WEALTH OF IDEAS

Who is Visiting WOI and Why?

2012-01-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

Once in a while I check traffic statistics to my blogs, particularly this one, which is my favorite. And on some days I wake up and there have already been 300 or 400+ visits, signalling a day that may end with over 800 or more. So then I check why such a surge and I click on the traffic source tab, which shows me the source websites and search engine key words. It's the latter I always find interesting, and worth blogging about. It shows what key words brought the traffic to my blog, gives me an idea of what people are looking for.

In the past there have been key words like "the rise of Petina Gappah", "Marechera and Zimbabwean literature", "Interesting characters in African literature," and sometimes just "Emmanuel Sigauke". Today's list is longer, and here it is:

black history month event ideas

shona literature novels

abigail george poetry

alice laplante, method and madness

beautifull girl south african poem

black history month events ideas

black history performance ideas

forever young ideas

imitating the style of writing of binyavanga wainana

lumina literary agency short story

It makes sense that people are looking for information on Black History Month. I am going to host two events myself, one at the Sacramento Poetry Center (February 13) and the other at Cosumnes River College (February 14); something I usually publicize as "Black History Month Events, Back to Back". The readings are popular as I usually work with some of the best poets in the Sacramento area, VS Chochezi, Terry Moore, Malik Moore, NSAA, Immobeme and many others. It always an honor bringing poets to both the SPC and CRC, and to introduce them to eager audiences. The CRC attendence sometimes reaches north of the 300s, and I know some are there as classes, are on extra credit or extra-curriculum projects, but the value is what they get out of the performances, that which enriches their experiences in the world of art. So yes, it makes sense that people are looking for these events, which also qualify as beautiful entertainment.

I see there has been a search on "imitating the style of writing of Binyavanga Wainaina". That's a huge compliment to Binyavanga, but also a great way to exemplify that writing relies on influence from others and that sometimes writers deliberately imitate others in order to discover their own voices. Not only that; sometimes they seek to parody styles they admire. In the mix of literary production, it all makes sense. And what a choice: reviews are raving about how stylish Binyavanga is in his prose.

"Shona Literature novels". It's interesting to note that someone out there is looking for these, a whole literature a lot of readers don't know exist because of language, but someone is looking. These creatures, Shona novels, need a bigger readership, so it's great to know that there organizations in places like the UK and ....the UK, which order and sell or distribute Shona and Ndebele novels, and I read somewhere that a school was going to be started in the UK, a school that teaches things in Shona and Ndebele and English, a school that teaches Zimbabwean things. People around me here in Sacramento have begun to express a wish that one day someone like me (because of how I always talk about books and language) should be part of a program that starts somethng that educates children of Zimbabweans, educate them on Zim culture, the languages, etc...because the communities are growing, and soon Sadza Restaurants may need to sprout in these places. Interesting, all interesting.

See the search on South African poetry? That's very good, and I like how it connects with a search for Abigail George, a South African poet who is passionate about African literature, who recommends laying your hands on any African books, whose worldview is centered in the African world she writes about. She is the founder of Drum Beat media, which has a page on Facebook, and they have announced that they are starting a journal of African writing; we need more of these.

Search engine terms; they really give you ideas to blog about. Keep them coming.

SPC Third Reading of the Year: Zara Raab and Judy Wells

2012-01-19T11:42:00.000-08:00

Presents

Zara Raab and Judy Wells

Monday, January 23 at 7:30 PM

1719 25th Street at Crossroads for the Arts

Host: Tim Kahl

Zara Raab grew up along the North Coast of California. She attended Mills College and the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) for college and graduate school. In her twenties, she lived in Paris, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., where she freelanced as an editor and writer, before returninto the West Coast to raise a family. Her grandparents’ grandparents’ settled in Humboldt and Mendocino counties in the 19th century, where they farmed, raised cattle and harvested tan oak for leather. Both her parents attended one-room schools; the one in Branscomb still stands. Early California is a subject of Swimming the Eel, just as the drama of family life informs her earlier work, The Book of Gretel.

On Zara Raab’s Swimming the Eel

“With abundant detail and in many voices the poet rounds out family history with sweetness, humor and presence, frequently moving back and forth from one era to another. In this way we see the family lines as they gather along the Eel, and disperse. . . . Zara Raab has long entranced us with glimpses into her ancestral life. Now we have the wonder of it in Swimming the Eel. We are grateful.”

––Cleo Griffith, editor, Song of the San Joaquin

"Swimming the Eel is a moving and impressive work of art. Its family history feels both intimate and mythic in its fresh iteration of a Western American archetype. [With] a combination of formal coherence and musical fluency, . . . a beautifully sustained sequence of poems."

––Stephen Kessler, author, The Tolstoy of the Zulus

“This poetic chronology grips and blesses in a way that no history could, telling the story of the American West through family eyes, beginning with an “artless girl who kept a clean house over a green hill,” who is swept toward her future by life’s inevitable “waterfall of loss.” Charm and efficacy yield a light touch; yet the words speak of deep longing . . . amid the “pantaloons of soil along the river rock.”
––Cathy Luchetti, author of Women of the West

“Who’ll join me...as the winter seance starts, wind rattling the pots?” Zara Raab’s compelling dream of history, and the painful waking from it, merges inner life with outer world in these exhilarating lyrics of lost lifetimes in an outback corner of Northern California. A brew of wildness and domesticity. . . its pleasures are many. . . “

––Beverly Burch, author of Sweet to Burn

JUDY WELLS has published ten collections and chapbooks of poetry: I Dream of Circus Characters: A Berkeley Chronicle (Beatitude Press, 2010), Little Lulu Talks with Vincent Van Gogh (Malthus Press, 2007), Call Home (Scarlet Tanager Books, 2005), Everything Irish (Scarlet Tanager Books, 1999), The Calling: Twentieth Century Women Artists (Mother’s Hen, 1994), The Part-time Teacher (Rainy Day Women Press, 1991), Jane, Jane (Hawkeye Press, 1981), Albuquerque Winter (Hawkeye, 1980), Been in Berkeley Too Long (Hawkeye, 1980), and I Have Berkeley, (Hawkeye, 1979).

She has read her poetry in many venues—from the famed bookstore, Shakespeare & Co. in Paris to the famed, now closed Cody’s Books on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. She was a featured reader in the Berkeley Poetry Festival, 2006, 2009, and 2011. Journal publications include Feile-Festa, Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review, North Coast Literary Review, 2000: Here’s to Humanity, Coffeehouse Poetry Anthology, The Walrus, Howling Dog, The Kerf, Colere, Rattlesnake, and forthcoming in California Quarterly and Levure Litteraire.

She received her B.A. in French from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Judy is also co-editor of The Berkeley Literary Women’s Revolution: Essays from Marsha’s Salon, McFarland, 2005, a chronicle of the founding of Women’s Studies in the Comparative Literature Department at UC Berkeley in the 1970s. Her essays have also appeared in Travelers’ Tales Ireland and several editions of The Borzoi College Reader.

Judy taught writing and literature at various Bay Area colleges before a career as an Academic Counselor for adults in the School of Extended Education at Saint Mary’s College of California, and as a faculty member of the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Saint Mary’s. She is now devoted full-time to her poetry.

Thoughts on Helon Habila's 'Oil on Water'

2012-01-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

This is my first encounter with Helon Habila's work. As he is increasingly becoming more important in the canonization of African literature (he won the Caine Prize in its second year and he recently anthologized African short stories with a respected publisher), I thought I should read him right away. And what better way to introduce myself to his work than through his recent novel, 'Oil on Water', which takes readers to the Niger Delta. I say take, as opposed to invite, because from the moment you hear the narrator's voice, you are taken on a voyage as if you were foreign to the Niger Delta, which, in my case, is true (never mind that earlier today, a lady outside the grocery store asked me if I was Nigerian and I told her what I was, and the lady with whom she was standing quickly said: "You are my neighbour and I said, "Are you Mozambican?" and she said, "No, I'm South African").

As I begin reading the novel, I am following a narrative thread that recalls Joseph Conrad (not the prose style, no, no) in the voyage and expedition trope. We are going up a river in a boat, we are navigating, and we are journalists, two of us, accompanied or guided by some locals, a father and a son, the latter a speaker of Pidgin English, saying things like: "You no well, sir, thas why . I think say you go stop here rest small..." and the other a lad who needs an outsider to help him pursue his dreams for success, because he can't make it his village.

The narrator, Rufus, a recent graduate of journalims school, on a mission to make his breakthrough in his field, encounters people whose languages he cannot name. He knows he can't understand them, but he does know what they are speaking. I don't if as a reader I should expect him to know what the language is at least, but I have to realise that in some African countries hundreds of languages are spoken, and I have to leave room for people in such countries not being able to name the language. Besides, it's a minor issue in the story's premise.

The story centers on Rufus and his career role model, the drunkard Zaq, whom he met when he came to give a commencement speech on his journalism graduation. Meeting him was an opporunity any journalism student would have wanted to have, and for Rufus, connecting with Zaq became a reality when he found himself stuck with him when, on that first night they met, he became so drunk he passed out and had to use the help of Rufus. So began a professional relationship that had landed them together on this mission: navigating up a filthy river in search of white woman who has been kidnapped by millitants in the Niger Delta. Their assignment is to confirm the woman is alive, to take pictures, and to make the militants "understand that nothing must happen to her. She's a British citizen..."

This makes for an excellent premise for the novel. It is a subject readers are likely to find interesting as it serves multilple purposes: first, the novel is already set in an Africa full of problems, but this problems play on the stage of multi-national interests, a lot of wealth is at stake, and major players in the global landscape are involved. Then there is the hot subject of militants, rebels, ransom seekers responsible for cause instability in a place full of oil wealth--even the editor of the newspaper Zaq works for understands that this mission will lead to a real scoop: "an opportunity is an opportunity. How often does the oil company come knocking on your door, asking for a favor?" But where Habila excels in dealing with interesting and far-reaching subject matter is in including a kidnapped white woman in the story.

In the depth of trouble-ridden Africa, to put the white wife of a British oil executive adds an interesting layer to the story. It is actually the life of the story. While consistent with reality in these oil-rich places, where groups seeking opportunity or freedom may cause this kind of havoc, the premise of the story is chosen so well that it almost seems like a gimmick to garner extensive reader interest. This has been done before in African literature, and it will continue to be done; the writer who understands how it works stands to benefit from it. But even that, in the context of this story, is also a minor issue; it gets the reader into the narrative: what matters then is what happens one we are in. Is the story delightfully rendered? How is the narrative thrust? How about the story's arc? How soon do we relate this single story to general human concerns while not losing sight of its distinctiveness? In all these fronts, Habila delivered.

This is a gently told story, not a breathless, forward-thrusting mystery or miplaced adventure, but a patient, nuanced and lucidly moving story. The narrator weaves the connecting tissues of the story from the present to the past and back without boring us with details that slow down the story. The style stays consistent with the prosaic unfolding of a journalist memoir, but we are invited in the subjective core of the story-teller, his dreams, his fears, his ignorance, and like a good journalist, his willingness to observe and learn. Observation is the key to these journalists' expedition. First they will observe, take notes, photos, and then they will report.

The journey is dangerous for them, and it has uncertain consequences. Hope is smitten, but the journalistic urge takes over, because that which endangers makes good reportable material. The waters they navigate are dangerous because of toxins, Zaq catches a disease, whole villages are being wiped out by the toxins in the water, and then there is the lurking danger of militants and government soldiers. When armies and rebels hunt each other, the innocent villagers are caught in the middle, are victimized, are killed. Here, the author shows the injustice of it all, shows who the real victims are. What the protagonist takes us through are the two imperatives of preserving the feeling driven by simple compassion towards fellow humans and and the dictates of ambition for a successful journalism career, and further, the call of fame for the journalists involved and the companies they work for.

The books is an easy read, yet deceptively simple. Ultimately, it becomes a strong statement against social injustice driven by greed in the oil industry.

Naomi Benaron's "Running the Rift" Now Out

2012-01-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

I am excited about the arrival in stores of this much-awaited award winner, "Running the Rift" by Naomi Benaron. Here is some information from Amazon:

Amazon Best Books of the Month, January 2012: No wonder Barbara Kingsolver awarded her 2010 Bellwether Prize, given biennially to an unpublished novel that confronts social issues, to Naomi Benaron's Running the Rift. In her coming-of-age story of young Tutsi Jean Patrick Nkuba, whose extraordinary gift for distance running lands him on the path to become his country's first medalist in track, one of history's most inconceivable chapters--the Rwandan genocide--becomes intensely personal. Out of a childhood marked by loss and overshadowed by mounting Hutu-Tutsi tensions, Jean Patrick draws the strength for grueling Olympic training and the courage to run his life's most crucial race--to save himself and his family. A vividly told tale with a memorable champion at its heart. --Mari Malcolm

Review

"An auspicious debut . . . Having worked extensively with genocide survivor groups in Rwanda, Benaron clearly acquired a very lucid sense of her characters' lives and of the horrors they endured. Her story tells, with compelling clarity, of Rwandan Tutsi youth, Jean Patrick Nkuba--who dreams of becoming Rwanda's first Olympic medalist. It's a dream he must postpone for more than a decade as the internecine savagery, Hutu vs. Tutsi, slaughters millions and derails the lives of countless others. While it would be counterintuitive to pronounce this a winning, feel-good story, there is something to be said for hope restored. And Naomi Benaron's characters say it well."—The Daily Beast

“In a finely crafted story of dreams, illusions, hard reality, and reaching the other side of fear, Benaron has bestowed upon the world a story that illuminates events on a national scale by showing their effects at the personal level.”—ForeWord Reviews

"Benaron accomplishes the improbable feat of wringing genuine loveliness from unspeakable horror . . . It is a testament to Benaron's skill that a novel about genocide . . . conveys so profoundly the joys of family, friendship, and community." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Awarded the prestigious Bellwether Prize for its treatment of compelling social issues, Benaron’s first novel is a gripping, frequently distressing portrait of destruction and ultimate redemption... Benaron sheds a crystalline beacon on an alarming episode in global history, and her charismatic protagonist leaves an indelible impression.”—Booklist

"First novelist Benaron, who has actively worked with refugee groups, won the 2010 Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction for this unflinching and beautifully crafted account of a people and their survival. In addition, she compellingly details the growth and rigorous training of a young athlete. . . Highly recommended; readers who loved Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner will appreciate."—Library Journal, starred review

"The politics will be familiar to those who have followed Africa’s crises (or seen Hotel Rwanda), but where Benaron shines is in her tender descriptions of Rwandan’s natural beauty and in her creation of Jean Patrick, a hero whose noble innocence and genuine human warmth are impossible not to love." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Sacramento Poetry Center Lecture Series Starting Soon

2012-01-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

Feb. 16 Joshua McKinney — "Bolo and Bullshit: The Other T.S. Eliot"

Feb. 23 V.S. Chochezi — "Poetry Collaborations: Sacramento and Beyond" [Gary Snyder and Tom Killion, Electropoetic Coffee (NSAA and Ross Hammond), Poetry Machine (Mario Ellis Hill and friends, Fo'Shange, Straight Out Scribes) and much more

March 1 Molly Fisk — "Women Poets: Friendship, Critique & Support"

March 8 Emmanuel Sigauke — "Contemporary World Poetry through International Poetry Web"

March 15 Bob Stanley and John Allen Cann — "The Blab of the Pave: Rhythm, Texture, Silence and Other Elements of Post-rhyming Poetry"

March 22 Judy Halebsky — "Japanese Literary Traditions in West Coast Poetics"

March 29 James DenBoer — "Kenneth Rexroth: The World Outside the Window"

April 5 Tim Kahl — "Surrealism and its Academic Discontents"

Only $99 (10% off for Sacramento Poetry Center members). $65 Mix/Match Pass (any four lectures you wish). Or, $20 per lecture. Runs Thursday evenings, 7:30-9pm; Feb 16, 2012 –April 5, 2012. Tickets make fine gifts! Proceeds benefit the Sacramento Poetry Center. Contact Tim Kahl, 916.714.5401 for more information.

African Awareness Week at University of British Columbia

2012-01-15T08:12:00.000-08:00

MONDAY, JAN 16:

Opening Night: The Africa in UBC

High Commissioner of Lesotho in Canada and UBC alumna, Her Excellency Dr. Mathabo Tsepa, will address students, faculty, administration and the Vancouver community on the dire necessity of an African Studies Program and the role it will play in creating truly “international leaders” from UBC. The night will also include cultural performances by AAI members as well as the greater Vancouver African community.
Venue: Museum of Anthropology
Time: 6:00 - 7:30pm

TUESDAY, JAN 17:

Research In Africa

Two UBC professors will be presenting their research projects in Africa and speak on the unparalleled importance of Africa’s ecosystems
Venue: Global Lounge
Time: 12:00 - 1:30pm
Speakers:

Dr. Gary Bull, UBC Forestry

A representative from The Africa Forest Research Initiative on Conservation and Development (AFRICAD)

Two UBC professors will be presenting their research projects in Africa and speak on the unparalleled importance of Africa’s ecosystems.

Africa in film - The first grader

The inspiring true story of the struggles and triumphs of an 84 year old Kenyan fighting to receive elementary education

Venue: Global Lounge
Time: From 7:00pm - 9:00pm

WEDNESDAY, JAN 18:

Open a Book, Read Africa

World-renowned author and the 2011 Winner for the Caine Prize for African Literature will be speaking to two literature classes, AFST 351 and ENGL 224 about the state of the modern African literature in the world.
Venue: Marine Drive Ballroom
Time: 4:30 - 6:00pm
Keynote Speaker: NoViolet Bulawayo
NoViolet Bulawayo is the 2011 Winner for the Caine Prize for African Literature.

"NoViolet recently earned her MFA at Cornell University where her work has been recognized with a Truman Capote Fellowship. She currently teaches creative writing and composition at Cornell. NoViolet was born and raised in Zimbabwe. Some of her work includes Hitting Budapest, which has attributed to her literary accomplishments. Noviolet has graciously accepted to come to UBC and share her literary work and journey, not to mention the importance of African literature in western higher education. She will also offer words of inspiration to aspiring authors and African students on campus.

THURSDAY, JAN 19:

Revolution, African style

Venue: The Liu Institute
Time: 5:00 - 7:00pm

Guest Speakers:

Dr.Deborah Campbell, Journalism

Dr. Taylor Owen, Journalism

Two UBC professors will come together and speak on how the revolutions in North Africa this past spring have creatively connected social media and politics in an innovative and democratic manner.

Artistic Night: For the Love of Africa

An open mic night dedicated to celebrating Africa through slam poetry and other performances.

Venue: Abdul Ladha Centre
Time: From 7:30pm onwards
An open mic night dedicated to celebrating Africa through slam poetry and other artistic performances.

FRIDAY, JAN 20:

SIKILIZA

An Afro-fusion cultural night with performances, entertainment and a DJ playing music from the continent celebrating the end of a successful Conference Week.
Venue: International House
Time: 8:00pm onwards

:Closing Remarks:
By stressing Africa’s impact on western higher education, we hope that the university realizes the necessity of a stable African Studies Program. The presence of such notable speakers on campus shows that the University of British Columbia shows its continued dedication to follow through with the complete and justiﬁed ‘creation of global citizens.’

A Long Review of 'Together: Stories and Poems by Julius Chingono and John Eppel'

2012-01-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

Title: Together
Authors: John Eppel and Julius Chingono.
Publisher: UNO Press (USA)
Date: 2011
Reviewed by Emmanuel Sigauke

One question I remember asking in the late eighties and early nineties in Zimbabwe is: Where are all the white writers? I could easily have concluded that Zimbabwe had no white writers, or that white Zimbabweans could not write. But I remembered that when I started school in the 70s, before Zimbabwe's independence, I had read stories and poems by white writers in school. So, as works by black writers flourished in the eighties, what was happening to works by white writers? John Eppel hints at one of the many possible answers in a short essay in the poetry collection, 'State of the Nation': "None of the Zimbabwean presses would publish me; none of the South African presses. Influential academics (and editors) of anthologies, not only at home but in those countries starched with political correctness like post-independent South Africa, Germany, Canada, and England, dismissed me as morally questionable or simply ignored me."

I remember seeing Eppel at writers' meetings. I remember his [then] explosive poetry renditions, and when I travelled to Bulawayo to launch the city's branch of the Budding Writers of Zimbabwe, he was in the group of participants. He might not have been published, but he was there, together with others, participating, seeking publication, like most of us were. But where were all the other white writers? It's one of those questions that would not yield a clear answer in racially divided Zimbabwe, but things have gotten better, Zimbabweans have learned to work together in the face of the country's crises. And there is no greater witness for this --in literary circles-- than he landmark work 'Together', a publication in which two writers, one black, one white, came together to publish a book. Most of the anthologies published in the country after 2000 show diversity.

'Together' is here. It was co-published by amaBooks (Zimbabwe) and UNO Press (USA). Shortly after, the South African edition followed. Another demonstration of togetherness, of collaboration, among publishers. The book starts with Julius Chingono's writings followed by John Eppel's. It's a beautiful book; I have read from it at different poetry events in Sacramento. I have proudly carried it around. It is one of very few Zimbabwean books published in the USA, so there is pride in that. I love that it's locally available, easy to order in bulk, if needed.
Many readers will love it for its humor, the kind of humor salvaged in a place where hope is uncertain. Then there is satire, and, even more surprisingly, blatant criticism of governmental authority. To me, the writings are so sad I missed much of the humor on the first reading.
Chingono's poems tend to be short and incisive. He grabs my attention immediately with "Curiosity", the first entry in the book, about a "He" who heard gunfire outside, opened his door and "never saw / the bullet / that killed his curiosity." The poem reminded me of a childhood friend I lost in the seventies; he was only twelve, but because of his height, he was allowed to attend those all-night party indoctrination (pungwes). The base was ambushed, and as the people took cover and started crawling away, as they had been trained, my friend stood up to take a look at how well the brothers, the comrades, were firing, and a bullet got him and he died. A good work of art has the ability to transcend time, to be applicable to situations in different places. Nothing would stop this poem to resonate with anyone in Sacramento or Oakland, where shootings are common.

Chingono's story "Leave my Bible Alone" features Mudhara Gore, a drunkard who would do anything to keep his Bible, his most valued possession. Even though this is more of an incident that a fully rendered story (you get the sense that there is a lot more that's left unsaid), the piece hints at the state of affairs in the country. The most moving moment for me is not when the Gore falls and inadvertently releases the grip on his bible, nor is it when his wife carries him home in the family wheelbarrow; it is when this specific incident is introduced, in the middle of the story: "Gore joined the usual company of old time guzzlers. At this time backyard drinking joints selling illicit alcohol had sprouted up all over, as municipal beer halls were not operating and legal alcohol was too expensive...Afraid that the drinking hole would be raided by the police at any time, Gore and his friends hastily downed two 750ml bottles of kachasu. They parted in very good spirits, their bibles clutched to their chests." It's not even the social value of alcohol consumption that matters now, but the rapid guzzling meant to bury the larger problems of life. And right here in this paragraph you get the sense that people find solace in two major outlets, alcohol and church, and just as illicit alcohol places have sprouted, so have churches of all sorts and descriptions. Beer and bible are pronounced in the same breath in this story.

In the short story "We Waited", Chingono uses the voice of witness, which maintains the humor element we see in the poetry and his other stories. This is a story of the voter's voice not being respected, of the abuse of the electorate, but amidst such injustices, the voice manages to make us laugh: "We waited. We joked that the weather had joined the British and the Americans in imposing sanctions on us." Over and over again, the Zimbabwean writer has begun to tap into the humorous in the national rhetoric. It comes off as satire, yet too dire to always solicit our laughter with its humor element. The tragic looms larger: "We sat on rubble as we waited, rubble of the buildings destroyed during Murambatsvina when the shelters of the poor people who could not construct permanent structures were demolished by the government. We waited, keen to excerise our right to vote in the Goredema town council elections, a fledgling town west of Harare." Here, not only does the narrator assume I need a definition of Murambatsvina, he also reveals the exact location of Goredema in relation to Harare.

If the narrator is not reporting to a foreign audience, he is perhaps talking to posterity, future readers of this story who may not remember the time, or, suppose Goredema collapses altogether one day, given the rate of destruction in the world of this story, then it helps to offer level of specificity; it contextualizes the story and help reader visualize setting.But that's not all; there is a deep subjective interpretation of his world; the narrator tells the story as it is, from the way he sees it. He tells it in such a natural voice that he probably wouldn't care about the invasive editorial italicization of his points of reference: murambatsvina, maputi, freezits, since his exposition is so clear that italics or not, the the details would still make sense to the reader. Anyway, things don't go on well in "We Waited." They wait for nothing; they don't get to vote for the candidate they want, and their demonstration ends with tragic encounter with riot police.

The voice of witness also narrates "The Dread Gentleman", telling us of transport woes and other hardships the people are experiencing in the country. Commuters wait for hours at the bus terminus: "Fuel was in short supply and government was contiually 'in the process' [sic] of sourcing foreign currency to buy the precious liquid." Although the voice is still communal, talking about the experiences of the "we", the story introdocues a specific individual, an object of everyone's curiosity. He too has been affected by the tsunami, which the narrator explains as "the wanton destruction of buidings by the government, named after the tsunami that devastated East Asia and Africa." The narrator, ever generous with detail, adds, " Most emergent business people had their place of work destroyed in the wave of politically motivated destruction carried out by the government to weed out dissent among the urban populace."

This reads like the prose straight out of the independent press' critique of government actitivies. Perhaps in a place where the press cannot report freely, literature begins to play the role of the independent press, and as readers, we are likely to accept the journalistic details that temporarily delay the story, or we accept that the reporting is the story. This is a common thread throughout this book and other works coming out of this period of Zimbabwean life; the voice of witness, the voice seeking what seems like a distant audience, the voice that's a cry for some intervention, the see-what-they-are-doing to us voice. It is hard to ignore; you connect with at an emotional level, and what you may suspend isn't disbelief but art.

The stories in the anthologies published in the first decade of this century carry this voice; voices reporting Zimbabwe, voices, in the words of NoViolet Bulawayo, "penning Zimbabwe". Perhaps the uniformity of reportage in most stories is a function of the limited publication opportunities in the country; the stories become an identity not so much of the writers but of the one or two publishers selecting the stories that tell the story of Zimbabwe's lost decade. As I have devoured these stories, I have also always felt that the full story, in its complexity, has not yet been told, and I don't want our publishing industry to make the mistakes made in the eighties, of pushing a uniform literature of liberation, laudatory poetry and blame-casting fiction chosen by just a few editors; some of the works then were driven by the euphoria of independence, and this guaranteed them a spot on the national curriculum. Those works that didn't fit in these modes were not promoted, were rejected, or banned.

"The Dread Gentleman" is also about survival. Chingono gives us a snapshot of how people are making ends meet through the parallel market. One example is the suddent emergence, an eruption really, of projects like Sams Electrical Investment, where "we buy and sell all electrical goods. we repair stoves, ions, hitters and all domestic and industry requirements. And all kinds of risk watches."
During the decade of Zimbabwe's hardship, many outsiders wondered how people survived, their source of resilience. In this story, Chingono attempts to answer that question. Talking about the crowds who have gathered to support dread gentleman's new enterprise, the narrator says, "They were a peace-loving people who did not retaliate with violence. They did not believe in the old law--an eye for an eye. They did not believe in destructive engagement." Assuming a voice of the voiceless stance, Chingono writes: "They knew that the authorities destroyed their homes, factories, offices, stores, butcheries...They destroyed their small vending markets, their livelihood, without compensation." The critique gets even more stinging: " They knew the government was a soulless machine that did not have blood flowing through its veins. That had not eyes. No ears. That had no heart."

Chingono's poems reveal their truths through humor and conciseness. His short stories, most of them short, are conveyed through the expository voice whose urgent need is to chronicle the experiences of their characters. These are stories whose strength is in content, not so much in form. Collectively, they are a memoir of the Norton community, yet the experiences of these people resonated throughout the country, and they grip the attention of readers anywhere. The collective voice is like a call awaiting our response, a voice seeking to awaken our humanitarian impulses. For other writers, the stories are a storehouse, a documentations of experiences that could trigger other stories, filtered through diverse artistic voices.

John Eppel, on the other hand, experiments with different writing techniques, especially in his poetry, whether he is writing a satire or a sestina, a haiku or quartrain. In fiction, his prose is highly readable, and the narrative is suspenseful, but the content often is presented in a rawness that begs for more filtering or execution. I haven't read his novels yet, and when I do, I will start with the one about the English teacher.

In the poem "Afrika" Eppel features a debate on naming, identity, and progress. One voice questions the use of the letter 'k' to replace the 'c': "Do you think, by spelling out it with a 'k' / that you will make it...well..more Afrikan?" This is a serious question in a world where names are used to show many interpretations of identity and belonging; and the naming system as it relates to Africa and its Diaspora has been used to establish ideas of authenticity, or in some cases, to establish a sense of sovereignty and independence, or just in negate past systems and administrations. Street names have been changed from those of former foreign settlers to those of the new African leadership. There have been jokes about a four-way intersection where all the streets signs bear the name of the country's president, confusing motorists and pedestrians alike. In the poem, the voice in stanza two tries to address the questions asked in stanza one: "Look, friend, sacrifices have to be made.../..let's make a start...let's spell it with a 'k'.

And what's in a name? A lot, no doubt. Even Livingstone was quick to name the Victoria Falls out of his queen, and to this day, that's the name used. And as names are changed, what harm is in that? Not changing names has been known to benefit tourism in some circles, but in others, name change or not, nothing seems to have benefitted the people. That's perhaps the message at the core of the poem, as is hinted in these lines: "[Do you think] calling it Robert Mugabe Way / instead of Grey Street.../...the vendors squatting underneath the sign / will somehow earn more money down the line?" It leaves one to wonder what question the persona would have asked back when it was still Grey. But as the persona points out, parenthetically, like an aside, "What's in a man?" And the question that's not asked is "What's in a woman?"

The story that follows this poem also centers on a debate. "Debate" ridicules the whole idea of a debate in the context of Zimbabwean politics. It's a caricature of the debaters, whose real life identities the narrator does not work hard to conceal. It's a play (a word that will matter in the next story) on the Mbeki-led Zimbabwe talks, and it is very entertaining. That's what it is, entertainment, presented in inventive prose, but too much of a joke that evaporates soon after you finish reading. The story echoes the familiar sayings in Zimbabwean leadership circles. We can easily tell who Comdrade Nod; he blames the problems of his country on former colonial powers and on America. He says, " The colonial sun set a long time ago; in 1980....and hence I ....we will never be a colony again." Mr Nod does not believe the country deserves sanctions because the country he leads is "very African and sovereign." Then when he ends his speech, he shouts some slogans presented in an ungrammatical medley of Shona and English, which I suspect has nothing to do with the caricature of the speakers: "pamberi the economy, pasi the drought, pasi sanctions, pamberi...er...me". And all the Shona words are italicized, consistent with some ....conventions, but the issue here is, seriously, that's how the character said it? It definitely has to be part of the caricature: not only are these leaders so articulate in English as they dismiss British imperial tendencies; they are also...inarticulate in their use of Shona. The story succeeds, however, in expressing the author's feelings about the political situation in the country.

The poem 'The Coming of the Rain' is clever. The sarcastic element that builds to the satiric tone serves the intention of the poem. Usually, in a place like Zimbabwe, the rains bring hope. In this poem, the coming of the rain is the only thing that endangers this society, not lack of freedom of speech, not the absence of freewill, not bondage and oppression...just the rain. The next poem, "Ghostly Galleon", deals with that familiar image of the Chinese ship bringing weapons to Zimbabwe. The poet praises Durban Dockers' Union for denying the ship entry. The celebratory tone is short-lived because "the ghostly galleon will be back-- / terror is here to stay". This is consistent with John Eppel's view, expressed in the essay I mentioned earlier, that Zimbabwe has not experienced real freedom since the Smith regime, but in reading these poems and stories, you get the impression that the situation has worsened in the Mugabe years; the euphoria of the eighties was shortlived, and for some, indepedence never came.

The fast-paced story "Democracy at Work and at Play" approaches brilliance in the art of pastiche, or more appropriately, in what Henry Louis Gates calls signifying. In short, Epple signifies on Yvonne Vera's work. Signifying includes a level of acknowledgement and appreciation of another author's work with some room to mock it; it's like a game, which might cause wounds, but in the bigger scheme of literary things, it adds to the value of literary engagement amongs authors or their works. Here Eppel critiques the occasionally unusual use of English in Vera's 'The Stone Virgins', questioning the awkward use of prepositions, what the protagonist calls "faulty grammar and mixed metaphors". The POV narrator seems to ridicule Benate's obsessive appreciation of Vera's work. He has an MA in Vera, and now is thinking of pursuing his doctorate with an emphasis on Vera again. The working title for his dessertation is Democracy at Work and at Play: The Subversive Function of Faulty Grammar and Mixed Metaphors in Yvonne Vera. Eppel believes that Vera's treatment of Gukurahundi in 'The Stone Virgins' is cowardly; it does not capture the horror, and you can see the same view expressed in this short story. I liked, however, how the story communicates with Vera's novel, and I feel we need more of such. Works of literature are related in many ways and at many levels; each work contributes to the multiple perspectives that form a literary tradition. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my copy of Vera's novel to compare notes with Eppel.

Eppel enters the non-fictional, reporter mode we saw earlier in Chingono. Once we reach the piece "Discarded", we are no longer pretending to be in the world of fiction. Reality has taken over, we are in the world of ZANU PF and MDC, political campaigns, AK 47s and Bloody Diamonds. I am reminded of that Orhan Pamuk narrator who abandons the story, and asks the author to just finish,to tell the reader details in the raw. Here, it's as if Eppel have contended with the fact that reality is more fictional than fiction in some situations. It's a story-telling mode he has perfected over the years. Perhaps that's the courage he wanted to see in Yvonne Vera? Forget art; tell us what happened. It's a matter of immediacy, the courage to capture the dangerous as it happens.

The editors concluded the book with one of the best Eppel poems, "Waiting". The topic of waiting is one of the thematic similarities between Chingono and Eppel in 'Together'. In Chingono voters are made to wait and wait, until distater strikes before they even cast their votes, that deadly shift from ballot to bullet. In Eppel's "Waiting", we count the frangipani leaves while explosions from the neighbours' burning rubbish trigger memories of the so-called Rhodesia bush war, which led to the independence of a country in which votes don't count anymore. But where there is hope there is waiting, so we wait, until the narrator tells us, ""The falling leaves remind me / that the day has come and gone for ballots / to be counted, results announced, and I'm / afraid that change will never come." And as long as we know we are afraid, we also know that we can learn not to be afraid; some have called it the gift of fear.

Together, John Eppel and Julius Chingono chronicle the lives of Zimbabweans going through a difficult decade. In their unique ways, these authors bring the reader closer to what was happening in the country, and their collaborative voice is a courageous plunge into subjects many artists often dread. In their statements of necessity, literary craft was not always as critical as conveying the content. It is certainly a book to read, if not for the issues and style, then most definitely for the spirit of the project, the need for collaborative work not only among writers from the same country, but writers across color lines. And given where we are in human development, it's a shame that we have just discovered--in the past decade-- the beauty and strength in working together. In the words of Na'ima Robert, author of 'Far From Home', " if we are to survive as a pluralistic, tolerant nation, we must be able to weave a coherent national narrative, a common ground, a shared history, in light of [our] differences." Togetherness is Zimbabwe's literary imperative.

'The Fear' by Peter Godwin: A Review

2012-01-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

Title: The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe
Author: Peter Godwin
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Year: 2010

I first bought a Peter Godwin book, 'Mukiwa', on June 21, 1997, in Sacramento, California. I was an employee at Borders, and I remember bragging to co-workers about how I had just discovered yet another African writer in the store's stock. Those were the days when you had to scour shelves for months, looking for African books that never seemed to show up, so you were then tempted to buy a second copy of 'Things Fall Apart' (we got an employee discount). Long story short, I was happy to discover 'Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa'. From the start, I have read Peter Godwin as a fellow African, for the power of his prose and his panoramic coverage of the Zimbabwean landscape. His narrative persona loves to describe Zimbabwe, the Eastern highlands, particularly Chimanimani. I liked this because the year before, 1996, I had discovered Chimanimani and had thought it paradise. I sipped every detail about the landscape that Godwin rendered. He gets panoramic, he gets epiphanic, recalling Rudolfo Anaya's essay "Landscape and the Writer's Epiphany". So, two traits in Godwin's writing, prose and landscape, but I have never quite broken into his political commentary; I have not been so drawn by his journalistic maneuvers...until now, while reading 'The Fear'.

Before I review 'The Fear', let me repeat that I enjoyed 'Mukiwa'. My 1997 copy is heavily annotated and I even began to write notes of my own Chimanimani memoir. I lived in Chimanimani for four months, four busy months of teaching English to Ndau kids. I was also busy learning to belong because everyone there argued that I should be from there, given my last name. Even the Mutare education officer who had deployed me to Chimanimani told me, "Welcome home". And my protests regarding how I was actually from Zvishavane were all in vein. He couldn't even listen to my request to teach in the city, perhaps Mutare Girls High, or even somewhere in Dangamvura. Finally, I ended up in Chimanimani, and fell in love with it, but my attachment to that landscape was not as deep as that Peter Godwin shows in his books. It is the kind of love that rubs off on you, because now you want to write about your own homeland too. Homeland and boyhood. By the end of 'Mukiwa', Peter Godwin had already attained his signature fearless critique of black leadership in Zimbabwe. It is this critical voice that has sustained his journalism, and earned him the label of courageous journalist, one who goes where no other journalist can. Certainly, 'The Fear' takes the reader to the inside machinations of a failing Zimbabwe.

Just as I was preparing to get a copy of 'The Fear', a colleague bought me 'When the Crocodile Eats the Sun' for my birthday; I could have read it first, but a journal peer review request compelled me to read 'The Fear' first. Now, we can get into my thoughts about it.

As I write this, 'The Fear' sits on at least one American Best 100 Books of 2011 list. I can see why. Characteristic of Godwin's works, this one is highly readable. And disturbing. Unbelievable. Some things I don't want to believe, like how I don't feel willing to believe all that CNN, or BBC has to say. The atrocities covered, the torture, the deaths...these are dizzying accounts of human suffering. We get a close-up of what was happening in Zimbabwe, especially during and after the last elections that led to the unity government with the MDC. The book is very informative to the point of failing as a book. Let's put this another way: The memoir element suffers, but the human catalogue element succeeds, making this a deeply felt, a heart-rending mix of observed, heard, and rumoured suffering. The book works effectively at an emotional level; the book fights through its words, it takes sides (which is what it intends to do) and becomes unashamedly subjective and biased, which again is one of the author's goals. I am one of the readers who, without first hand information about much of the experiences the author depicts, have to decide to believe it all; and being aware that the author wants it all believed, I suspend disbelief, so I believe.

This kind of writing reminds me of the days I worked as a temporary teacher in Glen View, teaching English and Science. Once in a while an essay would come which would start with a first sentence you had to connect to emotionally: "When I was in Grade 3, my mother died." It's the kind of emotional hook that you would find unreasonable to fend off; it's what they experienced, and there is nothing you can do about it; in short, you are bound to read the whole story with a certain emotional guarantee: empathy. 'The Fear' has that quality of hitting at the core: it pulls your heartstrings; but this is not a cheap emotional gimmick; you trek with the author as he witnesses endless acts of brutality, and he puts a face to many of the accounts; you were not there, but he was; and he heard it, and you didn't, and he is the reporter and you are not. You read on; you don't want to believe but you do. You notice what seem like unfair emotional maneuvers but you don't have the time to make a fuss; you are the reader and you are reading, you want to finish the book, you want to hope that there is actually hope at the end of the book. And there is; the book ends with victims of torture planting trees to forget and, perhaps, forgive. Planting trees, that's good; Wangari Maathai did it in Kenya; my Rwanda commemorative poem, which I read every April, is about a tree growing in Rwanda, one tree, then many trees. That's hope; and in 'The Fear', that's a good place to end a book.

It's hard to call this a memoir, especially of Zimbabwe. I might have to revisit the definition of the genre. But it is many other things, definitely. For one, the book is an attack on Mugabe and ZANU PF; the kind of attack a writer can make from a distance (in the sense that the book was written from a distance and published in America, to be read first from a distance, but not immediately reaching the people whose lives it chronicles; that's the nature of African publishing, of course, that the audience is not primarily African although the lives, or lack thereof, are African). The book is also a chronicle of the suffering of the victims the author came in contact with as he was traveling across Zimbabwe interviewing people and observing acts of atrocity. The very act of getting into places he was forbidden shows the author as heroic; perhaps that's the true memoir aspect of the book. Again, given its extreme subjectivity, you don't know what to believe, and it almost seems unreasonable to think about deciding what to believe; the author observed it, he talked to people, he witnessed suffering, he took notes, he catalogued the information, he wrote about the experiences; so you leave it at that: the writing is representational, utilizing the voice of witness, and reaching deep into our emotions, showing the injustice of it all.

The memoir genre in Zimbabwe could easily flourish. The people have experienced the kinds of hardships that would be of great interest to readers everywhere. The country has gone through rapid changes. But the true therapy of writing is in the victim being able to write his or her own memoir. We can't all be writers, but we can tell our stories in one form or another. Books like 'The Fear', though mouthpieces of their authors, and not necessarily of the victims, point to a need for real memoirs by the people who experienced the hardships. Subjectivity rings true and engaging if it's the subjectivity of the victim, not when it's streamed through the subjectivity of another being. Look at the disasterous third-party memoirs written in America on behalf of Sudanese child soldiers, or Rwandese genocide victims. The stories lose something in the filtering. Fiction is another matter; any writer with a shred of empathy and the impulse to engage injustice can learn and write about anyone's experience; but to write someone's memoir creates challenges and dangers of distortion. Yet in the absence of opportunities for victims to tell their stories, a third party account is better than nothing.

When the Zimbabwe memoir phase flourishes, we would be interested in reading both victim memoirs and confessional ones. We see them everyday in America, Europe and so on, those inside stories that always come at the end of a regime. In Zimbabwe, such accounts should have started in 1980, at the end of the Smith regime. I remember there was a flowering of one-sided Chimurenga stories published in Zimbabwe, the ones we had to read in school, and there was a total absence of stories from the white side; then when the white stories started pouring in, they had skipped, or ignored, whole generations of stories, or when some came out they were family accounts published as memoirs, marketed to an outside audience. The rich literary landscape of Zimbabwe needs a balance of stories coming from all sides, showing the complexity of life, getting to the core of what it means to be Zimbabwean. That story is certainly not just a ZANU-PF story proclaiming the victimshood of Zimbabwe in the face of European imperial interests, nor is it only of suffering opposition members; neither only that of landless black Zimbabweans tilling the dry soil of Mazvihwa and Chivi, nor only that of white farmers victimized on their farms; this story seeks a balance; this story seeks to plant a new tree that bursts with life.

As usual, I enjoyed the landscape descriptions in 'The Fear'. The Eastern highlands feature prominently. Look at this: "Once we gain height the view opens out into a primordial topography of jagged mountains, furrowed with ridges like mastiff brows, thickly vegetated with gurugushi bird bush and mupangara thorn trees, and, in the Nyadokwe Rivere valley, wide-girthed baobabs silvered in the sky. From across the coulee, baboons barked" (263). Here Godwin was in the Bvumba mountain area near Zimunya, a place I know. Elsewhere in the book, he takes us back to Chimanimani and describes the rivers, the valleys and the mountains ranges that undulate into Mozambique. But he does not stop here; he will also take you from Mutare to Bulawayo, then to Kezi. While chronicling the terror, he will still manage to throw in a few epiphanies about the landscape, shocking us even with one of female friends confessing that she had sex on Rhodes's grave in the Matopos. But when he gets to Bhalagwe, the prose has slowed down to an elegy, as he connects current experiences to Gukurahundi. The book covers all the provinces of Zimbabwe, following all the journeys Godwin made as he researched and witnessed the troubles in the country, often endangering his life, but also finding time to reminisce about the old good days. He has connections in Harare and is invited to tea and braai a lot.

I enjoyed the prose too. Godwin manages to make his sentences sing even as they portray horror. It is this craft element that enables readers to keep reading long after they can't stand the emotional weight. The book is repetitive, but you keep reading for that next sentence. However, Godwin has no excuse to continue misusing the few Shona phrases he includes in his writings. He repeatedly mispells words, offers unreliable translations, and has the foreigner's understanding of the language he grew up hearing or speaking.

A few other Zimbabwean writers have this problem too when writing in English; one, they italicize the Shona or Ndebele (that is, they apologize for using it) in the name of...communication; two, they mispell the words or phrases they co-opt; then, three, they offend with their use of parenthetical translations. This was the main off-putting element of 'The Fear', but again, the book is a work of journalism, reporting to an outside audience, so it may be excused, but the Shona words could have been double-checked for correctness.

For instance, I would just remind Godwin that they are called n'angas, not ngangas; and italicizing the word is not linquistically appealing. There is this one too: "Manjeni, kuona ingwe ichitamba nembudzi", which Godwin aptly translates as: "It's astonshing to see a leopard playing with a goat." My two concerns are: he italicized the Shona proverb, and wrote manjeni instead of manenji. Again, an occasional error here and there would not be a cause for concern, but turning such infelicities into fashions of error from memoir to memoir is inexcusable.

Sacramento Season of Writing: New Fiction workshops

2012-01-08T20:56:00.000-08:00

This information has been compiled by Sacramento writer and instructor, Kate Asche. So many writing opportunities in the Sacramento Area. Enjoy:

Learn to write at I Street Press, at Sacramento Public Library!

Sacramento Library is pleased to be taking registrations for all winter 2012 writing classes! At I Street Press, you can write at many different Library locations in classes with the Sacramento area’s best writers and teachers. Teaching artists include Elaine Corn, David Watts Barton, Valerie Fioravanti, Jennifer Basye Sander, Jane Gassner, and many others. Topics include self-publishing, blogging, journalism, creative writing, editing, publishing contract law and more!

And—did you know free scholarships are available?

For full details, visit www.saclibrary.org/istreet and click on “Write.” Register and pay for classes online. Classes start this Tuesday, January 10, 2012!

For more info, check out these media appearances:

Library Director Rivkah Sass and I Street classes coordinator Kate Asche appear on Insight on Capital Public Radio: http://www.capradio.org/168192

Elaine Corn talks about her cookbook writing class: http://blogs.sacbee.com/ticket/archives/2012/01/learn-how-to-wr.html

Here, the Library talks to the Bee about the Espresso Book Machine:http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/21/3992292/sacramento-library-will-unveil.html

Write with Master Teachers, brought to you by Valerie Fioravanti of Stories on Stage!

Below is information about future workshops, and for full details and information about Valerie’s private workshops and the Stories on Stage fiction series (final Friday of each month at Sacramento Poetry Center), go to http://storiesonstagesacramento.wordpress.com/.

March 10&11, 2012: Peter Orner, author of the story collection Esther Stories and the novels Love and Shame and Love & The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo. Peter taught at the Iowa Writers Workshop last year and teaches in San Francisco State's MFA program. The NY Times compared him to James Salter in their review of his latest work, and said of his first, "Orner doesn't simply bring his characters to life, he gives them souls." The workshop will be capped at 12 students. The cost is $400. To apply for the workshop, use the contact form and include a brief writing sample.

Follow this link for an audio interview with Peter, available as a podcast.

May 12&13, 2012: Peter Ho Davies, author of the story collections Equal Love & The Ugliest House in the World and the historical novel The Welsh Girl. His work has appeared in Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. Granta named him a “Best Young British Novelist” in 1993. Peter teaches in the University of Michigan MFA program and has taught at the Bread Loaf and Napa Writers Conferences. The workshop will be capped at 12 students. The cost is $400. There are currently three spaces available in this workshop. To apply for the workshop, use the contact form and include a brief writing sample.

Looking for a writing group to get you writing more, or writing again? Or writing for the first time? AWA Sacramento has a group for you!

If you haven’t yet had a chance to check out Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) Sacramento, now’s the time! AWA Sacramento is a network of AWA-trained facilitators and others running generative writing workshops that create supportive, authentic and positive environments for writing new work and receiving positive feedback about what is strong, memorable and beautiful in your first-draft writing.

For current and upcoming groups, workshops and programs, visit http://awasacramento.com for complete info—explore “Write with Us” and “Coming Events” tabs, especially.

Kate Asche offers private writing workshops, winter 2012

How Do I Register? Email me at asche (dot) kate (at) gmail (dot) com. I will send you a brief registration form. To complete registration (and reserve your place), please return your completed registration form to me along with payment. Registrations are accepted in the order received.

The Craft of Shapely Writing (All Genres), Winter 2012

This year, do you want to expand your craft toolbox while generating new work, and also maybe get some gentle critique on pieces you’ve already drafted? Would you like to have time to casually talk with other writers as you become more deeply connected in our local writing community?

Join Kate Asche this winter in an Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) generative writing workshop, with a couple of twists: First, Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern and The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms will be our "textbooks" for this 10-week workshop. Second: You’ll have the option to receive gentle workshop-style critique of a selection of your writing one time throughout this session.

We’ll begin each meeting with time to snack and socialize about what’s going on in our writing and our lives. Then, we’ll enjoy a brief discussion of that week’s reading selection, which we will have read in advance. Next, we'll spend two hours writing and sharing our writing (if we wish), as we respond to a prompt related to that week's discussion topic. Each meeting will close with time spent in supportive critique of a single workshop member’s manuscript (up to 6 pages of prose/3 pages of poetry) or—depending on how many participants choose to submit for critiques—another quick writing prompt. This workshop will be facilitated in the AWA method, in which all shared writing is treated with respect and honor. The focus is on the writing itself, and the writer will learn what is strong, what is memorable, and what people admire in his/her first-draft work.

Class Size is Limited: This private workshop is limited to 15 participants, plus the facilitator.

Time and Location: We will write together at the ThinkHouse Collective (1726 11th Street, Sacramento) on Tuesday evenings, 6:00-8:45 p.m. (We may go till 9:00 p.m. if the class fills completely.) If you wish to participate but cannot arrive promptly at 6:00, please let me know. Permission for late arrival may be granted at Instructor’s discretion, but no discount or make-up instruction will be given for time missed.

Dates: Tuesdays, 6:00-8:45 p.m. ~ January 17 - March 27, 2012 (10 meetings / no class February 28)

Workshop Cost and Payment Due Date: Workshop cost: $325 (if postmarked by 1/12/12) or $350 if postmarked 1/13/12 or later. Payment is due at the time of registration.

The Art of Writing: Description and Recklessness (Critique Workshop), Winter 2012

Join Kate Asche this winter in a very intimate Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) writing and critique workshop. Class size is strictly limited to seven writers plus facilitator. Participants may submit up to 15 pages of prose and up to 8 pages of poetry (or some combo of the two, not to exceed 12 pages) per session. Two sessions will be offered, each exploring a different aspect of craft. Sign up for both sessions and receive a discount!

Every class meeting will begin with time to snack and socialize about what’s going on in our writing and our lives. At our first class meeting for each session, we will do some writing, as well as establish a manuscript workshop schedule and exchange manuscripts (in keeping with AWA philosophy, the facilitator will also participate). In each subsequent meeting, we’ll enjoy a brief discussion of that week’s craft book reading selection, to be read in advance. Next, we’ll write and then respond to each other’s just-written work. We'll then workshop two manuscripts, spending at least 30 minutes on each. This workshop will be facilitated in the AWA method, in which all shared writing is treated with respect and honor. The focus is on the writing itself, and the writer will learn what is strong, what is memorable, and what people admire in his/her first-draft work and manuscript submission, as well as receive supportive feedback and strategies for continued work on the submitted manuscript.

Session I (Text: The Art of Description by Mark Doty)

Fridays, 4:00-6:30 p.m. ~ January 20 – February 17 (5 meetings)

Session II (Text: The Art of Recklessness by Dean Young)

Fridays, 4:00-6:30 p.m. ~ February 24 – March 30 (5 meetings / no class March 2)

Class Size is Limited: Both session of this private workshop are strictly limited to 7 participants, plus the facilitator.

Time and Location: We will write together at the ThinkHouse Collective (1726 11th Street, Sacramento) on Friday afternoons, 4:00-6:30 p.m. If you want to participate but cannot arrive promptly at 4:00, please let me know. Permission for late arrival may be granted at Instructor’s discretion, but no discount or make-up instruction will be given for time missed.

Dates: See above.

Workshop Cost and Payment Due Date: The cost of a single workshop session is $195; sign up for both sessions for a discounted total of $350. Payment is due at the time of registration.

Tell More about this Place: A Review of Binyavanga Wainaina's "One Day I Will Write about this Place"

2012-01-02T20:52:00.000-08:00

I was drawn to Binyavanga Wainaina's "One Day I Will Write about this Place" by the title. There was a familiar note in it, about a thought I have also had throughout my life, from when I started to write at thirteen and my friends began to expect me to always give the writer's perspective one events happening around us. Sometimes being a writer gets in the way of just enjoying what others are enjoying, in the moment it's happening. There is a certain temporality in nearly everything you do; the deed is not complete until you write about it one day. Anything that you do, all places you visit, all your interactions, and everything in between, carry the potential to be written about--you therefore remind yourself (through some thought or whisper) that one day you will write about the event, about this place. Binyavanga has had moments when he would be participating in an event, or observing it, and thinking how one day such an event would turn into great material to write about. I felt those moments; they made me remember my moments of promise, of goal-making, registered somewhere in the writerly subconscious. The writing thus becomes self-reflective, pulling its weight and worth from those promises made so long ago. This is writing that has performed itself, with a widespread tone of self-fulfilment, yet it also communicates with commitments of the same nature, that readers, who may one day become writers, think about.

Now, Binyavanga is not writing about one place (I remember reading similar assessments in someone's review, perhaps Alexandra Fuller or Helon Habila, something I had observed too; something I agree with, something they expressed slightly differently from how I am going to break it down here). On the surface of the narrative, Wainaina writes about the different places he has lived, starting with Kenya, on to South Africa (a lot of South Africa), then to West African countries like Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast. There is a bit of America and Europe too--these are the places I wanted to hear more about. That train ride in New York, in which Binyavanga observes a sobbing woman, remains vivid. While place means the different places he writes about, the author elevated the meaning of place to an experience in a moment of observation, to be remembered and written about later. Yes, place is an experience, a condition of being in a specific setting at a given time, a place which will contribute in the accumulation of place/s as one grows.

The book has already been termed a bildungsroman--by Fuller and Habila, by far the most important reviewers of the book--and to some extent it is. But the potential problem is that it is not quite a bildungsroman; it is a promise of one; hence my title: "Tell Me More about this Place". Here is a book that anticipates many more like it, some kind of memoir series, still looking for its voice; it has a voice, but this current voice installation promises another, perhaps one fully realized, one that will "one day" write about this place. There are these places--fragmentary experiences--that the writer has written about so far, but there is more the reader can expect, more unified, stand-alone phases of experience. This book is still a promise, if not for Binyavanga himself, for others in his place who have felt that one day they will their place, real or imagined.

Let us then enter the current installment: The book begins with the seven-year-old Binyavanga playing soccer with his siblings, a relatable scene to children growing up anywhere on earth; we all (and I generalize) have played some kind of game, nothing foreign in this. The sister is Ciru, the brother is James; they seem to know what they are doing in this game, they seem purposeful, aiming at goals. Amazingly, that trait will define how well they will do in life, per societal expectations. Watch children play; you could almost tell who is going to lead an organized life sooner, who is going to need more help structuring his or her life, et cetra. Well, teachers tend to be more attuned to the meaning of games than parents (now I am thinking of that stinging slap from my Sub-A teacher, who wanted me to play with others instead of reading; what were more stinging were her words: "Don't read!"). There are things we don't forget, for whatever reason. That's what Binyavanga as narrator succeeds in, bringing the reader's attention to moments that might easily be overlooked, yet such moments are full of significance. Who would have known that a simple soccer game in the dirt would be so revealing about a kid's future?

This afternoon of soccer, which introduces the book also introduces Binyavanga Wainaina as a goalie of words, more than he is one for the soccer ball. When his siblings are exhausted they also realize they are thirsty, so they get a drink of water. Narrator Binyavanga analyzes--and italicizes-- the word thirsty. Then, while Ciru and Jimmy's thirst has already been quenched by rapid gulps of water, our narrator realizes that he too wants to be thirsty, and thirsty he becomes; so he gets a glass of water too, drinks, burps, and rubs his stomach, "which growls". By now the reader should already be enjoying the element of play in the prose, which introduces Binyavanga the reader, anticipates Binyavanga the writer, guarantees Binyavanga the narrator. By the time of italicized thirst, I have already found the narrator interesting, and I have finally decided to focus on just reading this one book for now (I also should be reading "The Fear" by the Zimbabwean-also-in-New-York Peter Godwin, or "Oil on Water" by Helon Habila, or "Small Memories" by Jose Saramago).

We read memoirs to find out how life has been for the writer, or find whatever we can that reminds us how our own lives have been. Sometimes, there are those who claim to read a memoir or any book for that matter, to find out how life is lived in other places. There are many ways in which Binyavanga's experiences don't relate to mine, and I sense this is a good thing in proving that not all African experiences are the same. He grew up in a middle class city family, attending decent schools, watching lots of television, reading children books that children in America were reading, and so on. I grew up in rural Zimbabwe, going kumunda at four, five, six in the morning to do farming things before proceeding to school. I didn't read children's books like the Hardy Boys--one of my early books is "Burr" by Gore Vidal, which I read without comprehension, but I enjoyed the occasional wonderful prosaic expressions, which I imitated later in composition of days we would never forget. I could go on about how my African experiences were very different from those of the Binyavanga narrator, but what's important to note now is how these differences enhanced my enjoyment of the story, and a few pages into the narrative, the differences didn't matter any more. The narrator, in his critique of the very concept of experience itself became interesting, reminding me that holding and directing that plough in the farm, I probably was thinking about how one day I would write about this place.

Your transitory experiences, your meditations, your thoughts, day dreams, and your neglects, allowed to accumulate, can catch up with you, and in totality can be a key element of your identity. When Binyavanga, in South Africa, neglets his studies at the Transkei university, eventually dropping out, that affects his livelihood there. The wish to write about some of his observations and experiences one day does not erase the fact that he has delayed his graduation and sabotaged himself on his plans to acquire a degree in commerce. Yet, for the writer in him, the mess he is in will one day become the material for creative writing. As a person, there are moments he regrets the time he has wasted reading novels, when he appreciates that he has a sister who has got it together. Moments like these, when we are at the height of pessimism or optimism, when we feel terrible about ourselves, and melancholy or false courage seeps in, a voice in us may solace us with the promise that one day we will write about this place. That promise becomes a survival mechanism, that if all else fails, as it already is, there is a chance that we will tell our story, and stories are good, people love to read about our weakest moments, and about how we survived to write about those moments. In other words, if you still can promise --or threaten--to write about your experiences and observations one day, you are still hopeful that you will still be in position to write, to publish, to be read. No wonder you actually get it together, shape up, and work not to disappoint your writerly self.

So then you write--Binyavanga did: then you start publishing, you meet friends in the writing field, you write together, you experience rejection, you continue writing, you publish something, you get paid for it, you write again, and now you are serious about writing, you win a Caine Award for African Writing for your short story "Discovering Home", you are really happy beccause not every African writer wins this, you are distinguished, now you have agents waiting for you to finish the damn book--the promise you made to write about this place, and you do. But the book is still a promise--to really write about this place.

Some reviewers will waste our time talking about how this book is so revealing about a culture that's different from ours. Such reviewerss have their place in the publishing world; they give readers a reseason to go buy this book by an African writer. And while you are at it, buy a ticket for the Broadway production of Fela. But it's importat to tead Binyavanga's book like you would read any book you didn't write. Read it as a memoir, and if we seek different cultures in books, any memoir ever written is a unique island of the cultural. In a memoir we often go me-me, just as our readers expect to see a you-you. Even where, like in Peter Godwin's' "The Fear", we write about other people, dictactors, whole countries, victims of torture, somehow, we are writing about ourselves, much less about a culture. So read us as such, as individuals individuating. But, of course, we are not here to debate.

The language in "One Day I Will Write about this Place" brings attention to itself. If you want, you can just read the book to enjoy how the sentences unfurl or coil themselves. If you are looking for culture, look elsewhere, because you will be confused, and may embarrass yourself by proclaiming how well you know Kenyan culture based on this book by Binya-something. When writers play with language and we get confused, some of us begin to really appreciate them; because that's art. Let me tell you a secret. Sometimes writers can hide in the veil of language, when what they are saying cannot be said in a more straightforward, often-revealing way. So then linguistic gymastics set in, or sometimes, as in the case of some Marechera moments, linguistic crisis. Language is really a veil, often a thin one; it often fails us, cannot capture exactly what we feel, pretends to capture the lived experience, or sometimes hums beautifully without serving us well. Okay, suppose we say: " It's only language, a tool we use to express ourselves, a tool we twist and control," we still fail ourselves and miss the point of writing. Language use sometimes reflects how dismally the medium fails us, so we resort to crafting it to approximate our experiences, our places. In short, surface prose acrobatics are a reflection of how much we can't capture; it's another transitory moment, a promise of a time when we will write about this place.

Let's quote some interesting moments in the book. That afternoon of the soccer game, the narrator says: "My laugh is far away inside, like the morning car not starting when the key turns." The prose grabs you and twists your insides like the laughter he is talking about. Laughter is very important throughout the book, consistent with Binyavanga's well-known assertion, "we laugh, we fuck." Laughter is good-- "I laugh when Ciru laughs and I find myself inside her laugh...I can feel her laughter swelling, even before it comes out, and it swells in me too" --especially when you are laughing with your sister. With these first few moments of laughter, and then the narrator's goalie disaster--laughter and disaster--the mood of the memoir is set, so is the level of the emotional temperature; there is to be a certain crude sensitivity [only because it feels closer to insensivity sometimes, some kind of helpless cynism] throughout.

Binyavanga Wainaina rendered the language politics in Kenya very well; all the linguistic hierarchies, the strata of first, second, third languages, the squirming lingua francas, and so on.
He criques language use by the different groups of Kenyans, and the position of Swahili and English. He problematizes the issue of language; it's one of the reasons he will write about this place one day. His memoir remembers in English, of course; it remembers, "I am always standing and watching people acting boldly to the call of words...They don't seem to trip and fall through holes their conviction does not see.So their certainty must be the right world." In short, their word is their world. And based on what we know of language/s, our words alone--as hurtful as they may seem--cannot, alone, ascertain our world. There is always more; there is a lot more, for instance, beneath the crafted words of the memoir we are reading. And it is fair to expect readers, to authorize readers, to also grasp what the words are not saying, but most us readers are impressionable in the face of words (echoing Adichie) that we will end here and declare the certainty of the world based on the word on the page.

I liked how the memoir shows awareness of some of the enduring issues of African literature, the Western-sponsored competitions, donor-funded themes, the audience of African writers. Having been at the center of contemporary African literary and critical debates, issues of representation and authenticity, Binyavanga Wainaina is aware of these issues, and he show it:
"I spent the past few weeks polishing a short story for the Caine Prize for African Writing. It is about a young girl (Girl Child, Gender!) who is questioning the world, and her mother's values (Empowerment). I mine every sexy African theme I can think of. The Caine Prize, based in England, is worth fifteen thousand dollars, and you get an agent and fame and lots of commissioned work."

This was a lovely revelation in the book, for me an inside joke of sorts, because much of a big deal has been made in somewhat small sections of African criticism, about African writers as sell outs who just serve Western readers in order to make money. After reading about Binyavanga's experiences, a reader wouldn't be averse to the idea of the writer finding ways to make some money. And a writer who understands his market is a good writer. But seriously, some of these debates are a waste of time. Let writers just write; they get rejected a lot, so the occasional recognition, by the West, or by the Rest of us hurts neither the writer nor the continent: if in my first installment, a mere short story, I write about malaria in Southern Zimbabwe, who is to say I will not write a novel about rafting down the American River while daydreaming about the Crocodiles of the Limpopo, which I have never seen?

As if the little joke about the Caine Prize was not enough, a couple of pages further down, Binyavanga joked again. After letting down the European Union by not writing what they wanted him to write and rejecting their monetary offer (what an ingrate!), the narrator says: "I start to understand why so little good literature is produced in Kenya. The talent is wasted writing donor-funded edutainment and awareness-raising brochures for seven thousand dollars a job. Do not complicate things, and you will be paid well." Moments like this, for me, makes reading the memoir a real reward; they make those grocery store or DMV lines seems unfairly short; in such moments, the memoir becomes my memoir too. Does this contradict the need for good marketing I mentioned above? Almost, but the ability to refuse some assignments because they make me feel used is always welcome, and rejecting the rejector is always empowering. Most writers, especially in African countries, are likely to take any assignment that offer money, at least initially, but writers, with their threat to write about these things one day, are writers, and what drives your art will win over mere, mindless profit.

"One Day I will write about this Place" has a very good ending. Binyavanga Wainaina was certain to make the beginning and ending very interesting, which is consistent with good organization...craft. I especially love the last sentence, which makes reference to Kenyans, but it could apply to Zimbabweans as well: "We fail to trust that we knew ourselves to be possible from the beginning." In the paragraph, the narrator has just said, "Kenyans had already found a coherent platform to carry our diversity and complexity sound [the guitar sounds of all of Kenya speaking Kenya's languages]." We started with Binyavanga the growing--individuating-- boy and ended with a Kenya full of potential. In "One Day I Will Write about this Place", we moved from person to country, but we arrived there after a fragmentary journey through other places; we collected hints, built an experience, and now, at the end of the book, we realize there is more that still needs to be told, and thanks to nature of this genre, the writer can always make more memoirs.

African Writers: Diaspora Versus Home-based?

2011-12-23T08:46:00.000-08:00

Just some thoughts on a topic that comes up every now and then, regarding who can write better about Africa, the writer on the continent or the one based in the Diaspora. In reading the articles or debates on the topic I often find myself trying to see which category I fit in. Although I am based in the Diaspora, I have noticed that the writer in me hasn't departed Africa, and the default setting of my stories tends to be Zimbabwe. This might be because writing seems to follow the stages of my experience, and right now, the narrators are still in Mazvihwa, that place in Southern Zimbabwe, where I grew up: it's a rich setting, which I believe has much to offer the world. My stories in that place are inexhaustible and they are more interesting to me than those set in Harare (where I did my A-Level, attended university and taught high school). In fact, I have the feeling that before I capture Harare (the setting), I may skip to Chimanimani or Chipinge, then Mutare and work my way back to Harare through Rusape and Marondera. Harare was dramatic, Hararare was interesting in its own ways, but it is not the first place I go to for stories. Well, maybe it is, but the characters tend to come from Mazvihwa, and travel back and forth between the rural setting and the urban setting, and what happens in the city anchors heavily on the village, the very specific setting of Mototi, which is one of the many villages of the vast, artistically unexplored Mazvihwa. Have there been hundreds of stories written about rural Africa? Yes, plenty, but those are not my stories; in fact, no one has written my story yet.

Now, as for the Diaspora. I definitely love it where I am. Plenty of stories here too. In fact, they are being written (I journal a lot), but they are not urgent enough; as long as I am not satisfied with my exploration of Mazvihwa, I wouldn't necessarily enjoy the exploration of Vallejo, or San Francisco, or Lake Tahoe. In fact, the writing self doesn't seem interested yet in pursuing these stories. Some of them are really good story happening in downtown Sacramento, or in South Sacramento, some even on the banks of the American River, but the moment I starting thinking about rivers, it's Runde River, which separates Mazvihwa and Chivi, that calls for urgent attention.

What is the debate again? Writers in the Diaspora choose to writer about Africa because that's what sells, or because it helps them seem...something. Not I: when I write, the sense of urgency (in the process) determines what story comes out, and often, it is a story that connects with me at a deeper level. I am connected to my current environment, but not yet as deeply as I am connected to my section of Africa.

Writing is a complex process, and admittedly one of the most painful, voluntary activities we bring upon ourselves. Often, I look at those who don't write and wonder how they can afford not to be writers, how is that even possible, but then I end up asking myself, why I write. And that's a waste of time; there is no way to answer that excpet by writing. So I find myself writing.

As for benefitting from writing about Africa,[a conditon I am calling Writing While Diasporic or WWD), I can say that of my most rejected works, the ones set in Mazvihwa top the list. I suspect some require too much reader effort in familiarizing with the setting, etc. It's risky to target an American audience and then go ahead and offer a story set in Gudo or Gwen'ombe...say what? I know setting alone does not cause a story to be undesirable, but it takes some reader commitment to get used to all the names, places, cultural concepts, etc. And eventually, by page two, you should get used to them, if the story is crafted well.

In other words, writing about my Mazvihwa for an American audience can be the most challenging activity; it requires much skill and effort to make the story make sense at many levels: and a successful story has to make sense! And my first story to be published by an American journal was set in Mototi, Mazvihwa, in the 1970s, and it was deeply ethnographic, but it worked. That for me set the tone for more stories to come, on my road to thematic and story diversification. I celebrated the fact that I made it work.

I do suspect that most writers who have made it in the Diaspora with their stories set in Africa do not just write for the purpose of making money. Perhaps they did, because knowing what sells is a good skill for a writer. But there is a point in the writing when things become so personal that sales or no sales, that story has to be written. And the African stories that have emerged in the American market, for instance, are just a tip of the iceberg. It's safe to guess that over 90% of what we are writing is still getting rejected, but in a market where potentially 99% can be rejected, 10% is not that bad. Come to think of it, 1% is attractive, because then it makes you feel special for five minutes, before you move on the next urgent story.

Guest Writer: Elaine Hirsch: What is Kente Fabric?

2011-12-22T22:04:00.000-08:00

In this post, Elaine Hirsch comes back with another enriching essay and this time she shares her knowledge of the kente fabric and its significance in Ghana and elsewhere in the [flat] world. Elaine learned about the kente fabric when she travelled to Ghana. The fabric, as Elaine points out, is commonly used in African and African-American themed celebrations in the United States and throughout the rest of the African Diaspora. I know it features prominently in graduation events such as the Los Rios Community College's Celebration of Excellence for students of African Descent, and conferences such as the California's Umoja Community, and other events that celebrate cultural diversity. Here is Elaine's informative essay:

What is Kente Fabric? by Elaine Hirsch

Kente fabric or cloth is a symbolic textile woven by the Ashante and Ewe peopleof Ghana and the Ivory Coast. According to Ashante legend, two warriors saw aspider spinning her web, observed her for days, and returned to their villageto duplicate her intricate patterns. Kente fabric was the result. Once known as“the cloth of kings,” Kente fabric is now worn by many people but only atevents of significance or to make a political statement.

Unlike other more common fabrics, every color used in Kente cloth has meaning,and each of the intricate patterns expresses a sentiment or tells a story. Thepopularity of the fabric is known worldwide, but the history behind thefabric’s development and its nuanced usage is hardly covered in master’sdegree programs in African Studies. This article will take a look at how Kentewas historically used and how the fabric is used today.

Ashanti and Ewe Kente Fabric

Although Ashanti is the best-known and most-recognized form of Kente cloth, itis believed that the weaving of Kente actually beganwith the Ewe people and spread to the Ashanti after the capture of Ewe warriors inthe 17th century. The fabrics of both traditions are similarly woven in longstrips, five to seven feet long, using a simple loom. The strips are then sowntogether to create the finished cloth. While both Ewe and Ashante Kente fabricsdisplay bold, colorful and geometric patterns, the cloths woven by the Eweoften incorporate symbolic pictographic elements including plants, animals andbirds.

Symbolic Dress

Traditionally woven solely by men, Kente is worn by members of both sexes. Mendrape a single piece of cloth over the left shoulder. Women wear Kente in twopieces. Over a simple blouse, a longer piece of fabric is wrapped around thelower body like a skirt and a smaller piece is draped over one arm or wrappedaround both shoulders as a shawl or stole. Kente is worn to the most importantof family and community functions, such as graduations, weddings, funerals, andfestivals. In the United States, Kente is worn for Kwanzaa celebrations, school graduations and othermomentous events.

Colors and Patterns

The complex patterns and bright colors of Kente fabric are filled with symbolicmeaning. Patterns can represent one of the seven families of the Ashante; amoral, such as “Sika fre Mogya – Money Attracts Blood Relations,” meaning thatwith success comes responsibility to one’s family; or a personal quality, as in“Akokobataan – Mother Hen,” which signifies the maternal qualities of devotion,selflessness and love. Individual colors hold significant meaning as well.Yellow represents holiness or preciousness. Green denotes good health andvitality. Red stands for blood and strong feelings. Pink denotes peace andgentleness.

Kente fabric is the most popular art form in West Africa. Once reserved forroyalty, it is now worn worldwide as a colorful symbol of heritage and pride.Each hand-woven Kente cloth is as unique as its wearer.

Elaine Hirsh, who describes herself as "a kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and history to medicine and videogames." She is currently writing about all these things for various education-related websites.

Sacramento Poetry Center to feature Emily Hughes and Lauren Norton

2011-12-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

In my first hosting event of 2012, I will feature Emily Hughes and her friend Lauren Norton, both from Davis, California. I have featured Emily before, and I am glad she is returning to the SPC in January.

The reading is on January 9 at 7:30PM at the Sacramento Poetry Center.

Emily W. Hughes is a poet,educator, and backpacker from Sonoma, California. Recent work has been published in the Sacramento News & Review. She has been featured on “Dr. Andy Jones’Poetry & Technology Hour” on KDVS. Her blog, thealleysoflife.blogspot.com features posts on day trips,hiking, and recipes. Emily received an M.A. in Creative Writing from UC Davis,and teaches English at American River College and Cosumnes River College.

Love Poem.

I loveyou like the moon loves the sun.

Maybethat’s a cliché. I don’t care.

Here, inthe coffee shop, I sit across a couple playing cribbage.

There’sa Bob Dylan song on.

I lookpast them, and see us—hips and hands

nearlytouching.

We arethe sun and the moon.

Our conversationbrings animal and element.

Yours—eaglewings and flame.

Mine—tiledpools and clay.

Bring me an eclipse.

I willopen

a newhome—it will be our
windowedspace.

- EmilyW. Hughes

Lauren Norton is awriter and musician from rural Ireland. In 2011 she was named one of the Overthe Edge New Writers of the Year and wasa recipient of the Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize. Poemsfrom her first collection Wink and Elbow have appeared in The Attic, Ropes, Bray Arts Journal, Poetry BusMagazine and Poetry Ireland Review.

Spherical

Beforemy brother discovered online poker

hewould spend whole days kicking a ball

againstthe side of our house.

Persistent,methodical as a clock -

thegrout-freeing bang of the ball

hittingthe blank face between windowpanes.

Hecould do this for hours, my mother

goingout at intervals to yell at him

whenhe left prints on the windows

inthin hexagonals of mud. Last night

Ibought three cantaloupes, their little round

seemsstarbursting with ripeness.

Ilined them up in the parking lot

ofmy lover’sapartment complex

andlaunched each one at the stucco

witha belt of my right foot.

Themelons exploded in a cruciform

aroundthe door, seeds and gizzards

fusingwith terracotta paint. Swatches

ofskin fell to the ground. They looked

delicious.

‘Light and After’ by Kobus Moolman: A Book Review

2011-12-18T18:04:00.000-08:00

Light and After, by Kobus Moolman
Deep South Publishers (Grahamstown: 2010)
ISBN: 978-0-9584915-7-0

Kobus Moolman’s Light and After is his fifth collection of poetry. Lyrically evocative and engaging, this collection reintroduces readers familiar with Moolman’s poetry to his confident lines, unique images, memorable language, and impressive narrative voice. In this collection Moolman uses a mixture of prose poems and short/lyric poems to explore themes that encompass public and private dimensions.

Divided into four sections, the book opens appropriately with “Moving,” a haunting poem that uses a collage of images and an observant narrative voice to unravel the mystery of what appears to be a dream. In this poem we are introduced to a new homeowner’s obsession with his new home and the promise that comes with owning a new home. This observation becomes clear to us as the speaker declares: “It was their new house/With all the lights on /Their shiny, new, empty house / With large rooms/ And that peculiar, slightly sinister, echo that all empty houses have / Houses that have not been domesticated yet” (10).

Cleary, the majority of the poems in Light and After share Moolman’s penchant for sensory images and colorful language. For example, the poem “Old Town” uses concrete images with strong visual effect to hold the reader’s attention:
Sky closed over
grey slate cold stone
brown hills black tar
rock buried beneath
Thin light cold hands
rusted old steel trees
stiff wind small birds
exploding leaves (22)

Several poems in this collection, including “Umfolozi,” “False Bay,” “Hunger” “Theft,” “Burial,” “Boy,” “That Day” and “Winter Dawn,” reveal the author’s reflections on ecological, social, political, and cultural issues relating to present day South Africa. The third section of the book, which is titled “Anatomy,” presents images that easily remind us of someone with disability. For example, the poem “The Foot (the other one)” reads “The other foot is stupid. / And small. /And not worth talking about”(51). This brief description is insightful and makes a reader think that if the poem directly addresses the condition of a person with disability, then it clearly shares with us the disappointment the person feels about his/her body part.

Overall, Light and After shares with readers the mind of a sensitive poet. Moolman is very meticulous in his choice of words. “Afterwards,” without a doubt my favorite section of the book, sums up my conclusion of this collection of poetry by Kobus Moolman: brilliant!
Reviewer Bio: Dike Okoro is a poet, short story writer, photographer, biographer, essayist and critic. He is the editor of Speaking for the Generations: Contemporary Short Stories from Africa (Trenton: AWP, 2010).

Importance of African Languages in African Literature

2011-12-17T11:13:00.001-08:00

Once in a while, I check the search engines terms that are driving the most traffic to my blog, Wealth of Ideas, and the searches are often revealing of what kinds of information people are looking for at any time. Today, of the several interesting ones, "the importance of African languages in African literature" stood out. It's a topic I too am passionate about. I have written about it before in a post entitled "Language in African Literature", but even this doesn't begin to cover the most important facts about the issue. Perhaps one day I will write treatise on the topic of language in African literature, and mini posts like this are my way of mapping a project description. But now let's go to some serious stuff on African languages in African Literature.

Let me start by saying that I am annoyed by glossaries. Their intent seems to be to appeal to a foreign audience, or, most importantly, to any speakers for whom the glossaried language is foreign. I also hate parenthetical translations of things written in African languages. The in-line translations make for awkward reading and are a waste of ink or bytes. Maybe not exactly in these words, but as you read you get the feeling that the writer is doing too much, or is writing too much, or is making it too obvious, whatever it is.

Here is what I want: If you are writing in French, English, Spanish, or any other language that's "non-African", and you feel the need to sprinkle the prose with African language phrases and words, go ahead and do so, in a way that does not confuse the reader. The story should still make sense despite the use of this drizzle of words. No need to translate, or glossarise. Suppose it's critical that readers know what that Shona word of phrase means, the writer could just creatively contextualize the unstranslatable concept. Write so well that the reader still understands your prose even though it contains unstranslated material.

I am currently reading two books by African writers, 'One Day I will Write about this Place' and 'That which Has Horns'. In the first one, the author, Binyavanga Wainaina, problematizes the whole issue of the co-existence of English and indegeneous languages. You get the sense that English is now an African language, which it is now, but it has a higher status than other African languages, it is the most official and preferred of them all. What Binyavanga does then is to dramatize this linguistic conflict as characters judge each other by how well they can speak English and how their use of the most official language becomes an identitarian index, marking Wambui, for instance, as existing between the axis of several conflicting linguistic positions: her identity is revealed most when the strength of her Gikuyu impinges upon her ability to speak and process English, and she doesn't seem to care that people laugh at her when she inflects English words inappropriatlely. Then there are other uses of English which seem more desirable than others--the Kenyan use, often influenced by languages like Swahili, Gikuyu and others, then the use which imitates the Queen's English (the almost-royal-not-London-cockney use); then most interestingly, the American use, which draws most of the people of the narrator's generation, the use that gives access to Michael Jackson's lyrics, of one that seems to open doors to Hollywood (in terms of comprehending the Hollywood nuances, if that's what we can call them).

Reviewers have praised Binyavanga's language craft, how he makes it musical, sometimes lyrical, but most importantly playful, the deconstructive effect, the deconstructive angel, how structure, in the Derridean sense, becomes play. Binyavanga becomes increasingly playful, as if he has the license to make fun of the medium of expression; and indeed, he has the license, and he uses it in a memoir, uses it well, I think, making up words as he goes. And he italicizes. Binyavanga italicizes the element of play in his writing.

But elsewhere in much of African writing, italics have been used to apologize for including African words, phrases, and sentences in English text. That has been the norm for a long time, the etiquette of showing the untranslatable, or the gratuitous, and the indulgent. Here is what I mean: Translating certain African concepts into English can be daunting, if not outright impossible. So some well-meaning writers will italicize those untranslatable concepts and offer an explanation. Well-known African writers have done this--Achebe, Ngugi, Mungoshi, many others. The native speakers of the untranslatables will not have a problem understanding the concepts; in fact, most would appreciate their use as is, a sign, celebratory almost, that here is a concept English cannot convey. But most of such people, though, have not been a source of bread and butter for the publishers, and for the writers, so we have gone ahead and italicized and explained, giving the writing an expository quality, taking away the creative element, even if for a brief moment. Such maneuvers take us out of the story's dream. Some would argue that the purpose of writing is to communicate; and that's true, especially in non-fiction, or in business writing, where communication alone is the goal. Here we are talking about art, and even where we are talking about memoir, as in the case of 'One Day I Will Write about this Place', the creative element makes the reading trip worth taking.

In 'That which Has Horns', Miriam Shumba gives her "contemporary romance" readers some extra perks in the form of sprinkles of Shona thoughout the book. Each chapter has a bilingual heading, for example, "Rudo-Love". Now, I liked that when I was reading, first because she convinced her publishers to let this happen, in a book published on US soil. This fits in very well with a lot of what should be happening in US publishing, something that should reflect the linguistic diversity of the country. Second, Shumba, who already is a teacher, was giving a language lesson to her readers. And these are just headings, no one is confused, no one is delayed. I know this because, as a reader, I should be able to represent what a lot of readers think, or, at least, to joke about it.

Now as we get into the novel itself, we continue to see more Shona. As a Shona speaker, I am not bothered or distracted by the Shona; I am even already looking for more of it. But I get annoyed when I see italics, followed by translations. Perhaps this is the critic in me. Maybe other readers want these translations. And, if that's what they want, then they should get it. But I suspect, as I always have, that sometimes what we think readers want is based on some practice passed from generation to generation, passed by publishers who are concerned more with the sale than the promotion of the literature. To publishers, this obviously does make sense. If they were not in it for the sales, would we even call them, at least in the American model, publishers?

The pressure then is on the writer. To remember that offering those in-text translations, glossaries, and italics of African languages when writing in English is not always the most effective way to craft our literature. I challenge writers to learn to capture all the untranslatables without attempting a single syllable of apology.

RWoWA Giving away Books for the Holiday

2011-12-14T11:32:00.000-08:00

I like all the things happening in African writing (of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc). There are on-going debates on topics such the definition of an African writer, the subject of African literature, how to write about Africa, and literary awards for African writers. These are healthy developments for the literature of the continent, and in these times of change, we need more debates, discussions, writers' groups, literary anthologies, and so on. And I just discovered two important African writing pages on facebook, the African Science fiction (AfroSf) writers and the Romance Writers of West Africa (RWoWA). I know there are more interesting developments, but this post's focus is RWoWA. This group have monthly book give aways, and currently a contest is underway for the December giveaway.

Below are the contest rules, copied from the group's blog:

Contest Rules:
1. *Subscribe to the RWOWA website by completing the Email Subscription form on the top right-hand bar
AND
2. Follow @RWoWA on Twitter by clicking the twitter button OR click the ‘Like’ button for the RWOWA page on Facebook.
AND
3. Leave a comment indicating your Facebook / Twitter name / email. Also indicate your location so we can pick you for the right book. E.g. US, Nigeria, etc.
The 7 lucky winners will be selected on December 30, 2011. The winners will be announced on December 31, 2011.
Not all the books are available in all locations. See the book list above for details of availability.
Contestants must complete all of the above criteria to be eligible. *Email subscription via this website is mandatory. Contestants can choose between following on Twitter or Facebook or both.

Books I am Reading

2011-12-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

Like a lot of busy people I know, I try to read several books at once. Believe it or not, I am re-reading Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". Marlow keeps transforming each time I read the book, but that's not why I am reading it. I am reading the book with particular attention to craft, and yes, reading this way shows me how Conrad was putting the story together, and the effect he was trying to get from the words he chose, the phrases he crafted. This edition has footnotes that show the tranformation of the text from when it first appeared in a magazine to when it was published in England as a book, to the first authoritative American edition. Certain offensive or insensitive passages were removed, either by Conrad himself or by editors. When describing Kurtz's African girlfriend, Conrad, or is it Marlow, had been indulgent, the ambivalence of the language choice rising rapidly with the accumulation of prose (to praise or not to praise an African beauty, that's the question). Then there was the part he visited the women who encouraged him to follow his dreams (one of them an aunt): the language used to describe these women was insensitive, so the sentences were later struck out by the editors after the American edition. It's interesting to note that Conrad himself used any opportunity to edit and improve his work.
I am also reading Binyavanga Wainaina's memoir, "One Day I Will Write about this Place', but I am being distracted by all the debates about what the writer recently said about British writers being shallow (he didn't say this exactly, but judging by the string of comments following the Guardian article, he ruffled some feathers). Actually, he said something to the effect that they are inaccessible to contemporary Kenyans, but he was understood as saying they are not universal enough. It is the fact that he said what he said without concerning himself with what people would say in return that I find fascinating. Let a writer say what he wants to say and then let others say what they want to say and, if you are so inclined, say what you want to say as well. That's the beauty of debating, nothing personal. These are the things that are taking my attention away from finishing the book; that, and the fact that I am too busy to stay focused on one book... But I like what I have read so far, the snippets of the writer's Kenyan experience as a boy: I was a boy once, so some of the experiences are relatable; some, but not a lot... I grew up under very different circumstances from his. He was a city boy, I was a rural boy; so there are parts in the memoir that I don't quite care about yet, except that I can see why and how they are important to the author. You know, the thing about being in someone's shoes ,et cetra.

I am reading and thoroughly enjoying Miriam Shumba's 'That Which Has Horns". I love that it's set in Harare, practically starts in Glen View. Yes, the Glen View of Glen View 1, Glen View 2, Glen View 3, Glen View 4 (where you could find sugar cane), and Glen View 7 (where some of the houses where like those in Waterfalls). She is writing about my Glen Views! I lived in Glen View from 1987 to 1996 (sometimes on and off, like when I attended Gweru Teacher's College for three months in 1993, that's an off situation, and when I went to the University of Zimbabwe, now coming from Gweru, I was a resident student, like other people--Makoni, Chatora, Mudzingwa and others; then when I lived in Chimanimani in early 1996, before briefly returning to Glen View and eventiually leaving Zimbabwe altogether. Glen View on an off, then way off).

Reading books by African writers builds the expectation for the familiar, or for the relatably unfamiliar, such as, tell me about how they fell in love, how he, Unashe, started by just helping her, Priscilla, with her moving to a new flat (use this word, instead of apartment), then how he kept coming to offer her comfort (because she had just found out that the father she knew was not her real father), and soon Unashe and Priscilla were going to a club in what was once the Sheraton Hotel. Write this, and you bring back memories, because if you mention Sheraton, you remind me of Harare City Library, from whose window I would look at Sheraton and dream... And later, at least once, I would go to Sheraton to cover a Beauty Pageant; yes, I was some kind of journalist, press-card carrying, covering the pageant for a newspaper in Norton. Then one time we went there to do something I can't quite remember, but I was in a group of friends, Memory Chirere, Alson Mfiri...this must have been something to do with writing; it had to. But you make me think about more: there is the kopje, but before that, there is Harare City Library (again), then the museum place, then courthouse somewhere not very far (where a friend went once to fight a traffic ticket), and that building which housed a college of Musicology where at one time I was a guest speaker, et cetra. I get to think about all these things because of how the novel lingers near these places, and I like that; let them fall in love, Priscilla and Unashe, since this novel is labeled a "contemporary romance'.

That label, 'contemporary romance', I can see how it is relevant, it's a love story, but I can't categorize this book as a Mills and Boon, or those romance mass markets you see in US bookstores, those Harlequins et al with horse, and ladies and gentlemen on the covers. There are many aspects of 'That Which Has Horns' which begin to push it toward the literary, starting with the title, the way it taps into the symbolic and figurative zone of Shona proverbs. Those proverbs, despite their brevity are serious literature. I asked an American reader what the title calls to mind and the reader said, " An elephant, that which has horns." Of course, the writer, in Chapter one, gives the Shona version first, then the English translation, followed by an explanation, a serious, literary explanation of the symbolic, highly literary proverb. In the meantime, we are reading a romance. To me, no, so far this is not a romance, but for others it can be. And I think this is a good thing, to write a book that can fit into different genres, a book that can mean many things to different readers.
But I am still reading it, so I can't say more.

I think I am also reading a book about how Google works, and another entitled 'We First', which again is about how social media benefits its inventors and how it can benefits its users. Very practical books, easy, fast reads. I am topping this with Thomas Friedman's 'The World is Flat', which really captures the dynamics of globalization 3.0, this era of what he calls the 'flattening of the earth.' I love reading books like this.

There are other books I am reading too, on and off, such as Raymond Carver's Collected Writings, the little expensive collection of his short stories and essays. Inspiring bits of information and some minimalist stories. Carver has the ability to make your creative faculties go wild.

Tonight, right now, as I blog, I have in front of me Dambudzo Marechera's Cemetery of Mind, which I carried to the Sacramento Poetry Center where I hosted a reading by Brad Henderson and Sharon Campbell, both based in Davis, California. They were great together. They read all kinds of poems, but I enjoyed, especially, their poems about each other, and then Brad's poems about boyhood. I started to reflect back when I was a boy and started dreaming about one day writing about that, and I started trying several titles: 'One Day I will Write....'", "I Have Already Written about this Place...." In a way, these are already taken, so is 'Boyhood' (J.M. Coetzee), but there are other interesting ones, which I can't mention. Forget that I mentioned that I am thinking about writing a memoir about my boyhood. But Brad and Sharon gave a good reading. And about the Marechera book...

I always carry it to poetry reading (lately). Last week I was one of the featured poets at a reading. I was planning to start by reading from Marechera's collection, just one poem, '"Neither Innocence Nor Experience", whose memorable last line is, "There is never enough time to know what is going on". When my turn came though, I got a bit nervous and dropped my book, so I read from the first book I picked up. I read from 'Forever Let Me Go', a poem about an email server outage. It drew much laughter, so I was encouraged to move on to my signature poem, entitled "A House for Mother'. Once I read this one, forget about Marechera...I move deeper into my own work. But I want to go to a reading with the option to start with the works of a writer I respect.

Another book I am reading is..., actually two more, 'On Black Sister Street' (Chika Unigwe) and 'Running the Rift' (Naomi Benaron). I will really get a chance to finish these books after I am done with finals (a lot to grade).

I am always trying to read all kinds of things, and that's good. But now, time to read research papers.

Cosumnes River Journal: Call for Submissions

2011-12-12T11:15:00.000-08:00

Consider contributing your creative work to the sixth annual edition of Cosumnes River College’s literary publication The journal is looking for creative work in the following areas:
• short stories (up to 2,500 words)
• essays (up to 2,500 words), including autobiographical narrative, criticism, interviews, &

mini-essays (250 words)

on the theme: “When I opened my mouth to sing…”

• poems

• art: photos, drawings, etc.

Submissions:

Please forward your contributions to crc-ljsubmit@crc.losrios.edu

Include no more than 5 poems or photos per entry; limit your short stories & essays to 2 contributions per year

Format:

Please send MS Word attachments for writing & jpeg files for the art
For more information contact David Weinshilboum at: weinshd [AT] crc.losrios.edu

Deadline for the Spring 2012 issue is March 15, 2012.

"We are committed to publishing emerging & established writers. We encourage the

Cosumnes River College community to contribute. We are an international publication and accept submissions from around the world!"

The Next SPC Reading Features Brad Henderson and Sharon Campbell

2011-12-08T14:49:00.001-08:00

Brad Henderson and Sharon Campbell

Monday, December 12, 2011 at 7:30 PM
1719 25th Street
Host: Emmanuel Sigauke

Brad Henderson grew up as a city boy who summered on his granddad’s ranch in the Sacramento Valley foothills of California. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from California Polytechnic State College in San Luis Obispo, and his masters in creative writing (MPW) from University of Southern California. His recently completed a poetry book manuscript, The Secret Cowboy: the life & times of the rebel poet Beau Hamel, was named a semi-finalist for University of Arkansas Press’ 2011 Miller Williams Poetry Book Prize. He is also the author of two chapbook–Speed, Horse-sweat, & Unboxed Sky and Split Stock: Selected Poems (with Andy Jones). This coming year, Brad will co-direct the poetry track at the San Francisco Writers’ Conference 2012. His poems have appeared individually (or will appear soon) in The Journal, Asheville Review, Fourteen Hills, Southern California Review, PedestalMagazine.com, and others. As for other artistic endeavors, Henderson started playing drums when he was in the 4th grade, and has played drums ever since. His Phi Kappa Phi award winning Drums: a Novel is based his experiences playing in 1980s nightclub band. Henderson has worked as a cowboy, truck dock laborer, corporate engineer, and currently teaches writing at University of California, Davis. His latest prose project is a darkly humorous memoir about a frustrated writer’s ill-fated quest to “make it big-time” by the time he turns 50.
author website: http://www.bradhenderson.net/

slug forest alternative student housing park UC Santa Cruz

that night i lay in Silas’ trailer
above me, a skylight cut from tin
my son is asleep, a boy again
relaxed into his father’s presence
i, too, feel detached
from worry over his addictions
& academic malcontent
now i am just a dad
i unfocus into darkness—
feel outside air, its chilled
water breath. i could seek meaning
in the ferns & whiskered firs
& the constellations i remember
from summer camp
but i want to keep
this crinkled blackness
as quiet as a mind
on a Braille map
first published in Flatmancrooked’s Slim Volume of Contemporary Poetics I

Sharon Campbell grew up in exotic locales including Malaysia, Kenya, and Bethesda, Maryland. She studied the Great Books at St. John’s College-Santa Fe, and the University of Chicago. Her love of writing was rekindled on meeting her Muse in 2009. Her poem, “Little Boy Blue,” won first prize in the 2010 Jack Kerouac Poetry Contest and was nominated for the Pushcart prize. Recent publications include The Mom Egg and Song of the San Joaquin. The mother of two boys, she writes about motherhood, love, loss, and places far away from Davis, California, where she resides.

Lost Boy
When my son was very small
he wore a costume every day
dressed in character on waking
only answered to his stage name
Sweltered in a forest green
turtleneck one summer day
when ice cream stained his leafy
tunic, stalwart against hues unseen
in the wilds of Never-neverland.

Kindergarten

self-portraits were always drawn
with robes and wands, or somesuch
prop; told to draw himself as self,
he could not and left his face
an eyeless mouthless empty
crayon oval.

Plains of Murowa

2011-12-06T16:18:00.001-08:00

PLAINS OF MUROWA

This is not the truth,
neither is it striving to become.

Shadow of an ancient baobab
that has watched graves
pile into hills.

Wars of nations
strife of tribes [the damn word]:
knife to brother's throat
knobkerrie splitting Reason's skull

as wildcats, makora,
lick to shining bareness
the land upon whose belly
the blood of generations
has drawn the art of death.

This cannot be the truth;
shadows of ancient baobab

peering

at the empty plains of Murowa

begging for more blood—familiar blood

of the village’s children

who roam the earth without parents
little killers left to their plains.

Someone send the burst of life;
command – someone – a season of rain
that will last another thousand years.

Together with some of my colleagues at CRC, I am reading my poetry to the college tomorrow, so here I am, going through old, wierd little pieces produced some time ago. I am enjoying some of them, especially those whose meanings I can't figure out yet.... But in the above piece, "Plains of Murowa", I must have been thinking about the changes happening in Murowa, a village not far from Mototi (where I grew up), where a diamond mine is reported to have caused serious changes to the village of Murowa. Of course, that's potential development, the mine, co-owned by Rio Tinto, has been thriving, but a great chunk of the village, especially the one closest to the wealth, lost its original inhabitants, who were--reportedly--relocated to a farm in the Masvingo area....
Or perhaps the piece is not about Murowa; it is about Zimbabwe in general, at the time I was writing the poem, 2007. Yes, that's what it must be, as the following piece seems to suggest:

HUNGER IN MOTOTI

Empty

fireplaces greet

across the plains
as they hoot like owls,

sordid messages pointless lack
in a world pervaded by excess.

Mainini Grace’s promises:

Drought in the throat.

From the south, the cloud of aridity

Now threatens to rain the Kalahari.

Send money now,
send money fast.

Again, we are back in the villages; now it's Mototi--forget about Murowa. Now we are sending money: first, it was Western, next, Moneygram, and we have never looked back... The Mainini Grace mentioned in the above piece was axtracted from Valerie Tagwira's short story "Mainini Grace's Promise" where the Diaspora person fails to deliver on her promises to help a sister's family; the sister back home is dying and Mainini is supposed to send some medication, or a least wire some money, but she never does so, therefore (cause-effect), the sister dies, and her daughter is enraged, wants to kill Mainini Grace, et cetra.

Perhaps these are the kinds of explanations I have to use to contextualize some of my poems; because often when I read, I just thunder on...

An African Reader's Comment on Binyavanga Wainaina and NoViolet Bulawayo's Guardian Arguments

2011-11-30T06:47:00.001-08:00

Binyavanga Wainaina's interview on the Guardian and NoViolet Bulawayo's counter-argument are important pieces of literature. Such dialogue should be encouraged in all literature, but particularly in the thing we must all call African literature. Writers like Bulawayo and Wainaina, and, of course, Chimamanda, Gappah, including others who prefer to commucate only through their fictional writing, are very important. For one, they are arguing in a context that has awarded their works. The Caine does not mince words; it is designed to recognize the best of African short fiction that's succeeding in doing something for the [African] literary world. If I was a winner of such an award, I wouldn't shy away from representing a large chunk of African literature; doing so is a responsible thing, it's like putting my influence to work: Africa, this ONE place, needs such voices. Good job Binya and NoViolet. Your readers appreciate what you have done for yourselves and for Africa....

Here is a link to a report on Binyavanga Wainaina's argument. Go here to read NoViolet Bulwayo's response. Now there is another response from a Betty Caplan, based Turkey; her essay is entitled "Wainaina Has No Right To Speak For All Africans." Arguments like this are not new. The first generation of African writers always argued, often arguing with the West, arguing from places like the UK, the United States, Norway. There have always been schools of literary thought, the eurocentric and afrocentric approaches. Some, such as Simon Gikandi, argued subtley; others, such as Chinweizu, argued loudly, were ready to fight; they were prescriptive and descriptive, giving the reader their definitions of African literature, African writer, African critic, and so on. Such arguments are necessary; we have whole departments of African Literature or postcolonial studies; those students and scholars needs to know about these views, they need to write their theses and dessertations. So, allow all available views; allow them to represent Africa, to define Africa; allow them to oppose each other, to show the world that they may both (now back Bulawayo and Wainaina), but they don't necessarily view the world the same way. Allow them to canonize (people like J.M. Coetzee, awards like the Caine and Commonwealth) African literature...why not?

At the end of the day, what matters is we are writing well, and that we are reading.

I will make an official response to this debate (after the final exams at my college) in December at Moments in Literature.

From Echoes to Ideas: How to Create and Craft Stories

2011-11-21T11:03:00.001-08:00

There was once a time when I would open a blank page and blog away. Any topic within the broad spectrum of books or ideas. A time when I followed the wealth of ideas concept closely. Such blogging was inspiring, it led to the discovery of new ideas, and as I blogged, I would hear echoes of other writers' sayings, echoes from such disparate names as Flannery O'connor, Charles Mungoshi, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ernest Hemingway, Dambudzo Marechera, Chinua Achebe, Robert Frost, E.M. Forster, James Joyce and others. Echoes such as: Don't write, follow the dream; how do you know what you are thinking unless you start writing; I write because I feel too much, start a story with a specific individual doing something and you will have a story, I write to discover what I am thinking, I write to capture the ideas I don't know I have. Hence, I was thinking of my blog, and the process of blogging, as tapping into a wealth of ideas. Yes, there was once such a time. And now, that time is coming back. Well, maybe not the time, but that which I used to do with time on this blog.

There is the matter of story beginnings. One echo says, ensure there is specificity, conflict, character, and credibility in your story beginning. And I say, that's so true. Before long I am on Julius NyerereWay, Harare. I try to follow it, and can't tell, in my imagining it, if I'm not confusing the road with Samora Machel Avenue, but the pictcure I have is of a long, wide street cutting through the north end of Harare CBD. It's going somewhere (from East to West); soon it will leave the central business district, the downtown, so to speak, and go somewhere. Streets always lead somewhere, even where they will make you bump into a wall, or a tree, as often did some Zvishavane streets. But this is Harare we are talking about. This is Harare of the 90s, not to be confused with the 1890s. Down that avenue, a bookstore here, another there, and I'll see a street that branches off and lead to a library. I used to go to all the libraries I could: Russian Center, Harare City, British Council, USIS (where I watched the first gulf war...Iraq, Kuwait, the first Bush, etc), and the UZ library, with that window which gave a me a stunning view of the Avenues' treetops and of the Harare skyline.

There was a small city council library in Glen View as well, near the Makomva shopping center where there was a doctor's office, next the the post office where often as a temporary teacher I collected my direct-deposited pay: they said it was the people's bank,the post office, hence it was. Had branches in the city, if you crossed Julius Nyerere, or Samora Machel, or Union, but especially Bank street, one way or another (and we walked a lot then), you would end up at the main post office with escalators, or the other branch past Second Avenue, which would be more accessible when later as a University of Zimbabwe student I would collect payouts, with others who banked with the post office, and as we were getting more educated, we laughed at the idea, ended up opening accounts with Barclays or Standard Chartered, but continued to use Post Office Savings Bank because of its people status--receive, then extrat--like a tooth--a big chunk of the amount, implant it in the commercial mouth. Back then you could talk of savings, like I hear you can almost do now in 2011. But what was key: you walked a lot, crossed many streets, and if you were ever lost, there was always Julius Nyerere or Samora Machel to get you back on track.

Okay, perhaps a street is not an individual, but definitely can be a character. Read NoViolet Bulawayo in 'Main'; where the street is the protagonist, and she will tell you about life in the Bulawayo I havent seen in fifteen years, which is no one's fault, really. Main does what she does, not because she's a street, but she's a street with an attitude, a street burdened, but working still, taking breaks whenever she can find them, working to feed her children somewhere; you get the sense that she has a family to feed, and she's exhausted, she feels used, abused, but she doesn't give up. She feels. The pressure of the suffering masses stomping on her; she knows they wouldn't do this if they could choose, and if we insist that they have a choice, it's that they know they can bring themselves to the long queues and wait for something they may not find.

It must be Flannery O'Connor who said to start with a character doing something specific and follow the story as it grows, or put simply: grow the story. Then John Gardner said put your reader to sleep; no, not that, but: make the reader dream, and don't use gimmicks that takes the reader out of the dream. Don't.

The other day I asked about Ximex Mall, and someone said it was a little ghetto now. There we used to go to a little studio and pose. She was always beautiful. And when he said, I went to war, I already paid roora, I said, fine then...

There was a Wimpy's too at Ximex--kinda like McDonald's, I say, but they saved rice and such. French Fries too. French what? Oh, chips. And fish? Tomato sauce...and chicken, if you had the money...and, if you didn't quite know how to order...rice and stew. Chips and chicken AND rice and stew? Seriously? [Silence]. And later, you would go home kurukisheni and eat the sadza that had been set aside for you. You: whether you were Babamunini, uncle, Muzukuru, or the one who did temporary teaching during the day and attended the little business college on Julius Nyerere way, in the city, "not dowtown", at night. If you were a Literature major you didn't know what the future held. The echoes were: Do Public Relations. Do marketing on the side. Play with computers here and there. Do something.

They say you keep going, utilizing the right brain functionality of just creating and not worrying about logic. They say, later you can always come back and trim and trim. You can do more than trim; they say you can come back and create more dialogue, work on voice (and often, they never tell you what voice is, or style, and how it differs from tone, attitude, point of view), character, POV, details, details, details. Gardener and Carver are big on concrete details. It so happens that they knew each other at Chico, California; one was the teacher who transformed; the other, the student who was intrigued by his own transformation; and to this day, as one hopes forever, he ramains one of the most concrete short story writers of America, and is very popular in Italy (as someone pointed out the other day). There are gimmicks, he echoes, but there is revision, there is concrete reality, there's Chekhov.

Reflection: So as you go back to what started as a statement, then became a musing, and soon a metafictional piece that mentions specific individuals or places that can easily become characters, you begin to plant the seed of story. You have something to work on. There is matter here: those Wimpy thoughts will lead to a pattern and a story will develop. Julius Nyerere Way becomes a motif, perhaps the unifying thread in a plotless story. But certainly, there will be other things: character, POV, details, setting, credible prose, voice... In short, great ideas for potential stories.

Potential sounds about right.

New Literary Agency Born in Lagos, Nigeria

2011-11-20T17:56:00.001-08:00

Literary Agents. These are rare creatures in most African countries. But as the continent's writing continues to expand its global reach, it seems inevitable that continent-grown agents emerge to meet the growing need of the writers. The birth of Lumina Literary Agency in Nigeria is one important step in meeting this need. Coordinated by Lumina Foundation founder Ogochukwu Promise and US-based writer Unoma Azuah, this new agency is geared to connect emerging writers in Africa to publishing opportunities. Below are the details about the agency:

The progress of any nation is inter-twined with the quality of the imagination of the people and Lumina Literary Agency has taken up the mandate to contribute to the sustenance of both the quality and quantity of Nigerian writers. It is this self-imposed cultural agenda that necessitated the birth of Lumina Literary Agency (one of the subsidiaries of the Lu...mina Foundation) in Nigeria. The new agency is poised to aggressively scout for new and undiscovered talents, edit manuscripts, and provide publishing opportunities and publicity as a means of promoting these writers.

Due to the dearth of publishing in Nigeria, thousands of gifted Nigerians eager to share their stories have limited or no outlets for their writing. Hence, Lumina Literary Agency has arrived to fill the void.

The relationship between creative enterprises and commercial enterprises may not be very obvious in a society such as ours, and in such interesting times we live and produce. What is visible is the amount of creative resources Nigeria as a country is blessed with. These resources as we can perceive need nurturing and careful mentoring. It is on this premise that Lumina Literary Agency has chosen to search, edit, and publish talents as our entry point into the business of imagination and imageries. The Agency will be working in collaboration with Oracle publishers in Lagos, Nigeria. It is interested in adult fiction, collections of short stories, children’s fiction, and Poetry. At least one of each of these genres will be published every year.

Lumina Literary Agency will also provide editing and proof-reading services at the rate of N300 (naira) per page. However, writers selected for publication will not pay for anything. In due course, more information can be obtained at: www.luminafoundationsoyinkaprize.com

To kick off its activities, Lumina Literary Agency hereby calls for short stories of not more than 2,500 words from Nigerian Writers. Other African writers living anywhere in the world can also submit their stories. Sixty of these short stories will be selected and their authors will be invited for a workshop in Lagos in July 2012. At least one Nobel Laureate will be one of the facilitators of this workshop.

Deadline for submission is January 31, 2012. After the workshop, further selections would be from the work done at the workshop and these will be published in three collections. Royalty will be paid to the authors in the published collections accordingly. Reading sessions and short tours will also be organized to give the authors and their work ample publicity.
For submissions and for further inquiries, contact the coordinators:

ogochukwupromise@yahoo.com and unomaazuah@gmail.com
Ogochukwu Promise and Unoma Azuah
Coordinators.
See More

The Lumina Foundation

www.luminafoundationsoyinkaprize.com

The Lumina Foundation is a non-governmental, non-profit organization, founded in 2000 by Ogochukwu Promise to encourage development through erudition and charity for the edification of man.

SPC Features Mary Mackey and Sharon Coleman

2011-11-18T14:23:00.001-08:00

Presents

Mary Mackey and Sharon Coleman

Mon. Nov. 28 at 7:30 PM

1719 25th Street

Host: Tim Kahl

Mary Mackey was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. After receiving her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan, she moved to California to become Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS). She is married to Angus Wright, CSUS Emeritus Professor of Environmental Studies, with whom she frequently travels to Brazil. Mackey’s published works include six volumes of poetry (Split Ends, One Night Stand, Skin Deep, The Dear Dance of Eros, Breaking the Fever, and Sugar Zone); a short novel (Immersion—the first novel published by a Second Wave feminist press); and twelve other novels (McCarthy's List, Doubleday; The Last Warrior Queen, Putnam; A Grand Passion, Simon & Schuster; Season of Shadows, Bantam; The Kindness of Strangers, Simon & Schuster; The Year The Horses Came, Harper San Francisco; The Horses at the Gate, Harper San Francisco; The Fires of Spring, Penguin, The Stand In, Kensington Books; Sweet Revenge, Kensington Books; The Notorious Mrs. Winston, Berkley Books; and The Widow’s War, Berkley books.) Her two comic novels (The Stand In and Sweet Revenge) were written under the pen name “Kate Clemens.” Mackey, an Emeritus Professor of English, retired from California State University in 2008.

Sugar Zone

Sempre me amedrontou I have always
been afraid tankers strung out along the horizon
like a necklace of black
seeds a idéia de ter um filho of the idea
of having a child let's get drunk
on cachaça forget her outstretched
hands her face the delicate angle of her nose
her children selling candy roses cor de pedras
color of stones amethyst, emerald, diamond
all day the tankers come and go the mill grinds
barefoot men and women cut
and cut

for a whole week I missed Solange
Durante uma semana mes equeci
then clarity for three days
limpeza limpeza
they sleep on the
black and white tiles that wind beneath our feet
steal the food off our plates
We eat behind fences
the ticks drop off the
trees and settle between our cold beer
and cashews plastic straws blow down the beach
like transparent wands a ciudade só voltarava a existir
depois de 20 de janeiro (this city has only existed
since the 20th of January) for twenty minutes we
stood in the deserted street
figuei olhando looking
for something
no longer
there

Sharon Coleman's poetry has appeared in Caesura, Criminal Class Review, SPARKLE BLINK, Try!, The Walrus, Syllogism, Berkeley Poetry Review, Ghost Town/Pacific Review, North Coast Literary Review, Blink Ink, Folio, and online at Full of Crow and Dark Sky Magazine. She's a contributing editor at Poetry Flash. She teaches poetry writing and composition at Berkeley City College. She is also a co-curator with MK Chavez and Tomas Moniz of the reading series Lyrics & Dirges in Berkeley. She has also been a member of the Northern California Book Reviews since 2005.

Year of the Horse

Your hip, a heavy-bodied arch in moonlight,
my arms pass over, press to this bare chest.
I slide over the curve, eyes round, ears alert.

By noon our hands thicken working wild
soil into our dusk of a chosen domesticity—
your hip, a heavy-bodied arch in moonlight,

By dawn our throats thirst for tea steaming
from mint leaves that escape blackberry roots.
I slide from your curve, eyes round, ears alert.

Now far from fields veined in clay and human ash,
we leave a thought in each shoot we plant—
your hip, a heavy-bodied arch in daylight,

An army manual warns that for every ten percent
of a people killed, seventy years of grief. I slide
over our curve of time, eyes round, ears alert.

This year we plant raspberries, and wonder
what it could mean to predate the wheel.
Your hip, an unharnessed arch in moonlight,
I slide over your curve, eyes round, ears alert.

Guest Blogger: Elaine Hirsh-- "Well and Poorly Translated Texts"

2011-11-07T19:49:00.000-08:00

Well and Poorly Translated Texts

One of the most overlooked and unsung heroes of literatureis the translator. While not always authors, reviewers or critics, translators'labor allows millions of readers access to works they may otherwise never beenable to enjoy. A great translation must not only remain true to the content andspirit of the original, but in some cases can even enhance and improve theliterary work itself.

Properly translating any text goes well beyond simply transmuting words fromone language to another. Readers may not think translating requires a master's degree or even higher-leveltraining, but it takes a deep understanding of both tongues, their vernaculars,cultural differences, and a thorough dissection of the original text. This isespecially true of old or complex works such as philosophical texts, or thedetailed worlds of fantasy literature.

For instance, the Wiedźmin literary saga of Polish author AndrzejSapkowski and translated into English as The Witcher owes its widesuccess in great part to the work of translator Danusia Stok. The fact she wasable to bring a Polish work in such a vivid and accurate way to westernaudiences was the catalyst that turned Sapkowski’s imaginative, colorful, andinspired fantasy world into a cult sensation. Today, The Witcher hasspawned comic books, severalvideo games, mobile phone apps, and even a trading card game.

Of course, some of the most diehard purist fans of the series question some ofStok's decisions in translating the books. Fantasy literature is widely knownfor its creative and inventive proper nouns, and these land translators intoseveral pitfalls.

One of the few authors who had the foresight to consider these eventualitiesand conundrums was JRR Tolkien, who left extensive and detailed translationnotes for anyone who wished to interpret the tales of Middle Earth in alanguage other than English. This was in great part due to the fact that as aphilologist he understood better than most authors the challenges translatorsface.

Not all works have the same luck as The Witcher, of course. AnotherPolish author, Stanislaw Lem, published his science fiction masterpiece Solarisin 1961 only to have it poorly translated into English. The reason for thissub-par translation was that Solaris was originally rendered intoEnglish from an already poorly translated French version of the novel. This isthe literary equivalent of playing a game of broken telephone with someone hardof hearing.

When re-translating a work based on an intermediarytranslation, not only subtext and linguistic subtlety can be lost. Entireparagraphs end up being changed, added, or omitted. Surprisingly enough, evenafter a 2002 blockbuster movie starring George Clooney, the book lackeda proper translation until Professor Bill Johnston released one in audiobook form in 2011.

It is perhaps poetic works which present the greatest challenges fortranslators, especially after the author has already passed away and isunderstandably unavailable for questions and clarifications. One of the mostglaring examples of this is the poetic Chinese philosophical classic Daodejing. Certainly the imagery and general understanding of the text comeacross in most translations, but when a literary work is written in poeticprose left intentionally ambiguous, the end result is an eclectic mix oftranslations as varied as the interpretations of the text itself. Of course,it's better to have access to a biased or predigested poetic work than to nothave access to it at all, but these kinds of translated works will rarely beable to do justice to the originals.

Translators have a very difficult profession, and one often thankless andfrequently criticized. While there are undoubtedly better linguisticadaptations than others, much work, study, and preparation go into the majorityof them. Readers may not always believe that, but they often simply don'trecognize the invariable handicap of moving a work from one language intoanother. As the old adage goes, “something always gets lost in translation.”

Elaine Hirsh, who describes herself as "a kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and history to medicine and videogames." She is currently writing about all these things for various education-related websites.

November Fiction Contest Information: Partial List

2011-11-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

Here is some information on Contest deadlines harvested in cyberspace. I want to commit one day a week to posting contest information. Maybe Wednesdays? We shall see. There is already a very good resource that gives monthly deadlines at About.com. There is a wealth of other resources as well, but I am thinking that since we are already here at Wealth of Ideas, why not publish such information as well? So if you know of contests and deadlines out there, tell me and I will create an update. We will be doing something similar to what I show below, a November calendar I lifted from this rich place. , the fiction writing section of About.com. I don't know if I will follow this format, but I know readers will find the information useful. Most US-based contests require an entry fee. This means that when you decide to enter a contest, make sure you have polished up your story. There are other contests where you don't have to pay, which, as one of my friends once said, will reject you for free. In short, you can pay to be rejected, but you can also be rejected for free. So here we go. Good luck.

Roanoke Review Fiction Contest -- November 8
Prize of $1,000 for the best short story and $500 for second place; prize winner and runners-up will be published in the spring issue. Submit online or mail stories (maximum of 5,000 words) to: Roanoke Review Contest, Roanoke College, Salem, VA 24153. $15.00 entry fee.

Gold Line Press Chapbook Contest -- November 15
Win $500 and publication of a perfect-bound chapbook. The prize alternates yearly between poetry and fiction. The series is run by students and alumni of the University of Southern California’s program in Literature and Creative Writing. For 2010, Gold Line will be publishing a poetry chapbook. Apply online. $15.00 entry fee.

The Story Prize -- November 15
A prize of $20,000 for a collection of short fiction written in English and published in the past year. Publishers, authors, or agents may enter eligible works of short fiction. $75.00 entry fee for each work.

Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Annual Fiction Contest -- November 15
$1,500, an all-access pass + airfare and accommodation to attend the New Orleans Literary Festival (March 23-27), and publication in Bayou, for unpublished short stories up to 7,000 words. $25 entry fee.

Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award -- November 17
Three prizes of $10,000 each are given annually to writers of African descent to honor a book of fiction, a first book of fiction, and a book of creative nonfiction published in the current year. Two finalists in each category will receive $5,000 each. Publishers may submit a novel, novella, short story collection, or memoir. Send an SASE, call, e-mail, or visit the site for application and complete guidelines. The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, 12138 Central Avenue, Suite 209, Bowie, MD 20721. $25 entry fee.

Arrowhead Regional Arts Council McKnight/ACHF/ARAC Career Development Grants -- November 27
Fellowships of up to $3,000 to pursue a specific opportunity. See site for details. No entry fee.

Birmingham-Southern College Hackney Short Story Award -- November 30
A prize of $5,000 for the best short story of 5,000 words or less. Mail entries to: 1305 2nd Avenue North, #103, Birmingham, AL 35203. Entry fee: $20.

Fish International Short Story Prize -- November 30
Prizes awarded by Fish Publishing, an Irish independent press. Winning authors will appear in an anthology; first prize is €3,000, but all winners receive a prize. Online entries only. €20.00 fee.

Paris Writers News Short Story Contest -- November 30
A prize of 200 euros for first prize, plus publication of twelve best stories. Submit stories of 5,000 words maximum with a link to Paris or France via email. See site for full details. Entry fee: €10.00.

Soul-Making Literary Competition -- November 30
The annual Soul-Making Literary Competition is an extended community arts outreach program of the National League of American Pen Women, Nob Hill, San Francisco Bay Area Branch. They seek original, finely crafted works of prose and poetry that embrace all creative interpretations of English poet, John Keats' statement, "Some say the world is a vale of tears, / I say it is a place of soul-making". Prizes of $100, $50, and $25. Send entries to: The Webhallow House, 1544 Sweetwood Dr., Broadmoor Vlg., CA 94015-2029. Entry fee: $5.

WOW! Women On Writing Fall Flash Fiction Contest -- November 30
Submit 250-750 words on any topic. Awards of $100-$250 plus gift certificates and goodie bags. Entry fee: $10, or $20 with critique.

I Used to Understand How Bookstores Worked, Not Anymore

2011-10-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

Even before I approached the help desk, which they call "Customer Service", I was hesitant, feeling that I was going to waste my time asking where I could find a copy of Binyavanga Wainaina's memoir, but before I changed my direction and walk away from customer service, the clerk noticed me and said, "How can I help you?"
"I don't know if you guys have a book entitled 'One Day I Will Write about this Place'. It's brand new, just came out."

She hesitated, which gave me the chance to think that maybe I had got the title wrong, so I was already entering the Africa-is-a-continent debate within myself. '"One Day I will Write about this Continent'", I say, but before she reponds, I correct myself, "'...about this Country.'" I should know the title of this book, of course. But there is a feeling I get when I am in this bookstore, the only big one remaining in my immediate vicinity. It has all these books by the usual names (the famous, bestselling, succesful), but it never seems to stock the books I look for, books by (mostly) African writers, some of which were even published in the United States. It's frustrating.

"Ok, I'm pretty certain it's entitled 'One Day I will Write about this Place'," I say, more confidently. My hand has also already reached for my smartphone, to double check on Google, just in case I got the title wrong, but why even second guess myself? I know this book; I have been following news about it since it came out; I have seen updates on the author's facebook wall; I have read reviews.

The bookseller is now typing things and is looking on the computer screen, concentrating, trying the three possibilities I gave her.."place, country, continent".
    "Who's the author?" she asks.
    "It's a long name," I say. "The last name is Wainaina."
    She looks at me, but she doesn't seem to want me to spell it out, so I don't.
    "Kenyan writer," I add, with a smile.
     The thing is, I have already made up my mind on the fact that I am wasting my time. I know they don't have it in stock. I already looked in the new book section. I have done something like this many times before. I did it with 'On Black Sister Street' by Chika Unigwe, "An Elegy for Easterly' by Petina Gappah' and many others. When an African book has won an award, or if it was being talked about in the media, I have come here to find the it, only to be greeted by the reminder that it's not likely to be in stock. While I care about the writers, and while I know them as good writers, and while some are even my friends, that does not necessarily mean that their books will be easy to find in this place. I know I can order it online and locate it easily, but sometimes I want to walk into the only major bookstore in my area and look for these writers--Petina Gappah, Chika Unigwe, Tricia Adoabi Nwaubani, Brian Chikwava, Paul Williams, Seffi Atta, Ama Ata Aidoo--and be able to find them. Not to be told that they are available for online ordering--that I can do from home.

  "It's 'One Day I will Write about this Place'", says the bookseller, but I can already tell by the look on her face that she will tell me that it's not in stock. "I don't have it in stock," she says. "But I can order it for you. It's a hard cover, usually going for $24.00, but if I order it online and have it shipped to your home, you will only pay $13.99".

My mind is already on why they never seem to stock the books that matter; do they just matter to me? Do they know that they can actually make money on these books, that some of them are the hottest items out there?   I thank the representative for her offer (that's the kind of stuff that earn good customer commendations), but I prefer making my own online orders, etc.

Bookstores never seem to get it right; often I wonder if they are still in the business of selling books. But again, they have plenty on book in their new book sections. There are African writers you are guaranteed to find on the shelves, if they have received some serious publicity, perhaps on CNN, or have appeared in the New York Times, but....the ones I have looked for have been talked about in the New York Times, sometimes have appeared on CNN. So, really, I don't even have the time to figure out how bookstores operate, what makes them carry some books and not others, which are equally popular.

I told the representative that her offer was hard to resist, that I was still browsing, and would think about whether I wanted to have the order processed in the store, or from home.
"If you are a member (which I used to be, for $25.00 per year), we will waive the $3.99 for shipping to your home.

"That's a good deal," I say, getting ready to walk away.

"But even if you are not, you still would pay only $17.99," she says.

"That's a great deal," I say.

"Way better than paying $24.00," she says.

"Definitely," I say. "I'll think about it."

I walk back to the new fiction section and immediately notice '1Q84' by Haruki Mukarami and, further down, 'Last Man in Tower' by Aravind Adiga. On the "Newly Arrived" table I find the book about Steve Jobs, and, on the other side of the book island, Alexandra Fuller's 'Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness'. And as I walked to the cafe with these copies, total four, I couldn't help thinking about the irony that I couldn't even find one of Alexandra Fuller's favorite memoirs of all time, 'One Day I will Write about this Place', on the same table I found hers. I don't understand how bookstores work; I used to, but not anymore.

Author Paul Williams Featured in Mazwi: Zimbabwean Literary Journal

2011-10-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

Good conversation, Tinashe Mushakavanhu and Paul Williams. We need more honest dialogues like this about Zimbabwe, about any country really. Now I want to read everything Paul has written. I want to interview him even!

There is nothing as invaluable as a writer's voice that treats issues as they are (with their complexity), without seeking to impress certain interests or simply following what's in fashon at the time. Examples: everyone is writing a memoir about farm seizures in Zimbabwe, let me write a memoir about farm seizure in Zimbabwe; or everyone is writing a short story about this and that, let me write a short story about this and that too. Of course, this seems to be the case in Zimbabweean writing because of the current rise in themed anthologies; so writers have to satisfy the editor's needs, which is a practical consideration, but eventually, after that one or two short stories, start to treat matters the way you want to, even if it means taking a radically different position on an issue. I sense that Paul Williams is one such writer, at least in his memoir....

Anyway, I thought I should let this out, and then direct you to the real post. First, read this excerpt; then follow the link to the rest of the interview:

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: Would you agree that Zimbabwean literature is a literature of two halves: black and white? I find that there is a serious disconnect. Black writers write about the black experience. White writers write about the white experience. Can it ever be one?

Paul Williams: Unfortunately, it is very divided. Just look at the last two Zimbabwe novels I’ve read this year—I had to keep asking myself—is this the same country these writers are writing about? JM Coetzee once said “Am I white? Am I black? These are the first questions one has to ask in this country.’ He was talking about South Africa, but the same applies to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe inherited two separated cultures and they have not been integrated. But there is also an ideological problem in trying to resolve this literary Apartheid. The South African writer Njabulo Ndebele points out that we tend to write characters as types, caricatures, and unless we share total living conditions, we cannot write accurately about others. I’ve noticed that when white writers write about black characters or vice versa, they tend to portray one dimensional stereotypes. It’s hard to get outside one’s skin and the prejudices imposed on us by history. However, there’s also the danger of appropriation, especially from white writers–speaking on behalf of other races, speaking on top of them, silencing them. I became interested in JM Coetzee because he writes about this very problem–the inability to get outside yourself and understand the other. What is interesting about Coetzee is that he writes without a single direct reference to race. Disgrace for example has no mention of skin colour, and that’s perhaps the way to go, to consciously erase race from our writing…. I also like writing that attempts to cross over this great divide. Tim McCloughlin’s novel Karima (1985) gives voice equally to white and black characters. I’ve tried to do the same in my own writing. Soldier Blue is told from the perspective of a naïve white boy, but I have inserted voices of ancestors, alternative histories and interviews with ZIPRA and ZANLA combatants that intrude upon and disrupt this ‘white’ narrative. And in The Secret of Old Mukiwa, I consciously try to bridge that divide by writing entirely from the point of view of two black teenagers.

There have been a few “white memoirs” coming out of Zimbabwe from writers like Alexandra Fuller, Peter Godwin, Judith Todd, Dan Wylie, and Jennifer Armstrong. Why was it important for you to write a memoir about growing up in Rhodesia [or Zimbabwe]?

Catharsis? Confession? Nostalgia? Actually two books influenced me to write Soldier Blue. The first was Julie Frederikse’s None but Ourselves (an illustrated history of Rhodesian war propaganda). It opened my eyes to re-examine the lies my childhood was founded on. Second, Ngugi’s Decolonising the Mind helped me decolonise my ‘white’ mind. So my memoir was an act of deconstructing my race and gender. I documented how I became a white male, a racist, sexist, a ‘Rhodesian’, and traced my attempts to wriggle out of this ‘white skin’. But the book is also an emotional act. Living away from the country you love, your heart yearns to recapture the smells, tastes, memories, feelings of the land. I felt very alienated living in the USA: I felt the tug of Zimbabwe’s red earth, its past, its energy and this is the nerve point of the memoir.
Read the rest of the interview at Mazwi

Sacramento Stories on Stage: Last Event of 2011

2011-10-26T20:48:00.001-07:00

Presents

Melinda Moustakis and Leah Grieseman
Read by
Gay Cooper and Victoria Goldblatt

Friday, October 28th, 2011, 7:30PM

Sacramento Poetry Center
1719 25th Street (Between Q and R)donation: $5
Doors open 7PM

Melinda Moustakis was born in Fairbanks, Alaska and raised in Bakersfield, California. She received her MA from UC Davis and her PhD in English and Creative Writing from Western Michigan University. Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories, her first book, won the 2010 Flannery O'Connor Award in Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, and elsewhere. She is currently a visiting professor at Pacific Lutheran University.

Gay Cooper is originally from Knoxville, TN, where she performed in community & regional theaters, and was an announcer with the local NPR station. In Sacramento, she has acted with KOLT Run Productions, Resurrection Theater, California Stage & Thistle Dew. Favorite roles include Nurse in “Antigone,” Porter in “Macbeth Resurrected,” Hattie in “Women of Lockerbie,” and Luella in “The Diviners.” Gay will be reading Melinda Moustakis’ “What You Can Endure.”

Leah Griesmann was a Steinbeck Fellow in Fiction at SJSU. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Fourteen Hills, Swink, The Cortland Review, and Litro Magazine's "Ones to Watch" issue. She earned her MA in Creative Writing at Boston University and has taught at Boston University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Hanyang University in Ansan, South Korea. She is currently at work on a novel set in American Samoa and a collection of linked stories set in Las Vegas.

Victoria Goldblatt is the casting director for Stories on Stage. She has been performing for over 25 years, doing films, commercials and voice overs for TV and radio. Victoria has performed for Sacramento's Community Theater and had her own show, Cabernet Night with Victoria and Friends. She has also performed Stand Up Comedy at the Hilton Palm Springs, Clarion and Laughs Unlimited. Victoria will read Leah Griesmann’s “Desert Rats.”

UPCOMING EVENTS
STORIES ON STAGE WILL TAKE A HOLIDAY HIATUS NOVEMBER & DECEMBER, AND RETURN IN JANUARY 2012 TO CELEBRATE THEIR SECOND ANNIVERSARY!

Language in African Literature (Republished)

2011-10-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Update: The following is a post I made in 2009. Since its publication, there have been many changes in the world, but one striking one is the demise of Borders Books. The bookstore at which I was browsing the Paris Review has since been closed. It was my favourite location of the then large chain. This is a topic for another day, so for now, enjoy the (re)-post on language in African Literature.

Yesterday (1 January 2009) I stood in a Borders bookstore for thirty minutes, reading an interview the Paris Review did with Chinua Achebe in 1994. It's a brilliant interview, dealing with the usual arguments we have come to expect from Achebe: what prompted him to write, racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the birth and importance of the Africa Writers' Series, the issues of writers and audience, advice to budding writers, and how creative writing should not be taught, etc. It was a good Achebe refresher, which one needs once in a while, but I realized that Achebe's works had not been translated into his native language. When asked if he would consider doing so, he answered (then) that what was labelled his native language would not be able to carry the experience of his fiction because its standard version was not a representation of the full potential of the language. His argument was that the standardized version of the language was put together for his people by an Anglican missionary, who helped impose one dialect to be the standard of all the others.

This got me thinking again about the state of what we call standard written Shona (or Ndebele for that matter) as inventions done by missionaries who were not native speakers of the language. I studied Shona to the university level, and I was nervous, starting at A - Level, about how we had to use English to analyze Shona literature. Then all the Shona grammar I learned was explained in English. So if you were good in English, learning Shona literature and grammar became easier. I remember one essay I wrote in Form 6 in which I was analyzing a Shona poem. The teacher used it as an model to the whole class, but I remember one student commenting that the analysis wasn't that great but the English analytical terms were "well-executed". I appreciated his critique then, and we had a talk about how I could perhaps try to do the same analysis in Shona (There was an option of using Shona too, but the teacher preferred English), but he said that wasn't necessary.

Then when I went to the University of Zimbabwe I took Shona, together with English and Linguistics. Initially, I had been offered the option to study Romance Languages with Eng/Linguistics/Afrikaans, but I was allowed to substitute the Romance Languages with Shona, which had well-known professors like Solomon Mutswairo, Emmanuel Chiwome and others I wanted to work with. It was easy dumping Afrikaans then. The Shona curriculum was great, but the use of English intensified. One professor, I think it was Mberi, amazed us with his command of Shona as he explained Shona grammar concepts, but most of us appreciated the ability to continue using English. Of course, I decided not to major in Shona and focused on English and Linquistics, but the two years I studied Shona left me with mixed feelings about this approach of using English to do literary and grammatical analyses. I was happier analyzing the language through Linquistics, where we were also looking at phonological, syntactical, lexical, and semantic patterns of different languages, including Esperanto, the made-up language of linguists.

So now, looking back, I often wonder if one day the Shona scholars may come up with a new alphabet for Shona, or if that's too much to ask, at least an approach to the study of the language that utilizes its different dialects, perhaps designing a better standardized version of the language.

As a teacher of English in the United States, I have developed an appreciation of the value of my own language, and I have continued to write poetry and fiction in Shona. I have noticed that my Shona has moved away from the fake standard imposed in secondary school; it is now predominantly Karanga (I grew up in Zvishavane), with traces of Manyika (my brother married a Munyika woman), some words of Ndau (I lived in Chimanimani for four months), sizable phrases of Zezuru (all those years in Harare), and five words of Korekore(three of my friends are from Mount Darwin and I once dated a girl from Madziwa). I don't know how publishers would react to my cocktail of Shona phraseology, but the works make me happy.

On Christmas day, 2008, a Zimbabwean scientist who was visiting in Sacramento pointed out that one reason many African countries have lagged behind in developing scientifically and technologically is that they have not trusted their languages to handle scientific concepts. I enjoyed the discussion and we ended up looking at countries like Japan, China, and most European countries that have trusted their languages to express advances in technological advancement.

I applaud those who have already begun to write their blogs and emails in Shona or other African languages. Now, more needs to be done to make our languages more desirable in Africa and beyond. One day there can be a Things Fall Apart in Shona, and I have a title: Pakakoromoka Zvinhu. Imagine House of Hunger in Shona, or Bones, or An Elegy for Easterly, or Harare North, etc. It's time we think again about what we mean when we say we are arguing about language in African literature.

FRESNO HMONG WRITERS PUBLISH HISTORIC LITERARY ANTHOLOGY

2011-10-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

This event already happened on Friday, October 21, but I feel it is important to mention it here. I have been waiting for this book since poet Burlee Vang mentioned it earlier this year. It's a landmark text in Hmong-American literature. I will be posting updates about how the event went.

FRESNO HMONG WRITERS PUBLISH HISTORIC LITERARY ANTHOLOGY FEATURING POETRY, FICTION AND NON-FICTION

Event to celebrate the official release of How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology

WHAT:

The Hmong American Writers’ Circle (HAWC) will host a free community launch event to celebrate the historic release of How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology published by Heyday. The event will feature opening remarks from local writer and farmer, David Mas Masumoto, along with music and readings from the book.

How Do I Begin? is the struggle to preserve the Hmong American experience and explores issues of cultural identity, war and resettlement, adaptation to a new homeland, among others. The historic book serves as the first-ever anthology to feature the Central Valley and its growing community of Hmong American writers.

WHEN:

Friday, October 21, 2011 from 7-9pm, reception with light refreshments and book signing from 9-10pm

WHERE:

Tower Theatre, 815 E Olive Ave in Fresno (Olive and Wishon in the Tower District)

WHO:

The general community is invited to attend.

INFO CONTACT:

Andre Yang (559) 942-8335
hmongwriters@gmail.com
www.hmongwriters.org

This event is made possible with support from The Fresno Regional Foundation, Educational Employees Credit Union, Pacific Gas & Electric, Ellen Bush in memory of Kathryn, the California Endowment, Cultural Arts Rotary Club of Fresno, Central California Asian Pacific Women, Yang Design, and Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

HAWC was founded in 2004 as a forum to discover and foster creative writing in the Hmong American community. HAWC coordinates monthly writing workshops, and provides creative support to emerging Hmong American writers in the Central Valley.

Bristol Short Story Prize

2011-10-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

Joe Melia reports that the 2012 Bristol Short Story Prize is now open. Melia writes, "Stories can be entered online or by post. The closing date for entries is 31st March 2012. Please read the rules and competition details before entering."

The First prize is £1,000. Twenty stories will be published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 5. The winning story will, also, be published in Bristol Review of Books and Venue magazine. The 2012 Bristol Short Story Prize awards ceremony will be the final event of our 2^nd ShortStoryVille festival which will be held next July.

The 2012 judging panel will be chaired by former Random House editor, Ali Reynolds, who now runs her own Literary Consultancy in Bristol. Ali will be joined on the panel by the writer broadcaster and critic, Bidisha, Anna Britten, writer and contributing editor to Venue magazine, and the celebrated novelist, Chris Wakling, whose latest novel ‘What I Did’ was published by John Murray in September. Ali Reynolds says: “I'm thrilled to be chairing the judging panel for the 2012 Bristol Short Story Prize. Over the last few years the prize has celebrated diverse, heart-wrenching and powerful stories of such high calibre and I'm certain 2012 will build on this success. It will be a joy and a privilege to be involved in a prize with such international scope.”

CHIMURENGA LAUNCHES THE CHIMURENGA CHRONIC ON BLACK WEDNESDAY

2011-10-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

Below is a press release from Chimurenga.

South Africa: Chimurenga’s new publishing project takes the form of a once-off, one-day-onlyedition of a fictional newspaper to be released on “Black Wednesday”, October 19th2011 – a historic day in South Africa that marks the banning of numerous BlackConsciousness organisations and independent newspapers by the apartheid regime.

Titled the Chimurenga Chronic,the project is an intervention into the newspaper as a vehicle of knowledgeproduction and dissemination. Editor Ntone Edjabe explains, “Knowledge producedby Africans is always curtailed towards simplicity because we are trapped inthe logic of emergency. At Chimurengawe’re constantly trying to create beyond this shut hole of relevance. There isindeed famine and war but there is also life. There is also innovation,thinking, dreams – all the things that make life. Our project is to articulatethis complexity.”

In order to do this, the ChimurengaChronic takes a step back. Locating itself directly inside the emergency,the newspaper is backdated to the period of May 2008, a time marked by theoutbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa.

“Our sense of history, of what is relevant, is marked by thenewspaper medium,” notes Edjabe. By embracing this form, the Chimurenga Chronic seeks to provide analternative to mainstream representations of history, on the one hand fillingthe gap in the historical coverage of this event, whilst at the same timereopening it.

“The objective is not to revisit the past to bring about closure,”says Edjabe, “but rather to provoke and challenge our perception, in order toimagine a new foundation from which we can think and act within our currentcontext.”

Thenewspaper

The result is both a bold art project and ahugely ambitious publishing venture that gives voice to all aspects of life onthe continent. The 96-page multi-section broadsheet features news, analysis andlongform journalism by award-winning writers and journalists. Its content rangesfrom in-depth investigations into xenophobia, border politics, the business ofmigration and ethnic economics, to innovative coverage of sports, arts, health,technology and more.

The stand-alone 56 page Chronic LifeMagazine features photography, essays, guides, games, columns and more, and theChronic Book Review Magazine is a self-contained 96 page magazine packed with interviews,analysis and over 92 pages of book reviews, as well as new fiction and poetry.

Of course, as Edjabe notes, “it isn’t a Chimurenga project if there isn’tmusic.” With this in mind the Chronicalso comes packaged with a free audio CD supplement in the form of a “mixtape”composed, arranged and performed by celebrated musician and composer Neo Muyanga.

A Pan African Collaboration

In an effort to shift the perspective awayfrom the confines of nation-states, The ChimurengaChronic is a Pan African production, created in cooperation withindependent publishers Kwani? in Kenya and Nigeria’s Cassava Republic Press.It brings together journalists and editors, writers, theorists, photographers,illustrators and artists from around Africa and the world to create a platformfor imagination and dialogue.

www.chimurenganewsroom.org.za

ZAA Short Story Award Call for Submissions

2011-10-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

ABOUT THE COMPETITION

Zimbabwean literature continues to flourish, despite a contracted publishing scene. The recent announcement of NoViolet Bulawayo as the winner of the 2011 Caine Prize shows the immense literary potential from Zimbabwe. This is a way to promote the growth of quality Zimbabwean literature. The competition seeks to inspire, encourage and support many young Zimbabwean writers. While the competition is aimed at encouraging Zimbabwean writers who write in Zimbabwe under severe conditions and with fewer resources and opportunities, it is also be open to Zimbabweans outside the country. An anthology of new writings selected from the very best submissions that will be received for the competition will be published and launched. The shortlist will be revealed sometime in December and the eventual winner at the 2012 edition of ZAA. It is hoped that this competition will become an annual fixture on the Zimbabwean literary calendar. Apart from the National Merits Awards (NAMA) and Intwasa Awards, there are no other Zimbabwean literary prizes on offer at the moment. We hope this will become another incentive to positively encourage young and emerging Zimbabwean writers.

ELIGIBILITY

The Award is open to all Zimbabwean nationals resident in the country or elsewhere.

The story must not contain more than 5000 words.

No more than one story per author may be submitted.

The story entered must be unpublished.

The story submitted must be original, entirely the author’s own work.

Entries submitted should be in English only.

JUDGING AND SHORTLISTING

The Zimbabwe literature Award judges will select five outstanding short stories which will constitute the shortlist of the ZAA Literary category. Other submitted entries will be considered for selection for an anthology to be published as a result of this competition.

Winners will be contacted personally by email or by telephone.

The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

The judging will be fair and independent. The judging panel will consist of distinguished Zimbabwean literary professionals.

The Award Committee reserves the right to cancel this competition at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, and if circumstances arise outside of its control.

The Award Committee reserves the right to refuse entry to the Award for any reason at its absolute discretion.

DEADLINES

Entries or queries should be submitted to stories@zimachievers.com

Deadline for entries is 20 December 2011.

Upcoming Literary Discussion at Harare's Book Cafe

2011-10-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Pamberi Trust's Book Cafe, which recently won the 2011 Prince Claus Award for its role in “culture and development”, continues to feature a diverse range of literary events: poetry slams, readings, book launches and literary discussions. The Prince Claus award is amongst the most prestigious global awards in culture.
Based in Harare, the Book Cafe has been a literary center for decades. Next week, it will focus on book publishing and marketing in Zimbabwe, a very important topic in these hard times. Click poster for more details.

CRC Literary Series

2011-10-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

Cosumnes River College 2011/12 Literary Series
All readings will be held in the Hawk’s Nest Bookstore, except the final celebration.
Wednesday, October 26, 12-1:20, featuring Sacramento Poetry Center Readers, Trina Drotar and Sandy Thomas

Trina Drotar, a San Francisco native, comes to poetry through prose, art, music, and design. She is the recipient of two Bazzanella literary awards, the Karen Warmdahl Memorial award for creative nonfiction, and several other awards. She has studied poetry, fiction, art, memoir, and screenwriting. She is currently working on a poetry collection entitled In the Night Garden; she recently completed her creative thesis, Missing and Other Stories, a collection of fiction, and Cormorant in the Desert, a collection of poems, was published by Rattlesnake Press in 2011. Her work has appeared on Medusa’s Kitchen,The Ophidian 01, Able Muse, Brevities, Illuminating Echoes, WTF, Primal Urge: A Journal for Diverse Humans, Rattle, and Word Riot.

Sandy Thomas is a third-generation poet and San Francisco native. Her poems have appeared in Poems-For-All, Primal Urge, Rattlesnake Review, and WTF, and online in Medusa’s Kitchen, The Ophidian 01, and Sacramento News and Review. She is the author of two chapbooks, The Matchbook Girl (2011) and These Stones (2009), both published by Two Trees Indie Press. She is currently working on The Mastery of Momentum, a self-defense book, and is the columnist of Poetry Now’s “In-Dialogue” and “Event Mirror.” Her poet portrait photos have appeared on Medusa’s Kitchen, in Poetry Now, and on the web.

Monday, December 5, 12-1:20, featuring Lawrence Dinkins, NSAA

Lawrence Dinkins (NSAA) is a dynamic performance poet. He has recorded two CDs: NSAA Live: Lightning in a Bottle, and the 2010 release ElectroPoeticCoffee, with guitarist Ross Hammond. He also hosts a poetry series the third Wednesday of every month at the Mahogany Poets Series, at Queen Sheba's Restaurant at 17th and Broadway. In addition to his poetry and performance work, Lawrence serves on the board of the Sacramento Poetry Center, and works as a graphic artist and web designer in Sacramento.

Tuesday, February 21, 12-1:20 – Sacramento News & Review’s Kel Munger, Rachel Leibrock, and Ginny McReynolds

Rachel Leibrock is a Texas-born writer living in California. In addition to writing about arts and culture for the Sacramento News & Review; she also writes prose, poetry and fiction and is currently working on a young adult novel set in Sacramento. You can find some of her work at www.rachel-leibrock.com and thursdayafternoongirls.wordpress.com.

Kel Munger is a poet, writer and critic. She is the books and theater editor at the Sacramento News & Review, where she also reports on LGBT and feminist issues, human rights, and religion. Her first collection of poems, The Fragile Peace You Keep (New Rivers Press, 1997) was an MVP Award winner. An excerpt from her novel, Missus Finn, won the 2009 “Mighty River” fiction contest and was published in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley. Her poems and fiction have been published in Sinister Wisdom, Appalachee Quarterly, Rattle, and Flyway; and in the anthologies The Muse Strikes Back! A Poetic Response by Women to Men and Are You Experienced? Baby Boom Poets at Midlife. Her journalism has won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and she is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

Ginny McReynolds is the dean of Humanities and Social Science at Cosumnes River College. A longtime professor of English, journalism, and communications at Sacramento City College, Ginny has been writing essays and articles for more than 35 years. Many of those have been published in Sacramento News & Review, where she has also worked as a special projects editor.

Thursday, March 8, 12-1:20 p.m., featuring Naomi Benaron

Naomi Benaron’s novel Running the Rift (Algonquin Books 2012) was selected by Barbara Kingsolver as the winner of the 2010 Bellwether Prize, an award for a novel that addresses issues of social justice. Her other prizes include the Sharat Chandra Prize for Fiction for her short story collection Lover Letters from a Fat Man, the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, and the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals including New Letters, Poets’ Quarterly, Calyx, The MacGuffin, Spillway, and Green Mountains Review. She teaches writing through UCLA Extension and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, a project to mentor Afghan women writers living in Afghanistan and abroad. She is currently writing a novel about three generations of Holocaust survivors.

Tuesday, May 8, 7 p.m., featuring 6^th Annual Cosumnes River Journal Contributors’ Reading – Location TBD

Please join us for a group reading by contributors to Volume VI of the Cosumnes River Journal. This reading features student writers and artists along with the general community.

Straight Out Scribes featuring Staajabu & VS Chochezi

2011-10-09T23:46:00.000-07:00

Northern California is invited to a very special and intimate evening with Sacramento's most talented Mother and Daughter Duo Staajabu and VS Chochezi aka Straight Out Scribes. This event takes place on Saturday, October 15 · 6:30pm - 9:30pm at The Soap Salon, 3716 30th Street,Sacramento, CA 95820. A much anticipated return for these two electrifying women. The Soap Salon is humbled and honored to bring this very special event just for you. There is absolutely NO COVER for this event. Won't you join us for an unforgettable evening of poetry. Our Host for the evening is Mr. Vincent Kobelt and special guest appearance by Ms. Annie Jay Live and Russell Brown. This is a FREE event. Wine and Hors d'oeuvres will be served.

Call for Submissions

2011-10-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

Submission Guidelines:

We accept simultaneous submissions

Poetry: 35 lines, 3-5 Poems

Short Fiction: 1-7pgs.

Mail Submissions to:

The Snail Mail Review

3000 Coffee Rd. Chateau Apt. B6

Modesto, CA 95355

Include:

S.A.S.E (Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope)

Cover Letter W/ Brief Bio.

Submission Deadline: December 31, 2011

International Submissions can be emailed using the address below:

E-Mail: snailmailreview[AT]gmail.com

Facebook: Snail Mail Review

Hosting Poetry Readings in Sacramento

2011-10-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

There is this feeling I get each time I know I am going tobe hosting a reading; it is a mixed feeling of excitement and anxiety. First,there is the email by the events coordinator for the Sacramento Poetry Center,Tim Kahl. He sends out the email to the board and members of the SPC byThursday every week, and once I see it, I know the event is going to happen.And that mixed feeling assails me throughout the weekend and until the time ofthe event of when I finally welcome the poets, looking around uneasily,checking if people are already arriving. Attendance at these events dependsmainly on members of the organization or anyone in the Sacramento community whois interested in poetry. But there is never a guarantee of good attendance, orany attendance, because much depends on other factors like the weather, thepublicity, or even the popularity of poets featured. Some poets will draw theirown crowd of fans and fill up the house; others may be from out of town and maynot be well-known in Sacramento. Sometimes I feature emerging poets trying to establish themselves through public readings of their works.

The moment of waiting for poetry lovers to arrive is for thehost a moment of great tension: Is this going to be a successful event? Are thefeatured poets going to feel like their time has been wasted? Am I going to endup cancelling this event? The level ofworry is higher if I am featuring poets who have travelled from other states,or even other countries. The reputation of a poetry center depends on whetherthe events are worthwhile for both the featured poets and the audiences. The hosting anxiety then is warranted, becauseif the event fails, you feel as if you have let the poets down. The onlyconsolation, however, is that most poetsknow that, at these events, anything can happen, that they may read to ahouseful or only to a couple of people. Likewise, most poetry audiencesunderstand these dynamics, most of them are poets who are coming to listen toother poets read—they too might have read to small audiences before. Some ofthem are interested an opportunity to share their works through the Open Mic;so sometimes the audience of a poetry event is just full of poets.

Then there is theworry that one or both of the scheduled poets may not show up, then what wouldall the people (a houseful or just three people) say about such an outcome?Will they judge the event a failure? Will this give bad publicity to the poetrycenter? [As if poets really have much latitude in their choices of where theyread, etc…] So then you keep checkingthe gates to catch a glimpse of an arriving poet; they are always easy tospot…because they two are assailed by the same anxieties of whether or not theevent is going to be successful. Some are just as nervous or worried as thehost. After all it’s our event, we are in this together. We are both poets. Weare in essence mostly hosting each other in front of (mostly) fellow poets.

Kevin Simmonds

So then we wait, looking at the clock (events start at 7:30).Most of the time, with the help of fellow board members, I have already set thestage and the PA system. I have arranged the chairs in a semi-circle facing themic, sometimes in a pew-like arrangement that reminds of being in a church(again poets work with the kind of space they can afford, and often that spaceis just that, a space, which, thanks to the artistic sensibilities of the poetsand the audiences who appreciate their art, the beauty of the space oftenemerges and fully manifest itself with time…it’s in the subtlety of theaesthetics of a place called poetry center.

For some events, when I set up the chairs I temporarily just bring out fifteen or twentychairs, or sometimes, if I have invited students from my college, or if theevent has been announced on radio or local TV, which tends to guaranteeattendance, I take out forty or more chairs. And one by one they—the members ofthe audience—arrive, and soon you hear your name called and you know one orboth of your poets have arrived. By then you are breaking a sweat (I am alwaysnervous at first) and you greet the poets, introduce yourself if you aremeeting them for the first. In themeantime, more people are trickling in, and you are nervously showing the poetsaround and you are telling them: here isthe table to display your books if you brought copies, here is some water, youcan sit here and wait, do you want to go first or last? …oh it doesn’t matter?So you will read first then… thank you… and so on.

There are at least ten people and by now I am sighing withrelief, there are at least ten people,and ten is quite a crowd for poetry. Then a group of people—perhaps students, a whole graduate class of eight for UC Davisor Sac State, arrives, and, yes! Five of my students, smiles on faces,arrive—they always seem reassuring in their belief in me, most are coming tothe Center for the first time [and that’s a big deal…or not…], and I am noddingat them, I am smiling, I am telling them to feel at home. Help yourself to somewater, sit by the fan, grab a free brochure of our events. …

Before long, it’s 7:30 and I am checking the mic for the lasttime, which always seems like the first, before I greet and welcome everyone tothe Sacramento Poetry Center. I always introduce the event as great (becausewhen I do it I know it is a great event); then I make some announcements, afterwhich, of course, the event kicks off officially and I enter that dreamlikestate of enjoying the sound of poetry as it awakens my own creative demons…

I love hosting with all its anxieties, and I do it everysecond Monday at the Center and occasionally at my college. It is anopportunity to meet and interact with other poets all year long. I always tryto offer some open mic opportunities since this is one of the best ways todiscover and promote (often) new talent. I have compassion for the lessconfident poet or writer, which sometimes explains why I teach writing to beginwith, and this goes all the way back to my days in Zimbabwe in the 1990s when Iwas involved with the Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe (BWAZ), whosegoal was to promote aspiring writers, and it spread its influence throughoutthe country, promoting young writers in schools and rural areas. Working withthese writers was as uplifting to me as it was inspiring to them, it was one ofthe greatest moments I looked forward to each time I got on a bus to travel farto launch a new writer’s group. By 1995, as I was finishing my studies at theUniversity of Zimbabwe, I lived the writer’s life, breathing poetry and workingto promote all kinds of writing.

Then in May 1996, after a short teaching stint atNdima Secondary school in Chimanimani, I left the country for the United States, landing in Sacramento, California. I lived in what I truly believed was acity slower than Harare for ten years without any connection with local writersand poets. There was even a point I lostcontact with writers anywhere, particularly those I had worked with inZimbabwe. Life had taken over, life that demanded to be lived its own [new] terms,just as life. For at least four of those ten years I stopped writingaltogether….

….but by 2004, when I had rejoined academia as an adjunctprofessor, and later as a full timer, it all came back—the writing, theconnection with writers back home, most whowere by now well established. Chirere was on demand as key note speaker andfacilitator at writers’ workshop, Ignatius Mabasa had produced two best-sellingnovels, everyone was appearing in intriguing short fiction anthology, otherswere winning international awards….and I was beginning to smile again, like apoet. Then one day, while grading papers in a workroom at Sacramento CityCollege, I met Bob Stanley (the current poet laureate of Sacramento) and wetalked, about teaching, and somehow ended up talking about poetry….andeventually about the Sacramento Poetry Center. I remember asking, “There is a poetry centerin this city?” And Bob nodded.

That was some time in 2006. Bob, who turned out to be thepresident of the Sacramento Poetry Center board, invited me to “try it out”,and I went, took a few poems from my collection of over 400 pieces I had createdon a blog. That very first night at the SPC I got a chance to share some of mypoems and the experience was magical, reminded of the marathon poetry readingsI had done in Zimbabwe with the likes of Memory Chirere, Ignatius Mabasa,Charles Chigwada, and others. Something was reawakened in me. Anyway, longstory short, by February 2007 I had joined the Sacramento Poetry Center boardand I had agreed to host some readings, something I wasn’t sure I could doafter such a long time of being disconnected from poetry performance. The firstnight I hosted I was a nervous wreck, but other than the sweating, I don’t thinkmy nervousness showed to the audiences.

With that first trial, I was hooked, and I decided then thatshould nervousness persist, it would just have to learn to be part of theprocess. There was a lot more for me in the hosting than perhaps for the poets;I learned to stay in touch with my own creativity; the Monday events andhosting opportunities became for me some kind of weekly fix, which would allowme to enter a Tuesday- through- Sunday week of furious writing. The hosting ofevents, with the accompanying uneasiness and occasional uncertainty, became forme a form of recharging. Despite the anxieties, I have never been in asituation to cancel readings; all the readings, except a couple of cases whenthe second or third poet on a line up did not show up, have been a success,even when I felt they would not be. I have hosted readings that have drawn housefulsand those that have had only eight or ten attendees. In every case, the poetsalways seem to appreciate the company of other poets, and they have sharedtheir work with enthusiasm.

So why do I love hosing that much? I am not your usualcall-and-response, humorous MC or host, but I have my style, and I am told I amfunny. I make people laugh…even when Iam a wreck inside. That’s the beauty of it. Sometimes I leave those readingsdrained, yet I still feel creatively recharged. Some readings have beenwonderful, other have approached greatness. I have worked with all kinds oflocal and out of state poets, and I have hosted one Zimbabwean writer,Christopher Mlalazi, and just recently (September 12), one of thefeatures was an Irish poet, writer, publisher, Jessie Lendennie, who co-featuredwith one of her poets, Kevin Simmonds. And at each of these readings, I havealso offered the stage to many promising aspiring poets through the open mic.

Jessie Lendennie

Hosting keeps me in touch with the creative world; it joltsme to liveliness and the vibrancy or stamina the creative process requires. Itopens up new possibilities and allows for networking with fellow poets andwriters. It raises the adrenaline rush the creative state needs. I have done it for four years so far, and I look forward to many moreyears of doing it.

Family Seeking Funding to Publish Charles Mungoshi's Latest novel

2011-09-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

Harare, Zimbabwe: Followers of Dr. Charles Mungoshi literature all over the world will be delighted to know that although he has not been feeling well for the past one year, a new book by the veteran writer (completed before he was taken ill) is soon to hit the streets! His family has decided to go it alone and publish his novel script called 'Branching Streams Flow In The Dark'. The typeset is ready. Those who would want to assist the family to publish this book can contact, Jesesi Mungoshi +263774054341, +263773616247, +263772634918 or email: themovietrain@gmail.com, info@cjmf.com."
Source: KwaChirere

From Writing to Reading Free: Book Giveaway

2011-09-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

I received my author's copies of "Writing Free", a collection of short stories by Zimbabwean writers. I have an extra copy to give away, but I have to run a mini contest, right here on Wealth of Ideas (WOI). Make your entry as a comment on the blog. The deadline for all entries is Friday, September 30, at 11:59 PM.

Here are the editor's remarks on the idea of writing free: "...words that perhaps offer a small provocation, a small challenge to writers to extend their boundaries, to think something through from a lateral perspective, to approach a topic differently, to turn a perspective inside out..."

Irene Staunton, the editor, asked each of the writers in the collection to describe how their story embraced the idea of writing free. I enjoyed doing this metafictional activity, and judging by descriptions of their stories, the other authors enjoyed this exercise too.

So, dear reader, where do you come in? You can win a copy of this book by sharing your understanding or practice of the idea of reading free. Tell us how you read free, and how that affects your appreciation of what you read. I have only one copy, so I will give the book to the writer of the best description of reading free. For the rest, make this interesting; help us appreciate reading free.

Crying Content in Contemporary Zimbabwean Fiction

2011-09-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

In 2008 I blogged about how the hardships in Zimbabwe had inspired some more courageous, risk-taking writing. Writers with much to say were emerging in bigger numbers than ever before, it seemed. I predicted that this new literature would reveal a lot about what had been, and was still, happening in the country. I even declared that the true story, which could not be found on CNN or BBC, would finally come to light. I was aware that what seemed inexplicable in real life, the complexities the media could not capture, would find expression in art, that new and interesting voices would emerge, not to replace the old ones, but to add to the diversity of the literary landscape of Zimbabwe. And I was right: since then, some important writers have emerged: Petina Gappah, Brian Chikwava, NoVioet Bulawayo, Christopher Mlalazi, and many others. The short fiction anthologies published by amaBooks and Weaver Press bear witness to what has come to be called Zimbabwe's "lost decade". I can say that there is a lot more work by writers who have not had a chance at publication, stories that chronicle the country's hard moments and contribute to our understanding of the complexities of the human condition. In other words, as a fiction student of mine once commented in a guest lecture by Christopher Mlalazi in 2010, "You guys seem never to run out of stuff to write about, and that stuff is interesting." And yes, the active Zimbabwean literary scene continues to show this, and I will predict again that there's a lot more where that's coming from.

Content is definitely the urgent driving factor in much of contemporary Zimbabwean writing and in the themed collections coming out of the country: Writing Free, Where to Now? Long Time Coming, and many others. Perhaps content is always a driving factor, with art coming later, but I am thinking in terms of there being much to write about in the now, much to capture...you get the feeling that some of the stories don't want to wait until the dust settles down; the stories seem to have an urgent purpose to bear witness of what's been happening, and what's happening now. Some of the stories, of course, display high levels of craft, which sharply render this crying content; sometimes disguising the urgency, only to magnify it by the end of the story: it haunts you; it gives you nightmares...

There is a lot of content-driven fiction coming out of Zimbabwe. Now this is not to say that the fiction, which I am not going to exemplify in this post (because it's only a blog post), lacks craft. Perhaps there are ways of making a preoccupation with content alone become, in a way, a major part of the craft. Too bad I am not giving examples (because it's only a blog post), but I see an interesting dynamic here. Someone who has been following the Zimbabwean crises (because there have been many of such, except at least one Zimbabwean I know who argues that there has not been a single crisis in Zimbabwe) will know that much has been lost in the last decade: opportunities for career growth in many industries and in the public sector, opportunities for education, dreams getting dashed or turned into nightmares, loss of important relatives, etc). Publishing itself has been affected greatly, which is why it makes sense to say that the full extent and diversity of what's been written cannot be represented fully by what's been put out so far.

I titled this post "The Cry[ing] of Content in Contemporary Zimbabwean Fiction" because I wanted to iniate dialogue on what we are writing and how. As we produce this urgent literature, are we thinking in terms of its impact to readers today and tomorrow? Is it the kind of literature that will last, or will it just be a period literature no one will forget soon after we regain our lost decade? Regain; how would we even regain a lost decade...it will always be a lost one, and will the fiction be lost with its decade? Now, let me answer my questions: First, the dacade has not been lost...the decade has happened, and it has changed life as we have known it in Zimbabwe. Along the way though (in the decade), some have lost themselves in activities they may not recover from, opportunities have been lost, growth has been stunted in many respects, children born in a world of diminishing opportunities, where the lure of lack is their reality, the normalized absurdities portrayed by some of the contemporary fiction.

Second, as to the question of the durability of the fiction, its lasting impact, I can say that sometimes, if not always, writers really don't think of such things when in the middle of writing the story, when you let the story happen, when it possesses and tells you where it's going...The urgency then becomes not of content, but of capturing the words that can convey the content. Sometimes you wish you would just write without using words, to represent the story in its organicity...the urgency is in how language often lets you down, and quite often you feel like shooting out of the room and howl your story unbidden.

Third, is this period literature? Perhaps the question should be, which one is not period literature? Should I ignore current issues and write about the 1980s, as I often do, I am still stuck in a period, so then I go futuristic on you, and the scream of periodicity may ring even louder, because now I am consciously crafting the story to capture the future credibly. So, okay, the question of whether or not these are just period pieces is not important and should be abandoned...perhaps until we actually trust the current definitions of period literatures.

The last question was on whether the literature will be lost with its decade? We don't know, and we shouldn't worry about that because even though the decade has come and gone, the experiences haven't gone with it; and some writers will catch up with the events of the decade later and begin to write about them (They would be "writing free" and perhaps still asking, "where to now?"). And the ones covering the lost decade today may still be covering it tomorrow; and given a chance, some will be revising their stories from new angles.

The stories are pouring out, the content is crying. Each time I read those stories I want more of the same. I want to read about the diverse experiences carried in the stories; it's as if I am trying to get a full understanding of what was going on? I have a huge apetite for these stories, so I don't complain about how they only focus on the sad stories. I know some of what was going, a lot of what was going on, but I want to hear each cry (crying can be craft; it's okay to craft cries).

I said the stories are "pouring out"; I must be talking about the tears coming out of them, not the rate at which the stories are coming out of presses. To some extent, the fact that they are not pouring out of presses is a good thing for now; that will allow some that may have come out too soon to simmer...for their writers to revisit them and deepen them a bit.. I have noticed that, increasingly, I am hesitant to share my content with prospective publishers (some may say it's the fear of rejection, while others may say that I have caught the Flannery O'Connor bug of hanging on to a story for as long as she could before sending or returning it to the editors, and in both cases they would be correct), but I have found out that the longer I keep the stories, the more I work on them, the more deeply distilled they become...I like that aging process...

Crying content. Wait until it's thought of as weeping... Then some would say it's screaming, others sobbing, a few more bawling: each cry will continue to gain grains of difference, each tear more nuanced, more subtlety in the sobbing and screaming. Increasingly, readers will begin to understand the craft in the crying content.

Guest Blog: Anthony Garcia on Writing Through Life

2011-09-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Wealth of Ideas occassioanaly features guest blogs, and we are now planning to feature one every week. If you are interested in the reading and writing processes, and would like share some advice or a personal story of inspiration or success, let us know. The best email to contact us with is manu@munyori.com, or you can use the contact link of this blog.

In this post we are featuring a blog by Anthony Garcia, who writes about the importance of keeping the writing process going. Enjoy, and feel free to leave comments.

Writingthrough Life by Anthony Garcia

After graduating from school, it grows increasinglydifficult to stay motivated to come up with new ideas for writing. However, ifwriting is something you love and are dedicated to, you will need to find waysto keep writing throughout your life. This might include continuing youreducation through an onlinegraduate program, taking a notebook with you everywhere towrite thoughts down in your spare time, or joining a local writer’s group inyour area. However you decide to do it, writing every day will help you continueto utilize that creative muscle and really develop your craft.

Waysto continue your writing education:

WorkshopGroups: A writer I was in contact with a while back told methat the best writers are not the ones who write when they have great ideas-they are the ones who have the discipline to sit down on a regular basis andmake themselves write. I’ll admit that I don’t wake up every morning with greatstory ideas. Sometimes just being around other writers in a workshop communitycan be both inspiring and motivating, especially if you are struggling tocreate structure for yourself. A great way to find like-minded writers isthrough checking the newspaper, craigslist, and local meetupgroups to see what is being offered. They not only offerdeadlines and accountability, but they are also a great way to make lifelongfriends and writing contacts.

Reading:It may seem pretty obvious, but many people tend to read less once they are notcreating assignments for class anymore. Reading not only nurtures the languagepart of your brain, but also can be incredibly inspiring for writers. Whenwriters read, they pick up on craft tips subconsciously from the writer. In mypersonal experience, I have found that the more writing I’m exposed to, thebetter my own writing becomes. Whether I say “I would have written that linedifferently,” or “what she did with imagery in that chapter was incredible—Ihave never seen anything like it,” I generally want to write something afterreading. If anything, I have worked my writing muscle without even realizingit.

ContinuingEducation: Sometimes, the best choice for disciplining yourselfand creating as many pieces as possible is choosing to continue your educationthrough community college classes, online graduate programs, through getting anMFA, or taking classes through your city’s or a local university’s continuingeducation program. Getting into the routine of showing up toclass, and really having to produce something can help you work on yourwriting, and often online classes and continuing education programs are lessexpensive options if you are concerned about money.

Time:Afew writers I know set aside a 20 minute time period every morning before theirfamilies wake up to write. Every morning. It seems to work for them quite well,although even if you set aside your evening bus ride, or your 10-minute wait topick your children up from school to take out the notebook and write, it willbe helpful. For this purpose, I carry a notebook with me everywhere. Any time Iam waiting, I can take it out and jot down a description of my surroundings, mythoughts at the time, or brainstorm story ideas. It has made me moreproductive, because often when I have a longer space of time to write later, Ialready have most of it outlined and my ideas can be more easily organized.

A lot of people say they want to be writers, but beinga great writer takes daily practice and hard work. Writing well is not magic-itis a daily choice.

Writer's Bio: AnthonyGarcia- Anthony is a free-lance writer who recently completed his graduateeducation in English Literature. A New Mexico native, he currently resides andwrites in Seattle, Washington. He writes primarily about the writing process,education, travel, literature, and American culture.

Weaver Press (Zimbabwe) to Launch "Writing Free"

2011-09-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

I am excited about the upcoming launch of "Writing Free" in Harare on September 19 at Da Eros (86 East Road, Belgravia), from 5:30 - 7:00 PM. Published by Weaver Press and edited by Irene Staunton, the book features short stories by writers like Petina Gappah, Ignatius Mabasa, Tendai Huchu, NoViolet Bulawayo, Ambrose Musiyiwa, Christopher Mlalazi, Fungisayi Sasa, Blessing Musariri and others. I have a story in there as well, and I am happy about it.

My story, entitled "African Wife", opens a new chapter in my writing; it is set in the USA and introduces one of the many Diaspora issues my new stories are exploring. I am excited too because of company of writers I have in that collection, and because of the fact that it's a book being published in Zimbabwe... it feels like writing a letter (maybe an email) back home. Working with editor Irene Staunton by email was a wonderful experience.

Craft Companions: Writing Manuals I Have Befriended.

2011-09-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

If you were to go on a mission to locate and peruse all the creative writing manuals out there, you wouldn't exhaust the possibilities. To state the obvious, much has been published that tells much about the creative process and the craft that enhances it. It's good that we have so many options, although some writers work without knowledge of such resources, and that could be good, but access to, and effective use of, books on craft improves your writing. Over the years, I have been exposed to different manuals, many of them great, but I have narrowed down my selection to no more than twenty, and here I am going to share information about the six that I always seek out when I want to consult with a companion, either because I am stuck on some craft element, or I am preparing to teach a workshop. I regard these books reliable friends.
1. What If?: Writing Exercises for Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter: I have used this text the longest. Its focus is on getting writers to write, so it has hundreds of exercises on craft elements such characterisation, point of view, plot, dialogue, and so on. It also relies on the wisdom of writing teachers ranging from Flannery O'Connor to John Garner and many contemporary successful writers such as Toni Morrison. The exercises are helpful, sometimes even overwhelming, especially if you follow the book page by page. You end up working on many stories at the same time, which can be a great tool to defeat writer's block and a good way to produce junk that may turn into masterpieces some day. This book also contains a collection of flash fiction and short stories by the great writers of our time.

2. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner: Gardner was a teacher of writing; Raymond Carver called him his best teacher, the one who helped him understand how to edit prose. He takes a stern approach to coaching writing, but in so doing, he shows the way to many craft possibilities. The book shows that Gardner understood budding writers, and his notes are a reality check for most who might just be driven by the kind of ego that drive budding writers, the kind of drive I had when I started writing in Mototi (Zimbabwe) many years ago, when once my Grade 7 teacher read my first "novel" to the whole class, I would spend sleepless nights churning out novel after novel, and there would always be a ready audience for the works. Later I would look at the so called novels and laugh; I had the inspiration, the creative edge, but I lacked craft, I lacked the know-how of editing and the whole publishing process. Had I been exposed to a tough coach like Gardner, I would have whipped those novels into shape sooner...

Oh, Gardner was also a novelist, so he put into practice what he taught. He has other books as well, another manual for more established writers, On Becoming a Novelist. Some find him too stern, too moralistic in his teaching of writing, sometimes too prescriptive, but what he does in The Art of Fiction is invaluable. The book contains writing prompts I have found useful for both group and individual work.

3. Method and Madness: The Making of a Story by Alice Laplante: This is one of the most inspiring guides to writing fiction I have ever used. I like how it starts by differentiating the spontaneous creative process (madness) to the logical editing process (method), how the two are not the same thing, how the latter can improve the former, as long as writers understand that they have to allow the creative process without letting the logical left brain intrude, then move on to treat editing as a separate process...etc.
This is a writing manual you actaully enjoy reading and rereading, if not for the excellent advice on craft, for the quotes from classic and extablished contemporary writers. Each craft tool is followed up with a story that exemplifies its application. So this is a writing manual as well as an anothology of short fiction. I like the whole idea of the making of a story; by the end of the book one gets a good idea of how stories are made in the two-fold process of madness and method. In places, the book reminds of me of Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, which allows you to produce a lot of material without worrying about the correctness of the prose, work that can be crafted later in the revision and editing processes. Freewriting, like the Proustian free association, is always empowering, leads writers to the watershed of creativity. LaPlante also applies that mantra of Flannery O'Connor's, of writing to discover what I know, or even what I dont know, and she (LaPlante) has a chapter entitled "The Gift of Not Knowing", in which she explains or explores writing as discovery, the idea being that if you start with a specific character, something is bound to happen, as stated by O'Connor. "Something is bound to happen", that's the part most young writers dread--they want to get thing right the first time, to feel like they are talented. They don't want to take risks, to be messy...the mud of the creative process, but that's what may help them discover their process.
After all the useful information about the tools for the writer's craft, the book ends with revision and the publication process. LaPlante does a good job of telling writers what to expect in dealing with agents and publishers, a process that is quite demanding, like all marketing is.

4. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, and Ned Stuckey-French: This is one of the most popular texts in creative writing. It guides aspiring writers through the early stages of the creative process to the final product. The explanations are generous, the model passages and stories are diverse. Burroway is a seasoned writing coach, and this book is in its eigth edition, and it appears on most bibliographies of fiction writing manuals. The book uses a personal, non-prescriptive tone to guide writers at different stages of their craft. It also comes with writing prompts that will keep you busy without overwhelming you. Burroway comes off as highly knowledgeable, and in a field where manuals are abundant, a voice you can trust to guide you is welcome.

5.Gotham Writers' Workshop: Writing Fiction, the Practical Guide: This guide is put out by the New York-based Gotham Writer's Workshop (GWW). Of the guide, Jhumpa Lahiri writes, "Here is an honest, engaging guide with lessons every writer, at any stage, will benefit from." I was reading Lahiri's Interpretor of Maladies when I discovered this guide in the Sacramento Public Library, and I kept borrowing it until I finally decided to get my own copy. Each chapter is a contribution by teachers of the GWW, and they write to teach, covering the different craft tools from Plot to Point of View to revision to Marketing. There are also writing prompts entitled "Your Turn", which ask you to apply what you have learned under each craft element covered.

Like my other favorite manuals this book illustrates key concepts with great works of fiction. It includes the best coverage of voice I have ever read. Most people talk about voice in fiction without a clear knowledge of what it is, but it's all covered here, clearly and completely: in fact, the author gives the different examples of voice from great works, and you get to see the wide range of choices. Now this is beginning to sound like an advert, but that's just because I love this book.

6. Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern: I just got this book which I am going to use in my upcoming Fiction Workshop. Recommended by a colleague, it is a great new find. It focuses on the principles of momentum, tension, and immediacy. Stern describes tension as "the mother of fiction," adding, "when tension and immediacy combine, the story begins." He thus recommends investing much energy in the beginning of the story, so that the energy the story needs is offered right away, and everything will follow...pretty much the same principle of story as discovery, but explained in a very accessible, very practical way. The most innovative feature of the book is a special section Stern calls the Alphabet for Writers, with entries ranging from Accuracy to Zigzag, each entry fully explained and exemplified.

Even Janet Burroway, the famed author of Writing Fiction (discussed above) found Making Shapely Fiction to be "full of wisdom with a light touch....People will write better for this book." I too have found the book warm and witty...it makes you want to write all the time. Each explanation is also a writing exercise. So when he discusses the shapes of fiction, you follow along with pen and paper, crafting the facade, creating tension, inviting readers to make their own judgments as they read along. In the shape or process he calls "juggling", we have characters "interweaving thoughts and action [to keep] the story going, [making] the reader feel physically [present]. If the character is cold and wet, keep the reader cold and wet." Now, these are encouraging words...and they lead to more writing, even if the product is still at the inspirational stage, the madness level, we will get to the point of method, and by then we would have revisited our model writers, seen how they handled details, dialogue, characterization, point of view, and other concepts that help us craft the artistic work.

Yes, there are many guides, but once you select a few that you can trust, that seem to work for you, you could be inspired ot keep on writing, and to focus on elements of craft that will make you a mature writer. Of course, sometimes you don't feel like reading these manuals, preferring instead the organicity of the process, to be your own guide. That's another approach, which eventually will benefit from a perusal of the best guides in the field. I carry these everywhere I go to write; you never know when I may want to turn to Burroway for expert advice on Characterization, to Gardner for that tone of tough love, to Stern for the warm invitation to writing...it works.

Back to Blogging

2011-09-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

It is going to be a long weekend, so what better way to begin it than by blogging. I have been itching to blog again without announcing anything happening in the book world. Just to blog (like I used to do before I knew I had an audience), to pour myself out without necessarily being too autobiographical...without being too personal.

I was never trained to associate my writing with the personal. My writing in the Zimbabwean education system was always associated with something serious, academic, and anything personal seemed and sounded informal, non-academic. I had to learn to begin to share personal experience in graduate school in the USA, because everyone was talking about what a wife, a husband, an uncle....a dog...had done, and for the first time I was sitting there feeling bad for those spouses who were being dissected in the classroom; then it dawned on me that such material could be useful, and I started going a little personal, and personal became, slowly, anything to do with Zimbabwe, with Africa...as if by making a reference to something uniquely Zimbabwean, I was taking personal responsibility for such a reference...then I read the post-colonialists (who I was expected to know somehow), and I began to speak for the subaltern...got serious about the issue of representation, met (in New York City), a couple of the leading post-colonial theorists, felt validated (in one case), discouraged (in another). But things had become personally and culturally personalized...almost beyond redemption, which is to say, in a few cases I would even mention my mother in the classroom, an elder brother in an essay, and I could even say what village I grew up in!

It is going to be a long weekend. Labor Day weekend, which means no school on Monday. That's an extra day to assign more hours to editing, writing, reading (reviewing). A Munyori issue seems overdue (to the writers, at least; and that matters). It feels overdue sometimes, but I never like the idea of putting out an issue just because it's due. Rephrasing...: I only publish if I think I have enough interesting works in as many categories as possible. Munyori used to be a poetry journal,so I receive, it receives, truckloads of poetry. Short stories are picking up, but I also need reviews, essays, personal things like memoirs, or memoirish essays. But I think we'll go to press on September 20 without covering all the categories. Most editors tell me they are flooded with submissions; at Munyori we are not flooded, and it fits the way we work; we do a lot of other things, so if we don't publish an issue it will only be due to inadequate high-quality submissions in some key categories, not because we are swamped. Knock on wood...right?

It's going to be a long weekend. I could see the excitement in my students; and that's a good thing, because when they come back things will get busier. I have some grading to do already, but of mostly of diagnostic, and early mini essays. I will have time then to do other things: family things, then some reading, editing, writing, reviewing. I need to review Together and Where to Now? by amabooks; Far from Home by Na'ima B. Robert, the Butterfily Heart by Paula Leyden. There are more titles too....

I just received Making Shapely Fiction, a guide to fiction writing I will use for my UC Davis fiction workshop starting on September 29. It looks like a great guide. Writers need great guides...they do. Well, that felt like a blog. Have a nice weekend, everybody.

2011 Citizen Book Prize Longlist Features Two Novels by Zim Writer

2011-08-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

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 case on their hands.

A serial killer stalks the dark streets of Bulawayo at night.

He has killed three women, all prostitutes, and his modus operandi is bizarre – the killer ritually stuffs his victims with odd numbered pages from books he leaves lying on their bodies after killing them. He leaves no other clues at his crime scenes.

Morrison and Ncube begin a tedious investigation, searching for the murderer, code-named the Page Killer.

They know that it is not a case of if someone will get killed, but rather when the killer will pounce on his next victim. But the Page Killer is always a step ahead of them.

Cunning, efficient and intelligent, and driven by revenge, the killer will not stop until his hunger to kill is sated, and until the ultimate number of his victims is reached.

The Munhumutapa Candidate by Mbonisi P Ncube
WHEN an undercover detective is found murdered in his office at night, the only clues that could possibly lead to the killer are found written on the tiled floor next to him – in his own blood. With this message from the other side of the grave, the two detectives arriving at the scene of the crime must try and figure out who the killer is, before he pounces again. But they are not alone…

Another group of rogue agents from the notorious Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) also seem intent on getting their hands on the killer, before the police detectives do.

Who is the killer? And what information did the dead man pass on to him? Racing against time, a cat-and-mouse game ensues, and the detectives must use wit and experience to stay on top of their game, and to try and unravel the trail of clues left by the dead man and his assassin. At the same time, they must stay ahead of the omnipresent CIO agents, who will stop at nothing to lay their hands on the fugitive and silence him , before he goes public with a state secret that has been kept hidden from everyone. This information could implicate the President, and suck him into a huge scandal, shaking the political foundations of the country."

Read the other synopses here, where you can cast your vote for your favorite entry.

An Evening of Amnesty at the Sacramento Poetry Center

2011-08-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

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 EMMANUEL SIGAUKE's poems address his experience growing up in the politically and otherwise volatile situation in Africa. Mr. Sigauke is editor and publisher of the online African literary journal, Munyori Literary Review, editor of an African anthology of stories titled "African Roar". The poet is also author of "Forever Let Me Go". A father of two, Sigauke is professor of English and composition at Cosumnes River College. Mr. Sigauke has served on the board of the Sacramento Poetry Center, hosted literary readings, and has conducted a public workshop for poetry.

CATHERINE FRAGA teaches writing at Sacramento State University. Her poetry has been published in numerous literary publications and she is the author of the chapbook, "Running Away with Gary, the Mattress Salesman", from Poet's Corner Press. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2008 she was awarded a month long writer's residency in Portugal.

BRIAN ANG was educated at UC Davis. Mr. Ang is a favorite of the Davis and surrounding area, not only for his poetry, but for having been a radio personality, before moving to his new home in Oakland. Ang's books are: "Communism" (Berkeley Neo-Baroque, 2011), and "Paradise Now" (Grey Book Press, 2011).

MICHAEL GORMAN is referred to as the Poet Laureate of Lavendar Heights. Mr. Gorman won a national Lambda Literary Award for a biography of Jose Sarria called "The Empress Is A Man". His writing covers a range of genres: journalism, lyrics, playwriting, short stories, non-fiction scholarship, and poetry. He holds a BA and an MA from California State University, Sacramento. Gorman is currently working on a biography of Irish poet and Druid, Ella Young, as well as a book of Celtic history and philosophy. Gorman's poems touch the heart.

A Marechera Anniversary

2011-08-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

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's college somewhere in Harare (perhaps Belvedere), and he was admired by many in the village (a prospective teacher who was actually getting trained for the job in Harare: most of our teachers were temporary, meaning they had not had any training, but they had passed their O-Level or A-Level at a mission school somewhere). I appreciated the honor of being the first among my peers to read Dambudzo Marechera...

Now, I just revisted Cemetery of Mind--since it's the first one I locate on my shelves whenever I look for Marechera's books--and I opened to page 189 with the poem "Only the Mountainclimber Can Tell Us". When I read it back in 2007, a time I was writing a lot of poetry drafts, I was inspired to create a poem in the margins of the page. First, I crossed out "the" in the title and above "Mountainclimber" I inserted Chisiya so that the new title read "Only Chisiya Can Tell Us". I had a poem...

Chisiya is a common feature in the things I write. It's, as Chenjerai Hove would say, the hill to whose sounds my heart was attuned as I grew up in Mototi. Our home was situated between two hills, Chisiya and Chigorira, and it was the Chisiya whose rhythm I heard (or in Marechera's words: "You see rhythm / where only frets misery"); the other hill, Chigorira, was a source of nightmares because when I was much younger, I had thought I saw the rocks moving at night, or they had seemed to ape my every movement...then years later, I would be attacked by a swarm of Chigorira bees which later gave up on me, found me uninteresting and left me to swell in peace.

So here goes the rest of the poem as inspired by Marechera:

Only Chisiya Can Tell Us

I see the rhythm of Gweshumba range
On the spine of a sleeping lion
when the sun danced
on New Year's Day
after mother said,
"Wake up children!
Go to the summit of Chisiya
Glue your eyes to the rays
until you sprout and twist
to the new rhtym of the sun"

So on that day
the sun treated us
to a free show, but no sprouts came.
Still, we descended the hill
ready to climb the endless Gweshumba ranges.

I wrote it, left it like that, never revisited it until today.That's what I like about re-reading Marechera and other writers I like, they aways inspire something...

And now to one of my favorite passages in House of Hunger :

"Life stretched out like a series of hunger-scoured hovels stretching endlessly towards the horizon. One's mind became the grimy rooms, the dusty cobwebs in which the minute skeletons of one's childhood were forever in the spidery grip that stretched out to include not only the very stones upon which one walked but also the stars which glittered vaguely upon the stench of our lives."

Editors and their Writers; Writers and their Stories

2011-08-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

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 for what it may become, and then, we both must allow it to become the best approximation of what it ought to become. Lots of time will be invested. In one reading I may be impressed by our work, in another, I may be disponded, when I discover language, our medium, has let us down again. Or, in our previous efforts to bring a character to life, we actually dragged him into the ashes. So then we try again. And again.

There is much more I can say about the process, but I have stories waiting for me right now, stories that have been simmering, after their writers spiced them a bit, marinated them, slow-cooked them, grilled them, et cetra. And we might as well think of the process in terms of cooking and eating nice things because we have to feel good about doing it. Or, okay, think about it as excercising, first warm-up, then go to weights, then cardio. Tomorrow we warm up again, then we go to cardio, then weights: each time not stopping until we have broken a sweat, and have lost our breath, regained it and finally felt the burn. We, both editor and writer, together, like John Eppel and Julius Chingono of Zimbabwe.

Now, where are we with this? Oh, yes, you don't have to like what I suggest, but if you are going to work with me for a while, you better. In other words, enjoy the working relationship, seek to discover yourselft out of it, to strengthen your voice. Question my decision, but don't waste my time by complaining and giving excuses. I too would complain and give excuses, while the story festers or dries up in the sun like Langston Hughes's raisin.

Editor and writer, we have a responsibility towards that story, to discover what it wants. In short, if as editor I succeed to make you think of your story in new ways, if you tell me you have discovered something you could change, or something you could keep, if you understand that you are no longer in a hurry to publish that story, and you are willing to invest more time in it, to distance yourself in order to reacquaint with your story, to see it for the tenth time as if you are seeing it for the first; that, writer and editor, would be the beginning of a productive working relationship.

NoViolet Bulawayo wins 12th Caine Prize for African Writing

2011-07-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

Caine Prize Official Press Release:

Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo has won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing, described as Africa’s leading literary award, for her short story entitled ‘Hitting Budapest’, from The Boston Review, Vol 35, no. 6 – Nov/Dec 2010.

The Chair of Judges, award-winning author Hisham Matar, announced NoViolet Bulawayo as the winner of the £10,000 prize at a dinner held this evening (Monday 11 July) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Hisham Matar said: “The language of ‘Hitting Budapest’ crackles. Here we encounter Darling, Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Stina and Sbho, a gang reminiscent of Clockwork Orange. But these are children, poor and violated and hungry. This is a story with moral power and weight, it has the artistry to refrain from moral commentary. NoViolet Bulawayo is a writer who takes delight in language.”

NoViolet Bulawayo was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She recently completed her MFA at Cornell University, in the US, where she is now a Truman Capote Fellow and Lecturer of English. Another of her stories, ‘Snapshots’, was shortlisted for the 2009 SA PEN/Studzinski Literary Award. NoViolet has recently completed a novel manuscript tentatively titled We Need New Names, and has begun work on a memoir project.

Also shortlisted were:

Lauri Kubuitsile (Botswana) ‘In the spirit of McPhineas Lata’ from The Bed Book of Short Stories published by Modjaji Books, SA, 2010

Tim Keegan (South Africa) ‘What Molly Knew’ from Bad Company published by Pan Macmillan SA, 2008

David Medalie (South Africa) ‘The Mistress’s Dog’, from The Mistress’s Dog: Short stories, 1996-2010 published by Picador Africa, 2010

Beatrice Lamwaka (Uganda) ‘Butterfly dreams’ from Butterfly Dreams and Other New Short Stories from Uganda published by Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, Nottingham, 2010

The panel of judges is chaired by award-winning Libyan novelist Hisham Matar, whose first novel, In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. His second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, was published by Viking this March.

He is joined on the panel by Granta deputy editor Ellah Allfrey, publisher, film and travel writer Vicky Unwin, Georgetown University Professor and poet David Gewanter, and the award-winning author Aminatta Forna.

Once again, the winner of the £10,000 Caine Prize will be given the opportunity to take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, Washington DC as a ‘Caine Prize/Georgetown University Writer-in-Residence’. The award will cover all travel and living expenses.

Last year the Caine Prize was won by Sierra Leonean writer Olufemi Terry. As the then Chair of judges, Fiammetta Rocco, said at the time, the story was “ambitious, brave and hugely imaginative. Olufemi Terry’s ‘Stickfighting Days’ presents a heroic culture that is Homeric in its scale and conception. The execution of this story is so tight and the presentation so cinematic, it confirms Olufemi Terry as a talent with an enormous future.”

Previous winners include Sudan’s Leila Aboulela, winner of the first Caine Prize in 2000, whose new novel Lyrics Alley was published in January 2010 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, as well as Binyavanga Wainaina, from Kenya, who founded the well-known literary magazine, Kwani?, dedicated to promoting the work of new Kenyan writers and whose memoir One Day I Will Write About this Place will be published by Granta Books in November 2011.

Keith Ekiss and Gillian Wegener to Read at SPC

2011-07-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

Presents

Keith Ekiss and Gillian Wegener

Monday July, 11, 2011 at 7:30 PM

1719 25th Street

Sacramento Poetry Center 25th and R

Guest Host: Dorine Jennette

Keith Ekiss is the author of Pima Road Notebook, published in 2010 by New Issues Poetry & Prose. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford from 2005-07, his poems have appeared in Blackbird, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, New England Review, Southwestern American Literature, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of scholarships and residencies from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Petrified Forest National Park. His creative non-fiction has been anthologized in Permanent Vacation: Living and Working in Our National Parks (Bona Fide Books, 2011).

The recipient of a Witter Bynner Poetry Translation Residency from the Santa Fe Art Institute for his translations of the Costa Rican poet Eunice Odio, his translations have appeared widely in such journals as Circumference, Copper Nickel, Mid-American Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, and Subtropics. A former Artistic Director for the Center for the Art of Translation, he also translates the Uruguayan poet Sara de Ibañez.

Ekiss has been a Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford since 2007, where he teaches courses in reading and writing poetry and other genres. As an instructor in Stanford's Online Writer's Studio, he teaches classes in poetry and creative non-fiction. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the poet Robin Ekiss, and their son Benjamin.

Gillian Wegener’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in Runes, Tule Review, Packinghouse Review, In Posse, and Sow’s Ear. She is the author of the chapbook Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other (In the Grove Press, 2001), and the full-length collection The Opposite of Clairvoyance (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2008). In her poems, Wegener often engages the physical and social landscapes of California’s Central Valley. Of Wegener’s writing, Barbara Ras writes, “Whatever her subject — the natural world animated again and again by birds — or daily human settings — Wegener soars, delivering beautiful, heartfelt vistas with her sure knowing sight.” She lives in Modesto, California, where she coordinates and hosts Modesto’s 2nd Tuesday Reading Series.