Bridges and Pathways, my 2014 Ake Festival science fiction master class experience.

The theme for the 2014 Ake book and art festival is bridge and pathways. Six people registered for the class and only four attended.

The first section of the class was taken by Ben Aaronovitch. He is the peter grant/rivers of London urban fantasy series author. I am proud to say that we were the first set of people he taught about writing science fiction. Mr Ben has a great sense of humour  and we had an informal class were we talked about Ideas are a science fiction authors main currency, how to test your ideas and turn them in to stories, writing the book that you want to read, four act structure, the do’s and don’ts of writing, description and characters. We talked about plot in films and book and conservation of details. We were rewarded with glimpse of Ben’s life and we learnt some London slang. At the end of the section I got an autograph on the rivers of London.  

The second session of the class was facilitated by Stella Duffy. She taught creative writing for 25 years.  She is the author of thirteen novels, ten plays and fifty five short stories. We learnt about the ordinary extraordinary way to write stories with truths and look for common links to include in our stories. We did lots of fun exercises that helped us to become better observers and to break the patterns in our writing. We learnt to test different point of views,  the trickster hero narratives,to use the old wise woman and  that not everything should depend on the hero.

 Stella Duffy had a positive energy that said I’m a happy person. The science fiction master class taught me to write like myself. 

The Contemporary Children's Literature, Children will like to read.

                                   

Contemporary Children’s literature should reflect the problems of today. Children are exposed to crime, death, kidnappings, boko haram, internally displaced people, and violence on T.V.

Children’s literature should include the realities of life and create avenues so that children can talk about their reactions to real life. Children literature should not include emotions that are not felt by children. Children do not understand nostalgia, so they always look towards the future.

Children do not feel despair, they always have hope in any circumstances.

Children do not know cynicism, so they won’t understand cynicism in plot.

Children are curious about life and adult activities, all their childhood plays are re-enacted towards what they see the adults doing. So they enact plays about family, going to the market, going to work and driving cars and sometimes death. A child may lie down pretending to sleep when she wants to show you how a character died on T.V.

When talking about my book'' my life as an Almajiri,'' a nine year old girl summarised the plot to me, she talked with her hands and an expressive face but when she got to a character’s death. She grew quiet for a minute and clasped her hands together and stared at her hands before she said the character died in a car accident.

In my childhood we never said the word death, we treated it with reverence and when a classmate lost her twin. We didn’t really understand when the teacher told us our classmate had left, so we asked the twin and she told us he had gone on a long journey to a different land and she pointed to the Sky.

I was listening to a seven year old read in a summer reading program at American corner Abuja when he said ‘‘boko haram are killing everybody, you have to be careful,’’.

I asked him about the books he liked to read and he said he liked books about Tigers.

I asked him why, he told me they were beautiful, wild and free.

Children have different tastes in book like adults; an eleven year old girl who wore dresses told me she liked reading books about princesses. She wore a pink dress and twirled the flower on her dress when she told me shyly that she wanted to be a princess.

Another eleven year old girl only read detective books, and she knew who was reading all the books she liked.

A nine year old girl and an eight year old boy only wanted to read the magic bus stories. The girl said she liked books about space.They told me science was cool whilst another eight year old boy wanted to read books about sports especially football.A quiet eleven year old girl only wanted to read about girls living   two hundred years ago, she told me she wanted to know about how people lived in the past. Then she looked at me with a look I know, I was eating up her reading time.

Children will like to read entertaining books with imagination, experience from daily or past lives,princesses, sports,space and Tigers.

   

Writing is a Journey.( My Abuja Writer's Forum Creative Writing Workshop Experience)

'Writing is a journey.' This is the first profound statement we saw at the workshop. It was printed in bold black ink and placed above the wall at the registration day.

First we started our journey at the bus stop of sixth senses in writing. We had interesting exercises and we went down the road to the elements of craft bus stop we met the Homo-fictus character and we learnt that a plot develops from your characters.

We visited each of the major elements of plot and carried out exercises and along the way we learnt the importance of keeping a writing journal and becoming disciplined writers. We have arrived at our bus stop ‘’the advance class.’’

The advance class bus stop is everything I hoped it will be. I met a new writer Alifaat Rifaat in her short story ‘’the distance of a minaret.’’

The story brought home the fact that we live in a patriarchal society. It also brought to the fore front the word a feminist. I learnt that if a woman writes from a woman’s point of view she is a feminist.

It was interesting talking to people who love the art of writing, sharing ideas and seeing in to the minds of people because we express our ideas.

I also learnt that the way we perceive stories is subjective. Each time you read a story your life experiences affect what you see in the story.

Our advance class helped us to face our writing process. We learnt to identify the challenges we face in our writing, to avoid falling in love with our characters .A good example is when the author of Harry potter decided she wanted to get Harry and Ginny together instead of Harry and Hermione.

 We arrive at interrogating your stories. This should be carried out after at least your third draft. El Nathan John wrote five drafts of his ''Bayan layin'' and it was shortlisted for the Caine African Prize. The '' Bayan layin'' story inspired his novel Born on a Tuesday.

 There are a series of questions you have to ask yourself after your third draft.

The first is what type of story is it?

The second question is your title the right title? For the remaining 28 questions you can wait until you get to the advance class or if you attend our critique sessions.

Then we stopped at narration as a description and we met T.S Elliot objective correlative and of course psychology.

I will stop here but I gained a lot from attending the creative writing workshop. I still have two lectures to go but I am a member of Abuja writer forum so after my workshop I still have the critique session on Sunday from 4pm to 7pm to look forward to. The May writing workshop is around the corner so I am inviting you to go on a writing journey with Abuja writer’s forum. I am not claiming that you will win the Nobel Prize for literature after the workshop but you will learn your strength and weakness as a writer.

The African Tortoise re-introduces himself- call me Ijapa, Nnabe and Fudugazi.

The tortoise is a trickster figure of African mythology. Tortoise stories can teach children to differentiate between the good and bad. Tortoise is punished for his crimes.  Ijapa is the human acting tortoise is Yoruba he is shrewd, sometimes wise, conniving greedy unreliable and sometimes stupid. He is married to Yarinbo and she usually helps him in his mischief. Ijapa survived in the Unites States Black folklore as brother terrapin.

Some famous Ijapa stories include Ijapa and Yarinbo swears an oath, Ijapa and the Oba repair a roof, Ijapa cries for his horse, Ijapa and the hot water test, how Ijapa, who was short became long and Ijapa goes to the Osanyin shrine.

Nnabe is the tortoise in Igbo culture, he is a trickster figure that tried to trick the birds and ended up having a cracked shell, ‘‘in the tortoise and the birds.’’  Nnabe and Chineke is a different variation of the tortoise and the birds.

It is interesting to note that the translated performance of ‘‘ Nnabe and Chineke ‘’ was recorded on Wadmalow island, one of the sea islands of the coast of Georgia and the Carolines in the U.S. where Igbo people were transported to during the Atlantic slave trade of the 18^th and 19^th Century.

Fudugazi is the tortoise in Mennizimu Africa or South Africa. Fudugazi is a storyteller and singer and he belongs to the Amazulu people.  An example of Fudugazi story is the Gift of the tortoise.

The tortoise stories are a good addition to your children’s library. It will teach the children to think on their toes and that bad deeds are punished.

Bibliography

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall apart. Chapter 11. Tortoise and the Birds recounted folk-tale.

Badejo, Deidre ‘‘The Yoruba and Afro-American Trickster: A contextual Comparison presence Africane 147(1988): 3-17

Jackson-Jones, Patricia. When roots die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands Athens: Univ. of Georgia press, 1987. 

Three African Myths/ tales- Primary Style by Linda Frederick Malanson.

The Gift of the Tortoise- by Lady Smith Black Manbazo.

A review of Tropical Fish. [Tales from Entebbe]

Doreen Baingana is from Uganda and lives in the United States. the book is the winner of the commonwealth writer’s prize for best first book- Africa Region

The tropical fish is a collection of short stories that has  eight short stories. The stories are tales of three sisters , Patti, Rosa and Christine . Christine  is the heroine of the collection. This stories pay homage to her journey from childhood to adulthood, and from Africa to Los Angeles.

The book is honest and the characters are real and believable. Christine Mughisha won an immigration lottery to America and ended up being lost.

This book speaks about the  human experience and it’s concerns are abuse of power, relationships, loss, betrayal, sex and the vagaries of AIDS.

Reading is a psychological tool for change in Nigeria.

    Nigeria is the most populous black nation with a population of 159.7 million in 2010. Nigeria has a total area of 923,768 sq. km with a land area of 910,768 sq., water 13,000 sq. and coastline 853 km.  We are blessed with petroleum, tin,  iron ore, coal, limestone, lead, gold, mica, bauxite, zinc. Natural gas, hydro power and arable land: 33%, permanent  crops 3%, permanent pastures 44%, forests and woodlands 12%, others 8%, irrigated land  9570 sq.km. [1993]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

In Nigeria we always say that children are the leaders of tomorrow yet we have children  that are not thought to read, this has led to stagnation in the development of our country.

Reading helps to improve mental stimulation, knowledge, memory improvement; critical reasoning improves concentration and makes us open minded. 

I like reading literary fiction and was asked if it has any value to my life. I said yes, literary fiction can help to improve the quality of our life.

 Qasem Naqizadeh a judge in the city of gunbad-e kavus has set up new ruling that individuals convicted of minor crimes should buy and read books instead of serving long terms in prisons. He said that such punishments are as good alternative to imprisonment which has physical and psychological impact on convicts and their families.

It will be great if reading culture can be inculcated in to the school curriculum from the primary and secondary schools, children should be thought to love reading.

I think reading children books on corruption will help to teach children what corruption means.

The lack of reading culture contributed to our Country’s stagnation because, we have a population of adults who haven’t learnt empathy, critical reasoning and love for the country.

The immediate answer to Nigeria economic situation is agriculture and exportation of iron-ore, gold, mica, zinc, bauxite etc. but simultaneously we have to improve our future by inculcating a reading culture in our society.

 

A review of Dul Johnson's Melancholia.

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Melancholia.

A play by Dul Johnson.

Sevhage, 73pp,2014.

Dul Johnson started writing plays in 1976, with radio plays for Rima radio, Sokoto.  He wrote many television plays for NTA in the 80s and 90s. He writes across the genres and has published two collections of short stories, Shadows and Ashes (1998) and Why women who make it to heaven (2003) and a novel Deeper into the night (SEVHAGE, 2014).

 Melancholia was first performed as a class production workshop by 200 level students of the department of theatre and cultural studies, Nassarawa state university, on March 6^th, 2014.

In the play Mumude a presidential aspirant of the progressive front party wants to be the next president and invested one hundred and sixty billion in his campaign. He said to his uncle Dangiwa‘‘I’ve borrowed a lot of money from the banks and from friends; my political  associates. I’ve also sold off, or should I say, mortgaged ten of my buildings in the state and five in the Federal Capital, which I hope to get back on becoming the president.

The play was written in two acts and the author used both situational and verbal irony in the two acts. In Act one, the author used realism to highlight the play and at the end of the act he withholds information that is important to move the play forward.

In Act two, the author used psychological realism and at the end we are asked a good question, who is the African Politician? This book can be acted on by Literature students in secondary schools because it’s funny and educative.  I recommend this book to everyone especially the aspiring politician.

                                                            

Planning A Library For Government Schools With Low budget.

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There is a need to improve the reading culture in Nigeria. Reading is beneficial because it can open the mind of children and improve critical thinking.

Reading helps children to excel and improve their class work and it also makes better leaders.

Thirteen steps to make a small school library in schools with low budget.

-The teacher can make a school project called titled ‘making a class library.’

- Make a list of the class  and ask them to tell about the books they will like to read, e.g. books about sport, friendship, family, folktales, animals etc.

- Look for book titles suitable for the class age range.

- Contact a local bookshop and ask the bookshop for help with books suitable for children or research on the Internet.

- Make another list equal to the number of children in the classroom and ask each child to pick a book they like.

 -Send a note to the parents explaining about your school project and asking to buy the book selected by the student.

- Write the name of each child on his book.

- Children should read the books they have bought and submit the books to their teachers after they are done.

- Build a small shelf in a corner of the classroom or convert a desk into a book safe.

- Appoint a class library prefect and keep a notebook to keep track of the books borrowed by students.

- Children are encouraged to borrow books from the library.

- At the end of the term, they can each write a book report on the books they bought and a book article on any other book they liked.

- The project can take 10 marks in English comprehension.    

 The benefit of this exercise includes, teaching children how to be involved in community projects, teaching love and sharing, giving children access to more books, and improving reading culture in government schools.

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This is how to stay Married, A review of the domestication of Munachi.

  the domestication of Munachi

    by Ifesinachi O. Okpagu
     Parresia  Books,2015. 

Ifesinachi O. Okpagu published her first novella when she was fourteen, she is now a Lagos based marketing communications executive. She has published some short stories in sentinel Nigeria, femrite anthology and saraba magazine.

 The book has themes of marriage,domestic abuse, spinsterhood and is a psychological slice of life. The author has a great sense of humour and this book should be read by every  woman. 

 Marriage is an important aspect of African culture, growing up as a girl the best day of your life was your wedding day. Single women are serenaded with talks of marriage, everyone gives advice on getting married even the woman who closes herself in the bathroom and cry every morning.  She has only one comfort- she is a respectable married woman.

‘‘A woman without a husband is a failure,’’ said Elizabeth. Elizabeth was content to be a stranger to her husband, and a respectable wife to the society. When she caught her husband cheating on her with the house-help, she did what any respectable married African woman will do. she swept everything under the carpet because she had married out of desperation. This is how to stay married and have a respectable corner in the society.

Weeks turn into years and it was Adanna's turn, the future husband brought beautiful gifts home and Elizabeth persuaded her daughter to get married.  When she came back home with bruises on her face, she pretended not to see because a daughter does not return from her husband home. This is how to stay married and remain a respectable woman in the eyes of society.

When Munachi ran away from home on the day of her traditional marriage without the ceremony. the story took us on a journey to the domestication of Munachi with the re-discovery of self worth  and realization that the only way to stay married is to start with a happy marriage.