Writing is often done in isolation, away from community. This, in itself, can make creative writing a very alienating experience for artists.

The organizers of the Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop know this and that’s one reason they have established a prestigious virtual workshop for African writers living in the continent. Eligible writers are invited to apply to the inaugural edition of the Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop. Selected writers will be notified via email.  There are no entry fees. Also, Attendance is free.  The workshop will be held virtually from the 6th through the 11th of January 2025.

Submission Guidelines For Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop

• Prose entries (fiction and creative nonfiction) should not exceed 1000 words.

• Poetry: A maximum of 5 pages.
  

• Manuscript format: Font 12 (Times New Roman or Arial), Margin: 1, Left-aligned, Double spaced. Poetry can be single spaced.

• Blind submissions are preferred. Be sure to omit all identifying information. This means:
  

No name/pen name or email address should appear on your submission document. Only the story title and wordcount should accompany the first page of your manuscript.

• Applications are accepted from 15th October – 15th November 2024 or until the submission cap of 100 is reached.

• Save your entry story/poem and cover letter (which should include the title/genre of your entry and a short bio) either as a PDF or Word document and submit through this form: https://tinyurl.com/3yaecnsy 

• The file name of your submission must be the manuscript name only. E.g., THE HONEST POLITICIAN.

• Please submit only unpublished work.

• Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but no multiple submissions. Only one submission per entrant.  
  

Eligibility Criteria

Only writers with three or fewer publications are eligible to apply (self-publication is excluded). Entrants must be African and currently resident in Africa.

Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop Instructors 

The Workshop

Classes will take place on Google Meets from 5PM – 7PM UTC and will be taught by the following writers:

• TerryAnn Adams 
• Peter Njeri
• Chido Muchemwa 
• Ifeanyichukwu Eze 
• Resoketwe M. Manenzhe

Deadline For Submissions

Application window will be open from the 15th October – 15th November 2024 or until the submissions cap of 100 is reached.

What Will Writers Gain From Attending The Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop 2025?

• Writers will learn how to write more eloquently.
• Participants will have a chance to have their stories critiqued constructively by other writers.
• There is an endless list of benefits. However, time and space will not allow us to enumerate them all.

How to increase your chances of getting accepted:

1. Don’t panic.
2. Choose your story idea wisely. If you can, avoid old and tired storylines.
3. Make sure your story has a narrative arc, an interesting theme. Ensure that it is rendered from an irresistible point of view.
4. Write what you know. Readers can tell when you’re being pretentious. Or better still, write what scares the hell out of you. What you don’t know can’t scare you.
5. Read a few classic short stories. I’ll recommend John Updike’s ‘Pygmalion’ and Alice Walker’s The Flowers.
6. You can find a few more fantastic short stories HERE, HERE and HERE.
7. Poets may benefit from reading the writing tips in this article based on a poetry masterclass and this guide.
8. If you’re a poet, here’s how to edit poetry.
9. Don’t be in a hurry. Do your best to find the best story ideas that will make your application stand out.

Ready to learn how to write like the great literary artists you admire, don’t hesitate. Apply to the  Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop 2025. Got inquiries? Forward them to idembeka@gmail.com

The post Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop 2025 / How To Apply appeared first on Creative Writing News.

The Bird in Your Hands Prize 2022 is in its third year and the organizers are thrilled to announce that their windows are open for submissions. It is sponsored by Thin Air Magazine.

The contest centers around and celebrates BIPOC (Black indigenous and People of Color) voices. This contest wants to hear your story as a BIPOC writer. The organizers want to hear your voice as a writer; they appreciate stories told from the point of view of BIPOC.

Eligibility For The Bird In Your Hands Prize 2022. 

• This is a no-fee contest
• This contest is open to new, upcoming, and established BIPOC writers alike.

Submission Guidelines 

• Only poetry, fiction, and nonfiction will be accepted. 
• Word count: a maximum of 500 words.
• Simultaneous submissions are allowed
• No expectations for the theme, content or tone of submissions. You might want to read this resource about narrative arcs and editing poetry and writing memoirs.
• All submitted works must be previously unpublished.
• Formatting Specifications:
• Please use Times New Roman, 12pt., double-spaced, 1-inch margins for all submissions except poetry, which should remain single-spaced.
• Please include page numbers and a word count at the top of your manuscript.
• Please do not put your name in your manuscript.
• If unique formatting is critical to the submission, you may upload it as is (but please note that we may have to collaborate to translate your formatting onto the physical restraints of our pages).
• Submission is only accepted in submittable 

Who Are the Judges

The judge for this year’s contest is Samir Talib. Samir Talib got his BA in English in 2002 and his MA in 2005 in the field of English Literature/Renaissance Drama. In 2010, he joined the University of Exeter/UK for a PhD in the field of Renaissance studies. He has been teaching courses in Drama, Poetry and Literary criticism at the University of Basrah since 2005. He is interested in the field of the philosophy of literature, as well as contemporary literary and cultural theory, especially in the field of cultural studies and popular culture.

Prizes For Winners Of the Bird in Your Hands Prize 2022.

• The winner of the contest will be awarded $500, published in Thin Air Magazine, and interviewed for Thin Air Online.
• The winner will also be invited to read the winning entry, at the Northern Arizona Book Festival held in April 2023.
• First and second runners up will also be awarded an honorarium.
• The deadline for submission is 11:59pm (MST) on Sunday, November 20.

The post Thin Air Magazine’s The Bird in Your Hands Prize 2022/ How To Apply (Prize: $500 + Publication) appeared first on Creative Writing News.

A writing workshop is a great opportunity for budding writers to have their works subjected to peer review and critique. Readers and writers workshops come in various models, but the goals are to teach writers to be better writers

Every year, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie organizes the Purple Hibiscus Creative writing workshop. Various writers are selected to hone their crafts. Teaching the writing workshops are professional writers.

In 2018, Simbiat Haroun attended the writer’s workshop. In her essay, she shares everything she learned. From the writing workshop model to the writing tips. Simbiat bares it all. Ready to learn how to write like a noble laureate? Keep reading.

Writing Workshop With Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Learning To Write Like A Nobel Laureate At The Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop.

The thing to know about acceptance letters is that they usually come when you least expect them. Most people are never ready for an official endorsement of their work.

Even if you send in your best, the moment the positive feedback comes is usually so euphoric that every thought flies out of your head no matter how prepared you thought you were to receive it.

You forget the certainty that made you send out the application in the first place. And then, you forget the fact that by getting this chance, you have robbed hundreds, maybe thousands of people of the opportunity.

You even forget people. And you forget where you are. Chances are that you even forget your body. Then, you condense as you become a mixture of air and euphoria.

This feeling enveloped me at five a.m. on the seventh of November, when I woke up to check my email. You must know that the day before, I had been looking up writing workshop attendees.

What had I been researching? Everything. I had been checking the number of people who are being accepted to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s creative writing workshop each year.

Also, I’d been sending pathetic messages to my younger brother, wailing to him about how I would never get into this highly selective writers’ workshop.

So in the morning, I woke up to go to work, and I checked my email because Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would be sending out emails to the luck workshop participants that day.

When I saw the subject of the mail, my palms became clammy and my breath started to come out in puffs. Fear crawled through my body unknowing to me – the sneaky bastard – and sat firmly in my blood, planted itself on my chest.

With this choking feeling acting as a witness to one of the most euphoric moments of 2018 for me (it comfortably sits in the top five), I opened the mail.

“Dear Simbiat, thank you for applying to the Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop,”

it began. No clue of what was coming. After,

“I am pleased to let you know you’ve been accepted…”

and finally,

“I enjoyed reading your entry…”

My Reaction To The Acceptance Letter.

My body became one again and I flew up, down, up, down and the floor was shaking beneath my feet and I was vibrating with excitement, and my youngest brother, who had slept in my room that night, was jarred awake by my silent screaming. (I was dimly conscious of how early it was and I did try to keep it down). Unimpressed, he begged me to tone it down, and then he went back to sleep.

I continued to jump up and down, stopping at some points to try to let out excited tears – which never came out –and trying and failing to contain my excitement. That was probably my best day at work after I managed to calm down long enough to get ready.

After I told my brother, who at first couldn’t believe it and then I told my parents but they didn’t understand the gravity of what had happened. They correctly read the waves of excitement pouring from my body and extended their most hearty congratulations.

For the duration of the days it took between receiving that letter and going off to the writing workshop, I was buzzing with excitement, making plans, making, and canceling arrangements.

The Arrival To The Writing Workshop Venue.

Finally, the day came for me to leave home. I arrived at the hotel a day before the writing workshop was due to start (as did most of us, really).

I lived in Lagos, where the writer’s workshop was billed to take place, so I could have to the workshop early on the start date. But I was too excited to wait for a whole day.

The day I got there, it was if a rush of creative juices got emptied on my head. This is proof that the writing workshop still works. The conducive environment and the idea of collaborative learning simply make the writer more productive.

I sat at a very comfortable writing desk, with its bright lights, and its soft perfect chair and its distracting mirror. And I wrote two stories. Afterward, I ate and slept.

How To Write Like A Pro. Everything I Learned From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie On Day 1 Of The Writing Workshop.

The next day, the writing workshop kicked off. To prepare, I did nothing. It was all in the mind, I reasoned, and short of literally cracking my skull and parting it open, there was nothing I could do to fully get ready.

I had attended the writing workshop only to learn how to write like a nobel laureate. Some other participants hoped to learn about teaching writing workshops. I realized later on that the later was also a useful skill.

Don’t think about the audience when writing, think about the story.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

At the top of my mind was my decision to do my best. And hopefully not remain star-struck throughout the creative writing workshop!

When I got downstairs, I was greeted by a congregation of eager students clustered in pockets of small groups. There, I met H. I joined her small cluster, which consisted of herself and G.

I remember that day and all the others that followed very vividly. We sat together and spoke about the things that connected us: our nervousness at meeting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. We spoke about our uncertainty about being at the writing workshop, random things, mundane things.

Soon, it was time to eat and we proceeded to the dining room; I still miss the food. After, I quickly went to the room where we were to have classes.

Chairs were arranged in a U formation, with sweets, a bottle of water and a jotter and a biro. I walked in and I sat. Less than five minutes later, I walked out again and went back to the dining room.

The room was too cold and I had been the only one there, everybody else was too busy learning the patterns of other people’s minds.

Many minutes later, we were ushered back into the room, into the freezing cold. It felt like stepping through the doorway from the summer into the winter. Somehow, in the minutes I had been away, it had become even colder. We sat there in the cold, waiting.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Comes To Teach The Creative Writers’ Workshop

When Chimamanda finally walked into the room, I can only speak for myself and say that it felt like the sun had just risen. She had a large smile on her face, and she was gorgeous and she looked genuinely happy to meet us.

I didn’t notice when but eventually, I felt the strain in my cheeks that told me I was smiling widely. She came in and sat beside me, to my immediate right.

When editing, look at the first and last few sentences.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Here was a woman whose books I had read back to back and who I had loved for so many years and she was sitting so close that if I stretched my hand, I would have been able to touch her. She smiled at us many times and then she introduced herself to raucous, disbelieving laughter.

“We already know you!” Many of us wanted to shout. “We know everything there is to know about you.”

She told us bits about herself, declared the room a safe space, and invited us to share pieces of ourselves. It was like we were transported out of that freezing space by the sea to the safest place everyone could be. (For me, it was an island away from civilization).

It was like we had been transported and told that we could be our deepest truest selves. Some of us poked the change with sticks, and others embraced it wholeheartedly.

What is important is that one after the other, we shared pieces of ourselves. And in that room, we started to form bonds that I believe will endure. And this is what I found most fascinating about the writing workshop model Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie built.

Why Our Writing Samples Stood Out From The Other Applicants.

After our brief introduction, we began the business of the day. Chimamanda told us why she had selected the stories she did.

Use more detail so that your story is more believable.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

She didn’t pick perfect stories, she said. She added that It had been particularly hard that year, to select the stories she did. And then she began to critique our entry stories one after the other.

During the course of this session, which stretched into the next day, she shared a few gems. I’ll share a few of the writing tips Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shared while she was teaching the writing workshop:

• Don’t think about the audience when writing, think about the story.
• When writing out of your box (gender, nationality, etc.), it is important to come to it with humility.
• When editing, look at the first and last few sentences.
• Use more detail so that your story is more believable.
• Allow your characters some vulnerability.
• Be specific but don’t overdo it in order to write a more believable story.

Finally, she got to my story. And she told me something I will remember forever. Sorry, I will not share it with you.

The First Three Days Of The Writers’ Workshop and The Writing Prompts We Explored.

We spent the first three days of the writing workshop with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

We wrote more stories. They can serve as a writing workshop idea or a writing prompt for you.

• One assignment was to write a story using only dialogue,
• Another prompt involved a story about what we like and dislike about ourselves. These exercises opened us up and forced us to confront parts of ourselves we had never dared to open up.

For many of us (myself included), we had never been able to write anything so personal. For many of us, it was like opening a can of worms.

The stories were so hard to write but eventually, the worms grew into butterflies. We found that we were better for the sleepless nights we had to endure to complete our writing assignments.

Writing Tip: There should always be layers in everything you write.

— Lola Shoneyin.

So yes, the first three days of the writing workshop were daunting but absolutely worth it. Above all, they were fun as we had started to develop stronger relationships over fried fish, and chicken curry sauce, and salads, with sugary drinks to wash it all down.

The Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop With Lola Shoneyin, Author and Founder Of The Ake Festival.

The fourth day of the writing workshop saw us paired with Lola Shoneyin and brought what would become a fun, poetry session.

Writing Tip: Use symbolism to show how people are different.

— Lola Shoneyin.

I definitely did not know before I met her that she had published at least three poetry collections. And that she’d published these before releasing her critically-acclaimed novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.

During the writing workshop, Lola taught us about brevity and subtlety in writing. The workshop participants learned how to use writing as therapy.. And we learned about foreshadowing.

Some golden creative writing tips she shared with us are as follows:

• There should always be layers in everything you write. This will help you build a great narrative arc.
• To be able to tell overly personal experiences, learn to detach yourself.
• The more you translate someone’s work into your language, the better your description will be.
• Use symbolism to show how people are different.

She also discussed how to write from many perspectives when writing a novel. To make it all easier, here are some things to note when writing different voices:

• Draw very clear lines.
• Get to know each character intimately.
• Write down a character bible.

To practice, we took a poem that Lola chose. After she’d separated us into groups of four, we translated it into pidgin.

This exercise was an illustration of how description can be more vivid when translated into your language. It showed how translation exercises can aid the writer in painting a clearer picture in a story.

The Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop With Tash Aw.

After Lola was Tash Aw with whom we learned to write about people who are close to us.

Write about things you’re more emotionally drawn to.

— Tash Aw

Tash’s writing workshop model was slightly different from Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s model.

Tash Aw had us pair up. And for his assignment, we had to discuss parts of ourselves with our partners. From what each writer had learned of the other person, everyone had to write a story about their partner. It had to be something they could relate to.

Colour narratives of people with what you know about them.

— Tash Aw

On the second day, my roommate, D, finally arrived. And it was with her that I completed this assignment. This was particularly hard for me, and I ended up doing a fairly decent job only on my second try.

Are you interested in trying this writing workshop idea? Here are some writing tips which I noted from Tash’s class:

• Write about things you’re more emotionally drawn to.
• Be able to say the things that they said, didn’t say, and could have said.
• Stories can be used to antagonize the subject.
• Writing is about going into their emotional space, about invading their personal lives.
• Colour narratives of people with what you know about them.

Learning How To Write From Eghosa Imaseun.

Next, the workshop participants enjoyed a visit from Eghosa Imaseun. Before he showed up, he sent us stories to read. Short stories and articles that taught us a lot about the proper way to submit stories and how to maintain voices while we write.

We also got an assignment to re-write a chapter of a popular book. The winner took home the complete set of Chimamanda Adichie’s books (I’m still jealous, T).

Below are some things to note from Eghosa’s writing class. His tips focused on things to consider when submitting a book to a publisher:

Write a striking cover letter.

Write a letter of approach requesting publication. This should have three parts: why you write, what you write, who you are.

Include A Short Synopsis.

Summarize what you’ve written in two sentences. Include why you’re the best person to tell the story.

Include Samples Of Your Work.

Submit three chapters or 50 pages or 10,000 words of your novel, whichever is longer.

Don’t Hesitate To Send A Follow-Up Email To The Publisher.

Follow up on your submission after two months.

Follow The Publisher’s Submission Guidelines.

The safest thing is to go to their submissions page and check if they have a preferred format; it’s usually best to send a traditional format.

Eghosa was hard surfaces with soft tips. He asked questions and actually expected an answer. Again, he was self-critical and magnanimous. And he said things that shocked you but at the same time did not, because you knew he meant them.

You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.

He shared some tips about points of view with us and their specific differences. An important thing I learned during Eghosa’s session is that the best way to transport yourself to the time where you’re writing is to use music and things that are relevant to that place.

What Dave Eggers Taught At The Writing Workshop About Points Of View And Editing.

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Dave Eggers was last to see us but in no way the least. With Dave, we discussed how to humanize a character, for writing about people we don’t particularly like.

Some of the ways a writer can humanize a character are:

• Show vulnerability in the character.
• Portray the character with someone or something they love.
• Present their weakness in relatable ways.
• Reveal their doubts, their internal struggles.
• Show what they are like when they fail.
• Reveal their inner justification for evil. In most cases, people who do evil think they have good reasons for their actions.
• Take readers into the character’s head.

Dave took us through an invaluable editing class that is worth more than I can ever say. Gold, maybe? With Dave, we discussed experimental stories, stories that are told not from the typical points of view but strange ones.

Workshop participants had to think about possibly writing from the point of view of a housefly, of a dead woman, using different structures, and we did, with many of us producing stellar work.

For our assignment, Dave told us to pick a newspaper story and write a fictional story out of it. It was particularly boring as none of the stories seemingly had good material. We spun gold out of the ordinary thread after which we took the practical road to ‘editing’.

How To Edit Your Story: Tips From The Writing Workshop With Dave Eggers.

• Never use so/then.
• Do not put a semicolon in dialogue.
• Analyze your story sentence by sentence and remove words that don’t do anything for the sentence.
• Don’t overdo the dialogue tags.
• Show more than you tell.

We were encouraged to share our work and until today, a quote rings in my head every time I think of holding back: “You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

The quote may be overused but it is no less important.

Other Interesting Extracurricular Activities We Participated In During The Writing Workshop.

It is crucial to note that we were not just props sitting in class, and trudging back to our rooms at the end of the day.

In the middle of the unending work, we found time to watch movies together in J’s room, have a dance party, go on long walks as a group during which I had a soul-moving talk with T.

We took our time to grow as writers as well as individuals as well as Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Trust Students.

Also, we spent nights staring at the sky, sitting in the bar downstairs discussing ourselves, peeling open wounds that had been long forgotten, and left buried under a bandage.

We talked and laughed and selfied among ourselves. Each day of those ten days is well documented.

The Final Days Of The Writers Workshop.

All too soon, it was the tenth day. We would spend the day getting ready, making ourselves up and stuffing beautiful outfits, shoes, and gorgeous makeup into the gaping holes our oncoming departure would leave within us.

At the oriental hotel, I floated through the day. It was finally the day we would have our long-awaited selfies with Chimamanda who had to travel and couldn’t make it on our previously scheduled date.

One by one, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, with our certificates in hand, called our names. And one after the other we climbed onto the stage, to hear her say the things about us that she had liked best, things we had thought she would have forgotten.

Not Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; She had a sharp memory and remembered the most important things about each one of us, gave us words we each held to our chests, and as we went back to our hotel, one sentence played over in my mind which she had said at a point during the writing workshop, “I can’t wait to read your books.”

Author’s Bio:

Simbiat Haroun lives in her head and when she is not writing, she is silently watching, thinking about what next she will turn into a story. She is a graduate of Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Trust Workshop.

We’ll be publishing more feature stories from other writers. Keep visiting CWN. Or better still, subscribe for our newsletter and you’ll get updates right in your inbox.

Want to write for us? Great! Read the submissions guidelines on our Write for Us Page

The post Writing Workshop With Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Learning To Write Like A Nobel Laureate At The Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop. appeared first on Creative Writing News.

Serious poets want to be better writers of poetry. Also, they want to learn how to edit poetry.

Many poets understand that editing is as important as the actual writing. It’s your opportunity to examine and refine your work into a better and more developed piece worthy of awards. It makes sense to learn how to edit poetry. Who knows where your reputation as a poetry editor might take you?

Editing can seem daunting, and it’s also quite exciting. So take some time to experiment and find the techniques and processes that best work for you and your poetry.  Yes, you’ll have to learn to edit your poems first.

Here’s a guide on how to edit poetry. This guide includes poetry editing strategies guaranteed to help you become a great poetry editor. One strategy is to use poem editing tools like AI PoemGenerator to help you create and edit poems in a blink of an eye.

Take a Break From The Poem. 

Writing poetry can be difficult and consuming. After completing your poem, take a break from the creative process. Let your brain relax. Reapproach your poem with a fresh mind. You want to be able to read the line with fresh eyes.

This technique works when you’re editing your own poem and when you’re editing another writer’s poetry.

You’ll do a better job of assessing and editing the poem more objectively if you implement this technique.

Save the First Draft Of The Poem.

One of the reasons editing can feel intimidating is because of the idea that you’re “killing your darlings.”

Keep your unedited first draft, so the poetry editing process doesn’t feel like you’re cutting and discarding your own precious lines of poetry.

If your poem is typed, it can be helpful to print it out. Your unedited draft will remain on your computer, and editing is often easier when you physically highlight and make notes on the poem.

This way, instead of killing your darlings, you’re still letting them hang around, and the unused ones can be used in other poems.

In addition, your edits will be reversible, and you can compare your unedited and edited versions for even more improvements. All the best poetry editors use this strategy. It’s a good tactic for anyone who’s still learning how to edit poetry.

Read your Poem Like a Reader Would.

Read your poem in its entirety. Don’t make edits or think about adjustments. Let yourself enjoy the words and experience your poem like a reader would. After a complete read, note down your immediate thoughts and impressions. 

• Do any words or lines feel strange? 
• Which parts could use reinforcement? 
• Do some areas seem choppy or cramped? 

Think about the reader’s perspective. 

• Is the writing clear or confusing? 
• Is the theme or message of your poem coming across?

It can also be helpful to read your poem aloud so you can pick up on how it sounds. 

• How is the rhythm and flow? Is your writing eloquent enough?

Reading through your poem and breaking down what exactly needs to be fixed will result in more productive and efficient editing. Now you’re prepared to make your first level of edits.

Enhance the Style

After making the first round of adjustments, begin focusing on style edits. The style of a poem is all the choices that are made to create the poem’s meaning. Coleridge’s The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner is a good example of a well edited poem.

This can range from literary devices to punctuation to rhythm to mood. Examine your style elements and how they contribute to the poem; they should enhance your writing and complement the themes and meaning of your poem.

That being said, you should also make sure that your poem isn’t crowded with style elements. Poetry is a form that operates by the “less is more” policy, so sometimes it can be helpful to remove excess.

• Does your style complement your poem?
• What elements could be enhanced to contribute to a more developed piece?
• What elements could be taken out to clear unnecessary crowding and confusion?

Assess the Language Of The Poem.

Carefully study your word choice. Every word should be contributing to the theme, structure, and rhythm of your poem. Also examine your diction and what it is implying. 

• Does the diction match your theme and style? 
• Are there ways to maximize the effect?
• What is one way to revise for word choice?
• Is this poem good enough for oral reading?

This is a good time to take out your thesaurus and experiment with word choice. Also, poetry usually isn’t as word-heavy as other forms of writing. Keep that in mind while editing; it’s better to remove unnecessary adjectives and adverbs. Additionally, make sure you are beginning and ending with powerful lines for a stronger poem and greater impact.

Reorder and Restructure

Once you’ve done all your writing-based edits, give your poem another read. Assess the order and structure of your poem. Experiment with different stanza and line orders to find which sounds and flows the best. This will help you to learn how to edit poetry.

Poetry also involves an aesthetic element; try altering your lines to make your poem look better on the page. If your poem is typed up, a helpful tip is to change the font.

Your brain gets accustomed to observing the same text; changing the font will let you assess it with fresh eyes and assess the structure better. As a bonus, grammar and spelling errors are easier to detect with a font change.

• Can your stanzas be reordered to flow better and make a better poem?
• Could your lines be rearranged within the individual stanzas to emphasize meaning?
• Could your lines be shortened, lengthened, or combined to create a better structure?

Ask Others for Feedback

After you’ve made all your edits, it can be helpful to ask others for their suggestions. Share your poems with trusted friends, family, or other writers and ask them for feedback.

A good practice is to ask others what they think the poem is about. You may get some interesting poetry analyses that can indicate whether your poem is being understood the way you want it to or not.

Keep in mind that you get to decide what to do with the feedback you receive. If you found it insightful you could use it to do another level of edits. You could also choose not to act upon the feedback; it’s your poem, edit it as you see fit. 

You can also seek feedback on the behalf of the writer whose poem you’re editing. The feedback you’ll get will help you do a better job of editing the poem. With time, you’ll figure out everything you need to learn about how to edit poetry.

Rewrite Your Poetry.

Every poet has heard this saying, ‘the first draft is always trash.’

While editing a poem, be prepared to revise some lines. Writing experts advice poets to edit until your poem says what you want it to say. Writing experts advice poets to edit until your poem says what you want it to say before getting it published.

Edit the poem until it sings. If you’re still learning how to edit poetry, don’t be in a haste to rewrite ‘imperfect’ sentences. Be careful to avoid editing out the writer’s voice. Strike a balance between maintaining the writer’s voice and improving the lines of the poem.

Read The Poem Out Loud.

After a few rounds of revision, read the poem aloud. This will help you to spot errors you might have missed.

Read the poem to a small audience, and listen to their opinion. Good poems are often good for oral reading.

Also, ask yourself if you’re satisfied with the edited poem. If you aren’t, revise the part that require some improvement.

Congratulations on completing your poem, if you feel satisfied with the completed poem!

If you aren’t happy with the finished work, no worries! You can always return to the editing process and write as many drafts as you need.

Use A Grammar And Spell Checker Like Every Good Poem Editor.

Every poet who’s still figuring out how to write a poem must use a grammar checker or a spell checker. This will go a long way to help you to correct small grammatical and spelling errors.

Wrap Up On How To Edit Poetry.

Poetry editing isn’t a small feat. It requires a lot of writing and reading, as well as a ot of practicing. You have to learn to take a break from the poem with the aim of backing back to the poem with fresh eyes. Other strategies include:

• rewriting the poem
• Getting feedback from seasoned poetry critics or writers
• Restructure your poem
• Read the poem aloud to yourself and them to a small group of cohorts.
• Using a grammar checker
• Take a break from the poem.
• Using a thesaurus or a dictionary. 

It’s standard practice for every editor to use a dictionary or a thesaurus. This ensures that only the apt and concise words make it into the final draft.

While figuring out how to edit a poem, strive to choose the best words in the poem you’re editing. Many editor poets often wonder, “what is one way to revise for word choice?” My answer: revise awkward-sounding lines and use a thesaurus or a dictionary.

Did you ever have to actively learn how to revise a poem? What lessons have you learned from your experience? Please share your story in the comments section below. There are thousands of poets who want to learn how to edit a poem.

You can find more poetry writing tips in this article.

The post How To Edit Poetry: A Guide On How To Become One Of The Best Poem Editors In The World. appeared first on Creative Writing News.

We are very delighted to announce that the Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Trust is now receiving applications for its workshop. Now in its 10^th year, the workshop, which is organized by multiple award-winning Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, will hold in Awka, Anambra State—from December 9 to December 14, 2019. Accommodation will be provided for all selected participants during the span of the workshop. At the end of the workshop, a literary evening of readings, which will be open to the public, will be held. The workshop is supported be Anambra State Government. Deadline for applications is November 6, 2019.

What Will Participants Get From Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop 2019?

• You get to learn from the Queen herself and from other amazing writers.
• As a new writer, the workshop could launch your career.
• Most important is the community Chimamanda’s workshop provides. You get to be part of that community.
• And more.

How to Apply For Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop 2019:

• Send a writing sample—either prose fiction or creative non-fiction—of between 200 and 800 words.
• In the body of your email, include your name, address and a brief and concise bio.
• Paste your story in the body of the email. Your applications will be disqualified if yu send it with an attachment.
• The subject of your email should be “Workshop Application”.
• Submit workshop2019@purplehibiscus.org
• Deadline for applications is November 6, 2019.
• All selected applicants will be notified by November 24, 2019.

Tips for those applying For Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop 2019:

• Let your mind be at rest. Don’t fret.
• Choose story ideas that are very distinct and that at the same time memorable.
• Write that story that means something to you.
• The following essays will do you a world of good:

  Personal Essay: On Getting Writing Advice From Chimamanda Adichie, Bonding With The Literati and Enjoying The Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop

  and Resonance: A Personal Essay on the 2018 Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop.

• You should also check out this article: How to Write a Good Short Story: Lessons from a Short-Story Day with TJ Benson.

Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop  and Answers to them:

• Workshop and Q: Is the writing sample to be pasted on the body of the email or sent as an attachment?
• A: Paste your sample in the body of the email.
• Q: Can you send a previously published work as writing sample?
• A: Yes, you can.
• Q: Who covers travel expenses for those who reside outside Nigeria?
• A: We are not sure, but you can send an inquiry to workshop2019@purplehibiscus.org.
• Q: How should requirements be filled?
• A: Be formal. Go straight to the point. Paste your writing sample immediately after the required information (i.e. name, address, etc…)
• Q: Will submissions be acknowledged?
• A: We can’t say for sure about this year, but we know submissions will most likely be acknowledged.
• Q: What kind of stories will make Ms. Chimamanda want you in her workshop?
• A: Memorable stories. Also, stories with complex themes and rounded characters. In addition, make sure the story you are sending can be read as a standalone story.
• Q: Are there age restrictions?
• A: So far, there haven’t been age restrictions; writers of all ages are welcome to submit.

You could drop your questions in the comment box below.

Good luck.

The post Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop 2019 Is Currently Open For Submissions / How to Apply appeared first on Creative Writing News.

Yes, I found some good stories, and I am sharing them. Two from Jalada’s most recent issue, the Afterlife issue, and one from Agbowó, I hope you enjoy them.

“The Replica” by Mayowa Koleosho (published in Jalada: The Afterlife Issue)

“I had lost my mother ten years to the date. Ten years since a vital part of me left, effectively upending my life and what I came to know of it.” – from “The Replica”.

This story begins with a very fine idea—when the narrator writes: “I am going to resurrect the dead!”

The resurrection of the dead is not the lazarus kind of resurrection and it is not the calling of the dead’s spirit, but it is the creation of a digital replica of the dead. The dead is the narrator’s mother. But to make that—the replica—happen, the narrator, who is also the main character, Jide, has to come to Nigeria from the United States, to gather information on his late mother.

Brilliant storyline, but the delivery is not what I expected. The story is told and not shown in anyway (except in a few places: “I still recall his sigh, caressing his eye-brow as he thought up the right words to say”; “I can still hear the generator humming outside, the whirling of the fan as it dispersed humid air around the room and the silence that followed after I outlined my plan of bringing my mother to life.”).

I really felt cheated while reading this story, because there were places (too many places) where I wanted to see what had happened happen, not the other way round. There was the visit to Jide’s mother’s sisters for example. As if we, the readers, don’t deserve to be witnesses to whatever happened, in five paragraphs that include no dialogue from any of the sisters, we are told about the visits.

Then there is the resort to cliché. In this story, there is a whole lot of not just clichéd sayings, but even of tired scenes. Like when the narrator writes: “Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. I was hit with a bout of malaria that sidelined me for a good week.” Or when he describes a guy named Mojeed as “a recent graduate from the University of Lagos, who was having difficulties finding work post-graduation and resorted to using his car for taxi or rental services.” All those scenes are tired scenes that you’ll find in stories about Nigerians in America coming to Nigeria. There is also the “ajo o dabi ile” that his maternal grandfather says when they visit. The truth is: a very old Yoruba man won’t say “ajo o dabi ile” to his late daughter’s son, he would use a proverb taken from top of the shelf.

What kept me in this story was what I wanted to find out about the replica, you should read it for that reason, too.

“Vertigo” by Adams Adeosun (published on Agbowo)

“They make love violently—like an invasion. They both climax, clutching each other as if scared they would transcend their bodies and dissolve. And like everything that climaxes, their romance races to a denouement.”—from “Vertigo”.

The architect weaves a story about architecture and painting and loves. In this story, a lady finds what appears to be love, but it isn’t and it breaks her. Then she finds another, and “the president, on a cable TV, garbed in black like an executioner, outlaw(s) queer love.”

Adams’ magic lies in the way he weaves through different lives—in a space of not more than a few thousand words—swiftly and neatly, without making us feel like we’ve been cheated.

But it seems the most fascinating thing about Adams’ work is not just the story, which is in itself beautiful, but much more beautiful is his descriptive power. There is a part of the story where he writes that a landing looks like the transcription of a Beethoven classic—! Later in the story, he writes that two buildings, a bank and a shopping plaza, make a character think of marriage; he adds that a neon sign glows “where a vagina should be”.

However, his descriptive power pales compared to his ability to show how things happen in our lives in the moment when we do not even expect them; how there might really be something called fate after all. There’s the scene where a lady leaves a conference room to escape the stupid action of a man who was running his hand under her skirt. While walking she finds out there are portraits on every landing. She then follows the portrait to the top floor where she finds Alheri, where she finds love.

“Vertigo” is as beautiful as it is interesting and painful; it is the gentle hand of a motherless child on yours, it will stay with you no matter how small the space it takes in your heart.

“The Spider Queen”—Temitayo Olofinlua (published in Jalada: The Afterlife issue)

“You find yourself alone at the doorsteps of a church but cannot say how you moved past the church’s elaborate gate and up its short steps.”—from “The Spider Queen”.

When do we really know we are gone after we are gone? When the spirit leaves the body, is the spirit always conscious of its leaving?

You have to read this story to find out.

A lady—the Spider Queen—was killed, but not until she had scheduled her story for the world to hear. It’s a story about how we do not take note of the assaults against women, even when they are our daughters, until what we ask them to bear—because of the notion that we have that it is always a woman’s responsibility to bear, even if what she is bearing will end her—ruins them. The irony is, the same people who say “Bear it” are the ones who will ask what’s wrong, and when you tell them what it is that’s wrong, they give you the same advice they’ve been carrying for years—Endure.

The writer makes this very clear. There was a scene in the story where Rita—the Spider Queen—’s mother called and realized she was crying. The woman asked her daughter what was wrong and her daughter told her, and her reply was: “Rita, a wife does not do what her husband does not want. Whatever he says you should do, biko, my dear, just do. A good wife submits to her husband.” In an earlier scene we now meet the same mother who was preaching submission crying, when the knife had done its deed.

What I find interesting in this story is how the writer weaves different scenes together in a way that nothing is left off and it is not confusing, especially with the use of the numbering—I guess the way the story is done is a kind of representation of the web of a spider. There is also real suspense in this story, something that keeps you in it. And the twist at the end was nice.

“The Spider Queen” also has a Nollywood feel to it, a cinematic narrative style—I was almost seeing every movement and hearing every sound—and it is one of the story’s major strengths.

Read this story, it will thrust a dart in your heart, but it will make you see women differently; it will help you understand that women have a reason to be angry, to be whatever they choose to be that you are uncomfortable with—because they mostly pay dearly for offenses they never committed.

Drop your comment on the stories.

The post Recommended Short Stories You Can Read Online. This Edition Features Stories by Mayowa Koleosho, Adams Adeosun and Temitayo Olofinlua. appeared first on Creative Writing News.

This week’s stories are beautiful and painful and funny; all three stories from Brittle Paper. Two from the anthologies they published this year—Go the Way Your Blood Beats, edited by Ananthi Jongilanga, and The Vanguard Book of Love Stories, edited by Nonso Anyanwu—and one from their blog.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

“You Bury Me”, Klara Kalu (published in The Vanguard Book of Love Stories, edited by Nonso Anyanwu)

“Ife mi,

Do you remember the first time you saved me? I was ten years old and my mom had sent me to buy Maggi when that troublesome group of teenage boys in our neighborhood stopped me.”—from “You Bury Me”.

In this beautifully told story, childhood love grows as the characters, a boy and a girl, grow older. And it doesn’t end even when death did its thing.

Klara Kalu, whose works I’ll have to begin searching for now, and follow, is an amazing talent. She wrote this short story with much carefulness and a kind of freedom, too. I bet it could be a novel; she does well at building her characters and not leaving characters out. While the story is about the two lovers, we also meet other characters like Mr. Chikwem, the man who drove their primary school bus; the narrator’s mother; the lady the boy dated when he got to the Uni.

This is a short story that spans almost the lifetime of two people, yet there is a way in which we aren’t bored with the unnecessary; what we’re given is what the story needs. Things move smoothly and happen so fast, yet we don’t feel like something’s been skipped. This is what made me feel like, yes, I agree, when I got to the part where the narrator’s mother said, “I always knew it was him.”, after the narrator told her that they , the main characters, were getting married.

I can’t say exactly what the story will do for you, but I can promise this:  this story will shut out the world you’re in and drag you into itself; it will make you want to fall madly in love—and maybe, only maybe, it will rend your heart.

“The Hour of Judgement”, Edith Knight Magak (published on Brittle Paper)

“THE HOUR OF judgement has come upon me, and my hope for redemption is pegged on a needle, sorcery, and a razor blade. If all fail—no, I will not think of that possibility.”—from “The Hour of Judgement”.

It is true that when we talk of wanting others, it is simply because we want them to help us somehow; we want a kind of salvation from them. But most times, the ‘other’ doesn’t really possess what it takes to help, though they may appear to.

In this short story by Edith Knight Magak, a young lady is married off to a chief, Chief Utawala. Chief Utawala marries her because he believes she’s a virgin—he needs a virgin. You need to read the piece to find out why he wants a virgin; he has three wives already, four in fact, one left. However, the new bride is not a virgin, she had given it to “the puny pimpled-face idiot of a boy called Ware”, who promised to marry her, one afternoon “under the byeyo tree.”

To save herself the shame that will come with the chief not meeting her a virgin, she visits the medicine man. The medicine man gave her a needle, sorcery, and a razor blade as charm. The thing is, Chief Utawala already visited the medicine man, too, and he gave the Chief charms as well. And there was a warning, “it [the charm the medicine man gave Chief] is not to mix with any other charm or sorcery or the consequences will be worse.”

Told from the POV of the girl, the new bride, first, and later, from the Chief’s, we do not know what happened at last. Edith leaves us to piece things together, to give it our own ending.

Read it; you’ll smile.

“Songbird”, Innocent Acan Immaculate (published in Go the Way Your Blood Beats: New Short Fiction from Africa, edited by Ananthi Jongilanga)

“IN THE OLD days, you knew when you gave birth to a musambwa. Before it released its first bewitching cry, before the liquor was cold on its skin, your mothers wrenched it from your child’s body and buried it in a clay pot deep in the ground, where its entrapping song would never be heard.”—from “Songbird”.

This one comes from the winner of the Writivism Short Story Prize 2016.

The story follows the life of Zouk, a girl who is a musambwa, who has a Demon, whose mother is Salima. The girl, Zouk, doesn’t talk until she is seven years old, and when she did, it was singing; she sang “an old Paulo Kafeero song Salima knows only because her grandfather forced her to listen to it…” Zouk’s song felt like a spell on every one who heard it, and soon, everyone wanted to hear her sing.

Then there was Adam, her very protective elder brother, who was madly in love with her. And there was the day Salima finds him, Adam, moving over his sister. Later, when Zouk is in America, in New York, when she was with Kam, the lady she loves, the Demon would mention that he took Adam, who had hanged himself after his sister was sent to America, because he wasn’t allowed to follow her.

A lot of things happen in this piece; it reminds me of Eloghosa Osunde’s “Night Wind” (which you should read if you haven’t).

However, despite the story being a little difficult (for me, maybe it won’t be for you), Innocent Acan’s voice and wisdom and ability to glide from place to place and moment to moment without any ruffles, her ability to write the difficult neatly, is amazing—and it’s one of the reasons why this short story is worth the read.

Enjoy.

The post Recommended Short Stories You Can Read Online. This Edition Features Stories by Klara Kalu, Innocent Acan Immaculate, and Edith Knight. appeared first on Creative Writing News.

One of the three recommended short stories this week is by a writer we know well; the two others are from writers whose name we’ll hear more and more very soon. One of the stories was published in an African mag, Agbowo’s ‘Limits’ Issue, while the two others were published in non-African mags—Barren and Zoetrope.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

“24, Alhaji Williams Street” by Pemi Aguda (published in Zoetrope: All Story)

“Alhaji Williams is a very long street. The plots are small, and many hold clusters of flats. So we had enough time to see what was happening before it was our turn. My turn. By the afternoon the fever reached the fourth house, the rest of the street had braced for its arrival.”—from “24, Alhaji Williams Street.”

From the winner of the 2015 Writivism Prize for the short story “Caterer, Caterer” comes this story about children dying of a fever that has no name, house by house. Narrated by a boy of seventeen who loves Brymo, it is a moving piece. What seems to be a light story at the beginning becomes darker and darker as the story moves on and we wonder if the fever would take the narrator, too, if it would take all the children on Alhaji Williams Street.

At last, it becomes a tale about survival and what we do to make it out alive, about how we die sometimes to live.

Pemi also does well in building suspense in this story, the way I was drawn into the story from the start (at this point because of the voice), and the way I couldn’t stop reading because I wanted to know what would befall the narrator, a boy that’s in my age category. And maybe that’s why I can relate well with the story, with the voice, because the person in trouble is a boy like me. Could have been me. Also because the world Pemi creates is very familiar—a street in Lagos, boys who smoke, boys who listen to Brymo (I’m a big fan of Brymo’s music!), boys attending tutorials in preparation for JAMB, going to Ibadan to write the exam. And it’s not surprising that she knows all these things about the life of a young boy living in Lagos, in Niaja—Pemi does that all the time.

The way Pemi creates gloom in the story is amazing.

“We went to a pharmacy and pooled money to buy a thermometer. “What’s the normal body temperature?” Junior asked.

I asked Google. “Thirty-seven degrees Celsius.”

He raised his T-shirt and stuck the thermometer in his armpit. As we waited, we watched the passing cars. He pulled it out, and we crowded over it, squinting.

“Thirty-seven point two?” he asked.

I leaned in. “Thirty-seven point one.” Then it was my turn.

He shook the thermometer, and when I told him to wipe the end on his shirt, we laughed.

I placed the device under my arm, hugging my elbow tightly. I sent a message: Be cool, be cool. And when I pulled it out, a whiff of sweat dissipating in the air between us, Junior read, “Thirty-six point nine.” I looked away from the envy he tried to hide.

We shared a joint at the back of Iya Risi’s buka, staring at the goats and cooped chickens that would soon be lunch. We argued over which of Brymo’s albums was the best, if Klitôris showed a dip in his arc, if he was maybe the Fela of our generation.

“If all your friends were in hell, would you still go to heaven?” Junior asked me.

I blew out smoke. “I don’t know, man.””

 “I had dreams of hellfire. I think it was hellfire. It burned the University of Ibadan, the one legacy I’d hoped to continue on for my father. It burned my fantasies of ever seeing Brymo in concert, or of watching my sister finally marry her boyfriend. And sometimes, from the inferno, Junior would call out to me.

I’d wake up from these dreams, stick the thermometer in my armpit, and stare at the numbers—36.9, 37.2, 37.3, 36.9, 37.1—until they blurred into black smudges and I drifted back to unconsciousness.

For the JAMB exam, we were required to bring photocopies of our forms and receipts. I piled all my documents in the backyard and set them aflame.”

Pemi also writes about how we treat people when we know we might lose them soon:

“I woke the next morning to discover my sister at the foot of my bed, peering over me as if trying to memorize me, scaring me fully alert. She told me to get dressed, that she was taking us to the new amusement park on the expressway. We were having a family day.”

And when we come to the end, we still keep wondering—but this time, it’s a gentle kind of wonder.

“Hurt” by Chimeka Garricks (published in Barren Magazine Issue No. 2)

“Your mother starts crying when Dami turns up for his funeral.” – from Hurt

…That start got me big time, and Chimeka did not disappoint.

Dami, after he was diagnosed with brain tumor at a time that it had become too late to treat, insists on organizing and attending his own funeral (“a living funeral”) a few weeks before his death. Narrated in the second person, from the point of view of his brother, Priye, the story is painful but also a little bit funny. And it has the Nollywood kind of feel to it, only that Chimeka ties things well here.

Here is what I mean: Dami was the last child of a very wealthy family, and was spoilt. He got everything he wanted, because his mother would not let him not have anything he wanted. Third year in Unilag, he decided he was going to the UK to school—and the company of their late father, which at the time was struggling to pay salaries, was required to pay for that choice. Ten years later, he would be deported from UK, with nothing but the achievement of dropping out of two universities and gaining a drug habit. Back in Nigeria, his mother insisted that his elder brother, who was handling the company his father left behind, appointed him as a director in the company—and Dami surprised everyone by working hard, getting married and cutting parties. But then there was another surprise—almost a year later, he cleaned out over a hundred and ninety-six million naira from the company’s main account. Then the tumor; then he’s all changed.

The very beautiful thing about this story is how it speaks of family, how we will always forgive our loved ones who do the shittiest of things—not because they deserve it, but because we have to, because family is family. It’s about where we fall back to when our time is dripping its last, when we can see the end already and there’s no running. And, this: It’s about what brothers do, about how your ‘lil’ bro will always be your ‘lil’ bro no matter how tall he grows.

The little twists in the story are nice, too. For example, this conversation between Joy, Dami’s ex-wife, and Priye, Dami’s brother:

“You took advantage of another lengthy silence to finish your drink. You caught her eyes, held them and said as honestly as you could. “I hope you forgive yourself and you heal fully soon.”

Her smile was sad. “I’m glad you didn’t say I should forgive him.”

You shrugged, “I suspect that comes as part of the full healing package.”

“I’ll heal when I see Dami’s grave. I plan to spit on it.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Her eyes flashed. “Is that a dare?”

“You don’t understand.” You exhaled. “He wants to be cremated.””

Chimeka also does well with the use of Nigerian English in this piece, the only thing being that the characters’ voices sometimes slip into the narrative voice. But it still remains a wonderful short story.

“Made of Water” by Erhu Kome Yellow (published in Agbowó’s Limits Issue)

“His name is Akpo and he could not be more than 17. He had told me what was going on. Why he and the other boys had to sit there every day, watching and waiting. He spoke some form of broken English but I understood every word. 

“The matter start small. Oil company people discover oil for here. Them help us build primary school, build water tower even give us generator and our chiefs give them free pass to work. When time reach to con work, those Oteri people, our neighbor town say make the oil company people no drill for the land.””—from “Made of Water”.

A YA story about what we do for love, for family, about the sacrifices we make. It is narrated by a teenage girl named Rossetti and is about her mom and her best friend, Jazz, and the two boys, Akpo and Ben, who mean something to her. A number of things happen in the story which are generally things a young person would notice: She meets Akpo, the seventeen-year old boy who carries a gun to defend ‘our’ land, and she’s somewhat fascinated by him; she’s angry because she wasn’t invited to a party; her mother, who lost her job not long after her father died, buys her a tulle dress that must be very costly, and she wonders where her mother got the money; she hangs out with her best friend Jazz, and the boy, Ben, she has a crush on, who seems to like her, walks by—later in the story he invites her for a date. But all these things blend to make a wonderful story, and there’s a nice twist at the end, and I like the note on which the story ends.

The use of a mix of pidgin English, which Erhu calls ‘broken English’, is nice—the only thing being that the boy, Akpo, who is supposed to speak broken English, sometimes speaks fluent English.

Here for example:

“”I no know for am. Evil mind? But e stop so I join my mama for farm you know. Man’s got to eat. This work,” he holds out his rifle, “it will give me and my mama money so we can find house of our own. The oil company people will give chiefs money, the chiefs will give us our share. Na so e be.” He pauses. Then he begins to speak again with emotion in his voice. “And the oil land is our land! I must protect wetin belong to us by fire by force. No small pikin mind here.””

—Akpo speaks good English.

However, I like the voice in the story; it’s gentle, and it was really what kept me in the story.

I hope you enjoy reading these stories. I’ll be reviewing and recommending more interesting short stories in the coming weeks.

Did you enjoy these stories as much as I did? Please leave your comments below.

ERNEST O. ÒGÚNYEMÍ is an eighteen-year old writer and spoken word artist from Nigeria. His works have appeared/ forthcoming in: Kalahari Review, Litro ‘Comedy’ Issue, Lucent Dreaming, Low Light Magazine, Canvas Lit Journal, Agbowó ‘Limits’ Issue, and elsewhere. He is a 2019 Adroit Summer Mentee, and currently serves as an editorial intern at COUNTERCLOCK Journal. In 2018, he won the Association of Nigerian Authors NECO/ Teen Prize for his manuscript of short stories, “Tomorrow Brings Beautiful Things: STORIES”. He is currently working on his first novel.

The post Recommended Short Stories You Can Read Online. This Edition Features Story By Pemi Aguda, Chimeka Garricks, and Erhu Kome Yellow. appeared first on Creative Writing News.

The Society of Book and Magazine Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN) will be holding another career-changing editing workshop in September, 2019. This upcoming workshop will be its third for the year.

This edition has been themed: The Fundamentals of Fiction and Non-Fiction Editing.

If you have always dreamed of becoming a professional editor, here’s your chance to learn from the best editors in the industry. This course is also fantastic for creative writers who are interested in learning to edit their own work. So if you’re tired of the rejections and the bad reviews, perhaps, you should consider taking this course. It might be all you need to get your break through. Again, at the end of the course, you might find that you like the idea of making money as an editor.

According to the press release:

This workshop is valuable to established editors who desire to refresh their knowledge; budding editors eager to hone their craft; proofreaders who want to transit to developmental editing; writers looking to learn how to expertly self-edit their work and people who love literature and want to learn a new skill-set.

What areas will this course cover?

This editing workshop/ training seminar will cover a wide range of topics such as:

• The process of creative writing,
• The best practices for editing creative fiction and creative nonfiction;
• The art of managing author-editor relationships
• How to give constructive feedback;
• How to find and pursue business prospects and opportunities
• Practical experience of a professional editor.

The course has been scheduled to hold from 21 to 22 September 2019.

At this point, you’re probably wondering who the facilitators are.

This workshop will be facilitated by the following editorial experts:

• Adebukola Bassey, Founding Editor, BMS Editorial Services;
• Otosirieze Obi-Young, Deputy Editor, Brittle Paper;
• Tahirah Sagaya, Senior Editor, Quramo Publishing;
• Eghosa Imasuen,  Co-founder, Narrative Landscape Press,
• and Anwuli Ojogwu, ED/co-founder, SBMEN.
• The guest expert is  Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia, the author of The Son of the House (2019), which has recently been received with wide acclaim by international critics.

The workshop will be delivered through lectures, interactive sessions, class exercises, case studies, and breakout sessions.

Editors and writers from all over the world are encouraged to apply. There are no geographical restrictions.

So, are you ready to learn The Fundamentals of Fiction and Non-Fiction Editing? Here are the application guidelines.

• Send an e-mail to: training@sbmen.org.ng
• Alternatively, you can send a WhatsApp message to 08120055823.
• To learn more about SBMEN, visit  www.sbmen.org.ng

About SBMEN

The Society for Book and Magazine Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN) is a new educational and professional association that represents and supports aspiring and existing editorial professionals to develop editorial skills that meet global best practices. It is also extended to other professionals who work within publications, broadcasting, digital media, legal services, communications, public relations and academia. The organisation provides training and resources for professionals to increase their proficiency in editing.

You might also like: Attend Best-selling Author Mary Karr’s Memoir Class on Skillshare / How To Get A Free Code To Attend

How To Write A Great Short-Story: Lessons From A Short-Story Day With TJ Benson.

The post Register For The Upcoming SBMEN Fiction and Non-Fiction Editing Workshop for Editors and Writers Billed To Hold This September appeared first on Creative Writing News.

Mary Karr, the best-selling author who literally wrote the book on memoir (The Art of Memoir, Lit, The Liar’s Club) is teaching an exclusive, new class on memoir on the online learning platform Skillshare, launching Monday, Sept. 2.

The class, called Writing the Truth: How to Start Writing Your Memoir, joins Skillshare’s premium membership catalog—online classes that take you behind-the-scenes with today’s leading creatives. Over the past 12 months, Skillshare has launched classes with best-selling authors Roxane Gay, Lisa Ko, Hanif Abdurraqib, and more.

Mary’s new class is a must-watch for any writer who wants to do memoir. In every lesson, Mary breaks down excerpts from her own memoirs and those of her favorite writers word-by-word. You’ll dive deep into Mary’s approach to writing, including an exclusive look at the notebooks she’s currently using to plan her next memoir, the commonplace book she uses to keep track of writing she loves, and bookshelves stacked with her favorite memoirs from years of avid reading.

Mary shares with her students that their first priority in writing memoir should be to ensure they have enough distance from what they are writing before starting their story. “Writing is not therapy,” Karr says.”In writing, you are the mommy and the reader is the baby – and so you’ve got to be giving them something. It’s not about you and how you feel and self expression – that’s a diary” Before writing a memoir, writers must “Take care of themselves.”

Click to attend Mary Karr’s Creative Non-fiction Writing Course.

You need to pay a subscription fee to attend the course. But if you can’t afford the fee, that’s okay. ‘ll be giving out free codes to over one hundred readers. You know, a little something to reward you for reading Creative Writing News.

How to get a free code to attend Mary Karr’s Creative Writing Course:

1. Subscribe for the Creative Writing News Newsletter. The subscribe button is on our homepage.
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5. Attach the snapshots in an email to creativewritingnews [at] gmail. com (remove the spaces and include the @ yourself. Don’t just copy and paste). The subject of the email should read : Interested in Attending Mary Karr’s Memoir Course On Skillshare

You might also be interested in : Online Creative Writing Class with NYT Bestselling Author Roxanne Gay Available On Skillshare—Register

The post Attend Best-selling Author Mary Karr’s Memoir Class on Skillshare / How To Get A Free Code To Attend appeared first on Creative Writing News.