already written plays for my school, had scribbled two or three novels, all of which had been consumed by a ready audience of school mates. And he--this man from Chakavanda--returned from Harare one day and, handing me House of Hunger , said, "Here is a book by a genius; you are a writer, read it." And, indeed, I read it: the picture I have of the protagonist fighting a group of white male students at the University of Rhodesia comes from that first reading, the way it was described, the bulldozing, the raining of fists. I read that House of Hunger and understood very little, yet I was happy to own a book by someone the man from Chakavanda had described as a genius. Come to think of it, this man was at a teacher...

The longer I work with writers, the more I am beginning to understand the relationship between a writer an editor--the clearer I understand my role as both a writer and an editor, two often conflicting roles, yet this is the kind of conflict every writer should experience. Let me attempt to explain. As an editor, I am not trying to destroy your story. Why would I? I do this out of a love for stories: I want to witness the birth of many masterpieces. But I am guided by the empathy for fellow writers' efforts, which then guide me not to simply flatter you, but to make sure your story comes to life. The story, whether we know it yet or not, is why we are here. The time we--writer and editor--must spend on the story may seem wasted, especially when we create chunks of text, only to destroy them in another editing cycle; the time we spend is an investment, to build something about which we will be confident and happy thirty years from now. I see the story not for what it is today, but f...