Are you a poetry writer who wants an all-expense covered opportunity and a cash award? Then this opportunity will interest you.

The organizers of the 2024 Alpine Fellowship Annual Symposium are currently accepting submissions. Three lucky writers will be awarded this international prize.

The theme for this year’s submissions is : ‘Language’

Eligibility Guidelines for Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize

• Open to all nationalities.

• In addition, everyone who enters must be aged 18 or above at the time of entry.

• All entries must be written in English.

• Furthermore, entrants can only enter one of the prizes.

Submission Guidelines for Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize

• Limited to one entry per person.

• You may submit one poem or a collection of poems as long as ALL the poems in the collection speak to the theme.

• Importantly, entrants must note that there is a maximum of 500 words per entry.

• Travel expenses can be used for travel costs only and are not exchangeable for cash.

• More so, travel expenses can be used for transport only, and can not be used towards accommodation outside of the dates of our symposium.

• Submissions will be judged anonymously, so please ensure that your name does not appear anywhere on your work.

• Also, due to the volume of applications the judges decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into following the results.

• All entries must be sent via the Alpine Fellowship Submittable.

Prizes

The winner of the Poetry Prize will receive a cash prize. Also, the runners up will receive travel expense support that must be used to attend the 2023 symposium which will be held from 10th-13th August 2024 in Fjällnäs, Sweden

First place: £3,000 cash grant

Second place: £1,000 travel expense

Third place: £1,000 travel expense

Deadline

Submissions close on the 1st of March 2024 at 23:59 (UK time)

Good luck.

The post Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize is Open/ How to Apply (Prize: £5,000) appeared first on Creative Writing News.

Ben Peter,an internationally known business executive and leadership scholar, has just released two inspirational non-fiction titles. His new books are titled, Get Set, March and Clearing Your Mental Deck.

Both books are a must-read for everyone who wants to excel in business, and life as a whole. This prolific author, and business development expert outperformed himself. If you’ve read many of Ben Peter’s works, you’ll definitely agree.

Widely regarded as one of the world’s leading business strategists, Ben Peter has helped countless people to reignite their passion for life through:

• health products,
• live events,
• personal mentoring,
• and coaching.

He is a Professor of Management and also the Chairman and CEO of five privately held companies. Ben Peter has a Ph.D. and an MBA in Business Management, and over fifteen years’ experience in the financial services, motivational speaking and coaching, pharmaceutical, healthcare, education, and direct selling industries.

Ben’s personal life story has been a source of immense inspiration to so many people. He believes that working hard is not enough. You have got to work smart with a high dose of discipline and willingness to be intentional with every goal and vision of greatness you have. His books also carry that same philosophy.

Enough About The Author. Let’s Discuss Get Set March and Clearing Your Mental Deck.What Are They About?

Book Description Of Get Set, March By Ben Peter.

This book was written to help readers understand the importance of building a thought process, which is an essential foundation for successfully executing a winning strategy for your vision. Success in any feat is usually a thought away.

The quality of your thoughts ultimately becomes a guiding path for your actions and eventual outcome. It is vital you pause at the end of each chapter to reflect on the nuggets of truth learned while reading this book.

Get Set March will teach you how to:

• apply these principles practically to your organization or any organized system
• see how these principles will be instrumental to your progress,
• focus on the process of creating a vision of what you want,
• accomplish your vision.

The goal of this book is to help you simplify every crucial part of your project, from the conception phase to the execution phase. Too much complexity can also hamper the success of a good project plan.

The entire process of strategic implementation, from the conception stage to the project closure, is made up of critical stages that must be appropriately implemented with caution. Every step has its unique methods.

Get Set, March! is available on Amazon  and Okadabooks

A Synopsis Of Clearing Your Mental Deck

Many people are constantly on a quest to find the secret to achieving self-actualization, which is a term synonymous with success in life. The reality is that,success in life is firstly, a product of how you think and then secondly, of what you do.

Your thoughts determine your actions. We become what we think about. We manifest physically and constantly behold our minds.  

That is why this book, Clearing Your Mental Deck, has been put together to help you truly concentrate on arriving at the most important attributes that help every human attain their greatest desires. These attributes are considered by many people as the most important qualities that help us, not only to become successful, but also to attain self-actualization.

This book is currently available on Okadabooks

 Want to read more from Ben Peter. Here’s a list of books authored by Ben Peter:

• Build Up.
• The Money Cook Book.
• Principles of the Top.
• Money Code (co-authored with Charles E. Eromosele)

 If you have inquiries about the author or his works, send a DM to his publishers, Purple Shelves Publishing House. Their twitter handle is: @PurpleShelves.

I’m off to purchase my own copies of Get Set March and Clearing Your Mental Deck.

How about you? You can post your reviews of the books in the comments section. Or you can email them to CWN. We’ll be glad to publish them.

The post Everything You Need To Know About Ben Peter’s New Titles, Get Set, March And Clearing Your Mental Deck appeared first on Creative Writing News.

This Friday, the 31st of July, 2020, we will be having a tweet-meet with Ndubuisi George, the author of Onye Gba Nkiti. The theme for the tweet-meet is “Writing Back Home: The Igbo Literature Neo-Renaissance”.

About the Book

Onye Gba Nkiti is a new book written in Igbo. The book is a brilliant look at how the Chi (the Personal Spirit of an individual) is crucial to an individual’s self development. It uses colourful images to tell a wonderful story that both young and older readers will find very interesting. 

The book was published by Purple Shelves; the tweet meet is also powered by them.

The Tweet-Meet

Join us as we talk about what it means to write back home, why writers are now writing in the Igbo language, as well as the reasons for this awakening, and what impact this would have on the culture and the language.

Date: the 31st of July, 2020.

Time: 6pm – 7pm.

Follow @cwritingnews (Creative Writing News), @Ndujorj (Ndubuisi George), and @purpleshelves on Twitter. Use the #OnyeGbaNkiti hashtag.

About the author of Onye Gba Nkiti

Ndubusi George was born in 1969 at Agulu in Anambra State, Nigeria, into the extended Anyanwo family. His research on interracial cohabitation in a fast evolving global village as he took up employment in Germany ignited special interest in international migration, and it’s effects on African migrants. He is the author of Woes of Ikenga and Onye Gba Nkiti. He has written in German, English and, now, in Igbo.

We can’t wait to chat with Ndubuisi George and to have you people join us. There would also be an opportunity for you to ask him your questions. We hope to see you!

The post Join Us for A Tweet Meet With the Author of Onye Gba Nkiti appeared first on Creative Writing News.

The International Writing Program is an organization dedicated to promoting “mutual understanding by providing writers from every part of the world the necessary space, physical or imaginative, for creative work and collaboration in an intercultural setting.” One of the ways they are making this not just a statement is the Between the Lines program.

The Between the Lines program themed “Peace and the Writing Experience” is a summer writing program that brings 30 students from 28 countries from around the world and joins them to 10-14 U.S.-based students for a two-week program at the University of Iowa. The program will take place between July 11—July 25, 2020. The deadline for application is March 1, 2020.

Who is Eligible for the Between the Lines Program:

• Applicants must be between 15 and 18 years of age.
• And they must be from one of these countries: Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, India, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, the Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Uzbekistan.
• There is no application fee.
• But each applicant must have an international passport at the time of application.

How to Apply (for International Students):

• To apply you must reach out to the U.S. Embassy in your home country to ask that they nominate you. Your application will be sent to them; then they will send it to IWP on your behalf.
• Requirements: Submit a piece of original creative prose (fiction or nonfiction, or both), or poems. Either should be between 6 and 8 pages.
• Prompt #1: The 2020 Between the Lines session will include discussion of identity as it relates to creative writing and the life of a writer. Please include your personal response to the following:

In our daily lives, we navigate many different roles—student, sibling, daughter, son, peer. We negotiate family, friends, religious groups, as well as class, gender, race, country, and so many other groups, adjusting the way we speak or behave to fit the demands of each encounter. As we move through the day, we work through how and why we occupy each particular role. What do you consider to be the strongest, most central aspects of your identity? What does it mean to you to be a member of (or seen as a member of) a particular group? In what way does your identity influence you as a creative writer and reader? (3 pages maximum)

• Prompt #2: An essential component of Between the Lines is encouraging participants to be vulnerable and explore the unfamiliar and unknown in a safe and supportive setting. At many points, whether in workshop or interpersonally, participants may feel out of their comfort zone. Please respond to the following:

Describe a time in your past when you had to engage with a new situation, person, or idea that initially felt uncomfortable or strange. How did you proceed? If you had the chance, what would you do the same, and what would you do differently? (400 words maximum)

• Write a statement of purpose describing why creative writing is important in your life, and what you hope to learn at our program in Iowa. (250 words maximum)
• These documents should be formatted as Microsoft Docs, Times New Roman, 12 pt., and double-spaced, with a margin of 1 inch on all sides.
• In the header include your name, name of piece (creative work, Prompt #1, Prompt 2#…) In the footer include page numbers.
• If you cite other writers or people in your pieces, make sure to give them credit.
• The submission closes by March 1, 2020.
• Visit the their website here.

Benefits:

• Travel expenses to the University of Iowa, U.S. for two weeks, will be covered.
• Students get to meet and interact with peers who are just as brilliant as they are.
• They get to learn more about creative writing and other cultures in those weeks.

Good luck.

The post IWP Between the Lines/ How to Apply (Benefits: Travel + more) appeared first on Creative Writing News.

The African Writers Trust has called for applications for the second edition of its Publishing Fellowship Programme. The programme, which was “designed to create a step-change in the book sector in Africa, by focusing on professional development of upcoming talent in African publishing over three years (2018-2021)”, will be a week-long mentoring and training workshop. It will commence on the 8th of March, 2020, through to the 14th of March, 2020. The deadline for application is Sunday, 16th February, 2020.

Who is Eligible:

• The fellowship is open to: early career writers and emerging publishers; creative writers who are into self-publishing; and, individuals who are working in the publishing industry.
• Applicants must be from one of these African countries: Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

How to Apply:

• Submit a completed application form.
• A cover letter that does not exceed 300 words.
• A sample of a work-in-progress, of no more than a page (500 words).
• In the subject line, include: African Writers Trust Publishing Fellowship Programme Application.
• The deadline for application is Sunday, 16th February, 2020.
• Only selected applicants will be notified by Friday, 21st February, 2020.
• Send your applications to either of these emails: info@africanwriterstrust.org, or kizzaatawt@gmail.com
• If you are interested in participating in the programme, send an email to one of the email addresses above stating your interest, or call this number: +256 752 570 573. The team will then send you the application form and cover letter guidelines.

What Will the Programme Offer:

• The opportunity to participate in a week-long mentoring and training workshop.
• The opportunity to learn from publishing experts in a mutual way.
• The opportunity to network with other publishers and creative writers who are just on their way to becoming the Big Things in the literary industry.
• Air travel expenses for selected applicants will be covered.
• During the workshop, accommodation and meal expenses will be provided for the selected candidates.
• At the end of the workshop, all fellows will be invited to make an application for the SEED Funding budget, worth EURO 4,200—this will go to a winner selected from the fellows.

Good luck.

The post African Writers Trust Publishing Fellowship Programme/ How to Submit (Benefits: EURO 4,200 + more) appeared first on Creative Writing News.

by Bura-Bari Nwilo

In December 2019, I stood over Oly in my apartment in Nsukka and drew her attention to posts of Facebook friends who had screenshot acceptance letters signed by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for the year’s creative writing workshop. And in my eyes, she could see mild fury hinged on disappointment. I deafened her with tales of my yearly rejections and why I felt I had a right to be disappointed with all things Nigerian.

Then by whatever stroke of fate it was, I checked my email and saw my own letter. Like a letter I had once received explaining how I was among a shortlist of 50 amazing writers and the apology for what could not become my invitation letter, I read those years of rejection and apology into what was an acceptance letter for 2019. When I read through to the second paragraph, I felt an inch taller and almost swiftly, I was massively subdued, like I stood on a tower of resentment for all that had been my misfortune and it turned out it was a day of glory.

When I read through to the second paragraph, I felt an inch taller and almost swiftly, I was massively subdued, like I stood on a tower of resentment for all that had been my misfortune and it turned out it was a day of glory.

Oly shared kind words with me and I went back to the email to see if I had not been too optimistic to have read into a poor letter an acceptance that was only in my imaginations. And I was not dreaming. I was truly invited to the now renamed Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop after more than five rejections.

At the workshop, I shared experiences of my years of application and some of the wild thoughts I had nurtured. Once, I had thought that my serial rejection, after many of my friends were invited, was because I was not Igbo and I thought I could change my name to allow me entrance. Don’t die yet. And for the year I received a consolidation email signed by Ms. Adichie, I could not mix anger with such obviously patronizing letter. Goodwill messages from Facebook friends, of how I was such an interesting writer, added in me some courage to keep writing. And looking back at such thoughts, I am grateful it ended up between Arinze and me.

And for the big question in class, I asked Ms. Adichie what interested her in my entry that did not meet her many years ago, especially since it was just a regular story, something I had not even taken seriously, against the many I had written with all hopes and concern. And there, I concluded that maybe what makes the big mark comes in the funniest wrap. I had written a story about a serial killer who lured her victims, especially taxi drivers. The killer writes about the incidents on her blog. The few paragraphs I sent were the reason I was invited.

And there, I concluded that maybe what makes the big mark comes in the funniest wrap.

I come from a place of ‘serious’ literature. And I have tried creating most of that seriousness. I have given elbowroom to experimentation and maybe it is why I am yet to decide on writing a novel. And after listening to other participants share their acceptance tales; I knew that I was not alone. We were a universe of people motivated by Chimamanda and would do as much as applying for several years just to hear her up-close, watch her read and share thoughts on story writing and being a writer while addressing us by our names and whatever it was that made us stand out.

The 2019 workshop had it a bit unfortunate. The classes were cut to five days instead of ten days and a lot of things had to be stuffed into a really tiny car. Chimamanda, Lola Shoneyin, Eghosa Imasuen, and Novuyo Tsuma Rosa gave us thrilling experiences with backbreaking tasks: reading multiple stories into late night and class writing tasks that would see you read aloud your writings and listen to others and give constructive feedback. We made a coolly glossy family in a few days than would have been imagined. And maybe the shared rooms enabled bonding, but the 2019 workshop was tense, practical, overwhelming, indulging, compelling and it ended on such evenings where writers knew tears like they knew words and sentences. And those whose tears did not make the warm walk through cheeks, it formed a bubble in their hearts and stayed there as a priceless memory.

Her brilliance lies more in her ability to share quite controversial yet informed thoughts without breaking anyone’s back.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is brilliant and adorable in giving kind words. We share a birth date with a ten-year age difference and that’s my consolidation for being a lazy writer. Her brilliance lies more in her ability to share quite controversial yet informed thoughts without breaking anyone’s back. Her playfulness and humane jibes and photo sessions informed me that it takes more than a fine head and great skill to be a superstar. A sprinkle of warmth, friendliness and sometimes vanity could be other awesome additions.

With the workshop, Chimamanda builds confidence, encourages collaboration, and invents homes for broken yet agile storytellers whose shortcomings are not only placed outside the spotlight, but their strength and wellness are given so much cheers and support to germinate.

Bura-Bari Nwilo is the author of The Colour of a Thing Believed, a book of short stories.

The post Looking Back Through a Misty Film: Recollection from the 2019 Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop appeared first on Creative Writing News.

From Parrésia Publishers—the publishers of T. J. Benson’s We Won’t Fade into Darkness, and Onyeka Nwelue’s The Beginning of Everything Colourful—comes this very beautiful book by one of Nigeria’s very notable poets and performers, Iquo Dianaabasi. Like you, we are hungry to hold Ẹ̀fọ́ Rírò and Other Stories in our hands and savor the richness of the stories in its pages.

So What’s This Awesome Book About?

A collection that is set primarily within Nigeria, the stories in Ẹ̀fọ́ Rírò and Other Stories cover varied social themes including spousal abuse, religious dogma, love, bravery, betrayal and vengeance. It speaks of the untamed resilience of the everyday Nigerian who is faced with the vicissitudes of life.

We meet Sixtus the driver whose love of a particular delicacy has him biting off more than he can chew, and we laugh to our heart’s delight. But all is not humorous in this collection. Anything can happen in the city of Lagos: a man disappears after a Champions League semi-final and we are drawn into his wife’s travails; light beams on paedophilia through the keen eyes of a gossip; we take a peek at what love and lust look like on the internet; then we head to Oguta where a ritual to revive a sick husband takes an unexpected turn. Despite the human tendency to betray and disappoint, we encounter stories that show how people tread life on a carpet of love and hope.

What You Should Know About the Author:

Iquo Dianaabasi is a Nigerian storyteller, performance poet and editor. She has performed on many stages and is the author of Symphony of Becoming, a collection of poems, which was shortlisted for the Nigeria Literature Prize, The Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature and Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize. Her writing has been widely anthologized and published in online journals and print. Efo Riro and Other Stories is her first personal collection of stories. Iquo lives in Lagos, where she writes scripts for radio and works as an editor.

Ẹ̀fọ́ Rírò and Other Stories will be available in bookstores by Monday, January 20, 2020.  But, to be one of the first to own this nice collection, you can pre-order it online. Simply click to pre-order Efo Riro by Iquo Dianabasi Pre-orders started since Wednesday, December 4, 2019.

Pre-ordered copies will be personally signed by the author and will contain the buyers’ personalized messages

I’m off to pre-order my copy of Efo Riro. What about you?

The post New Awesome Book Alert: Ẹ̀fọ́ Rírò and Other Stories by Iquo Dianaabasi (Available For Pre-order). appeared first on Creative Writing News.

It’s 1:49pm. I’m in a mini-bus going to Ikoyi from CMS, trapped in a hold-up. I’m sweating underneath my shirt, and I’m reading Adroit Journal’s latest issue. Over and over, I’m reading these lines from Erika Meitner’s “Missing Parts”:

“Hillary, I’m sorry about yr friend who killed himself—sometimes

this world is too much to hold inside us or walk through”.

As I continue reading, the poem becomes quite difficult for me—although I’m still able to follow the movement from scene to scene and hard and beautiful lines greet me here and there. This is not because the poem is difficult, but because I’m bothered.

It’s past two already—about seven minutes past two—and I am yet to get to Falomo, where I will take a bike to British Council, No. 20 Thompson Avenue, Ikoyi, Lagos, where the poet Kaveh Akbar will be teaching a poetry masterclass.

The workshop is one of the four workshops organized by the Lagos International Poetry Festival Team as part of their program for the 2019 LIPFest. The workshop will last just two hours, 2pm to 4pm. The thought that I am going to miss about twenty minutes of the two hours with Kaveh just makes me worry.

When I get to Falomo, I climb behind the first bike-man I reach. He mentions a price; I agree—I don’t have the time to haggle.

*

I walked into a room that was filled with white light and poets. There at the back of room was the spoken word artiste Tobi Abiodun. On one side, on my far left, was Logan February; the poet I.S. Jones would join him there a few minutes later. A poet and essayist, Pamilerin Jacobs, who I was meeting for the first time in person, welcomed me. Next to him, the poet Wale Ayinla, a brother and friend. There were a whole lot of other people, everybody saying something. But Kaveh was not here yet. And the time was 2:32pm. I asked Wale. He said Kaveh was yet to arrive, and I thanked my head.

I settled at a table with Wale and Pamilerin, and we talked about a few things, and flipped through some new poetry books Pamilerin just received from someone and some others he bought.

*

Kaveh walked in, tall, dressed in a white shirt and plain blue jeans; full black hair and brown beard—I thought of him as Noah. He said good afternoon and sorry for coming late—the car that was supposed to bring them here broke down, so they had to get another. He said all of these in a voice that sounded both magical and just plain simple. He then introduced himself and asked if everyone in the room was a poet. A soft murmur of yes’s and no’s filled the room.

“Can we begin?” he asked, running his hand through his hair.

And we began.

*

It was almost 3pm when the class began. Kaveh asked if we all saw trees on our way to the class. How many trees were there on our way here? Maybe a thousand. Maybe more. And he asked if anyone could describe one of those trees with specificity. No one could. The reason why we couldn’t, he said, was because we are used to always having trees, because those trees have become very normal to us.

“But those trees receive light from the sun 93,000 miles away and convert it to sugar, and—I don’t know how anyone might explain that, maybe photosynthesis or something—but to me that’s pure magic,” Kaveh said.

“When you’re stuck inside your life every single day, right, it seems very normal to you. It seems very, very normal to you. The people in your life, the loves—these things seem very normal to you because you experience them every day, so you become habituated to them, the same way you’re habituated to those trees. You become habituated to them and then you stop really seeing them anymore.” He half-sits on a table and asked: So how do we return to a state where we’re able to actually see that stuff? Where we can make the trees tree-y, and we can make the stone stony, and we can make the love love-y, and the grief grief-y, and the injustice injustice-y? This is what I want to get to. How do we take ourselves out of our living? How do we get ourselves to do that?”

And mouths open.

A lady, Stephanie, said we can by writing from what Kaveh called the extremes of experience”; that point in our lives when we are able to look back at our life from a distance.

“Does anyone ever have that experience where, like, you wake up and your nose is really, really stuffy and you’re like “Oh my God, I’ll never be ungrateful for a clear breath again?””

We filled the room with laughter.

Stephanie got a copy of Kaveh’s chapbook, “Portrait of an Alcoholic”.

Ifeoma talked about telling it from the body; she gets a copy of the chapbook, too.

Someone mentioned been vulnerable—someone got. a chapbook, too.

I wanted to say something, but my mouth wouldn’t move—here’s Kaveh for Heaven’s Sake!

*

Kaveh talked about Jose Luis Borges, a writer he likes a lot. Borges was an Argentinian writer who was obsessed with ideas of infinity, who in lot of his stories thought of different ways to imagine it. He also wrote a lot about the Sahara Desert, Kaveh said, and he thought we could imagine infinity by imagining the grains of sands in the Sahara Desert. One day, when he was old, Borges went to the Sahara Desert. When he got there, he bent down and scooped some sand; then he let the sand sift through his fingers. As the sand sifted through the space between his fingers, Borges said, “I am modifying the Sahara.”

“Everything we do is modifying our Sahara,” Kaveh said, as he ran his hand through his hair.

He then suggested that we did some writing.

*

The first was a collaborative writing exercise, which was to help us listen to language instead of listening to ideas. To do this, he put us in groups of three. Each group would create a poem. In each group, one person would be the recorder, would do the writing; the other two people in each group would make a poem one word at a time.

“You can say, “Rivers/ [while the other person says:] flow/ [you:] slowly/ [the other person:] across/ [you:] time/…”

And we spent about eight minutes doing this, each person in the group taking turn to record while the two others composed the poem. At the end, each group had three poems. While they didn’t all mean something, or one thing, there were such beautiful lines from the exercise that we clapped and wowed as someone from each group read—and there was the musicality of the words, the beauty of language.

From a group’s poem: “Redemption wasted, forgiveness on display.” From another’s: “soft silky touch of longing” (Kaveh asked us to repeat it, said, “Isn’t that delicious.”) From another’s: “Boundaries are boundaries/ There is no negotiating your joy.” Kaveh read his, and these line stands out: “Grief is grief/ Rainbows are slow boys speaking in color.”

“The language will always want to show; the language always hears itself.” – Kaveh Akbar.

“What I’m trying to convince you guys of is that there is something here; there is something in language itself, right. Language knows how to follow language, right. When we start with an idea, oftentimes we get wrapped up in that idea and then we start being kind of didactic and we start just sort of telling people what to think when we ought to show them. But the language will always want to show; the language always hears itself,” Kaveh said. It is why, when he writes, he told us, he tries as much as possible to shut up his higher brain: the part of his brain that is self-conscious and prideful, that wants to convince people. He said he uses his deeper brain, the part of his brain that wants to connect with people.

*

A few minutes later, Kaveh wrote these words on the white marker board:

“I see_____

I smell­­­_____

I taste______

I hear______

I feel _____

I think_____”

We wrote this down; twice—he said we would be making a twelve-line poem.

He walked to a side of the class and turned off the lights. He then asked us to close our eyes and pick a specific place, a place that means something to us emotionally. It could be your grandmother’s kitchen, or where your first kiss happened, or where you first got broken up with. “What does it smell like there? What does it feel like? What are the curtains like? Are there curtains? What does the air taste like? Maybe you’re just a little child coiled up in your mother’s lap and you’re scared. What does your mother smell like? Are you outside, maybe on a beach? Can you taste the salt in the air? Is there music playing on a radio somewhere? Do you smell someone’s perfume?”

There were two places that sprang to the fore on my mind—the bus where I had the first kiss that meant something to me and Maami—my grandma—’s house where my mom’s cold eyes greeted me. I pick the latter. I imagined the burnt firewood in the compound, the smell of the smoke from it sifting through the Ankara wrappers used to cover the windows; the rusty bunk bed on which my mom died; what she smelled like before she was taken from her body; the cold look in her eyes.

Kaveh asked us to open our eyes and, without saying a thing, just write down what we just imagined, completing the phrases we copied from the board.

I wrote the first line: “I see the rusty bunk bed, your fragile self pressed into its bosom.”

When we had written down what we imagined, Kaveh asked us to remove the phrases—the “I feel, I see…”—and reshape the poem, and give them tight endings. Ten minutes later and everyone had made a poem that meant something to them.

*

It’s past 5pm, though the sky is still all white and blue with no tint of grey. We just finished taking photographs with Kaveh. We are leaving now.

In the car, I think of the new poem I wrote, of a particular line from the poem that Kaveh loved—“& what is grief if not the unbottling/ of hunger?”—and my insides taste like someone just filled me with honey, or as if someone is sprinkling sugar on my heart. But then, I remember I didn’t get a copy of Kaveh’s chapbook, and my heart breaks.

The post Modifying Your Sahara: A Poetry Masterclass with Kaveh Akbar. appeared first on Creative Writing News.

Following the Fiction and Non-Fiction Editing Workshop, which held in Lagos in September 2019, the Board of Trustees and Management of the Society of Books and Magazine Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN) announce the fourth and last editing workshop of the year, 2019. The workshop is themed “Literary Criticism: Judging Dynamic Creative Writing in All Forms”, and will be delivered through lectures, interactive sessions, class exercises, case studies and breakout sessions. It is scheduled to hold on the 23rd of November, 2019.

Who should Participate:

• Editors who evaluate the slush pile.
• Content developers.
• Established and aspiring book reviewers.
• Writers who desire to take a critical approach to improve in their craft.

What will You Gain from Participating:

• Learn the basics of literary criticism.
• Understand the techniques of analytic reading.
• Learn how to write great reviews.
• Get resources on freelance opportunities available for you as a reviewer.
• Participate in writing and reading exercises.

Facilitators:

• The award-winning culture critic, Oris Aigbokhaevbolo.
• The founding editor of BMS Editorial Services, Adebukola Bassey.
• The ED/co-founder, SBMEN, Anwuli Ojogwu.
• The writer, journalist and literary critic, Adewale Maja-Pearce.

How to Apply:

• Interested editors and writers should send an email to training@sbmen.org.ng or send a WhatsApp message to 08120055823, requesting more information on how to enroll for the training.

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