The Arts-Muse Fair

CHANGE See My back is constant with ravages of  time Look at my shoulders where the dust of yesteryears have settled See I am a series of phases allergic to boring sameness Look at my feet limping towards freshness giving no mind to originality Listen I am resilience I am change I    STOP (After Paterson) I limp towards  The headlights On paved road With dry shrubs  By one side And blooming roses By another The road becomes- Two becomes four So I run Like hare But four becomes- Eight becomes sixteen Like in a mirror dimension So I stop And the sun Fell on my palm The imagined mirror shatters And the road becomes  One sincerely, -------- Maryam Gatawa, pen name Meegat, is a young Poet and writer who live in Kano, Nigeria. She is a graduate of Economics from Bayero University, Kano in Nigeria. She is a human activist with special concern in making the lives of orphans

One Hundred Tales by Ogechukwu Samuel ------ I still regret using one of those biros to write stories, a hundred tales. I still regret discovering the power that flows from the mind through these biros. No, I'm not talking of writing great books and charming the reader with words, I'm talking of magic, of how true the saying "the pen is mightier than the sword" is. 2049, before father died, he showed me a box filled with twenty biros and told me "some things are better left untouched" as he looked at the box like it were Pandora's box. I nodded, of course, itching to write with the beautiful biros. After father's death, I gave one to my childhood friend, Magnus, and we proceeded to write many stories with these biros discovering that the ink wouldn't dry up. I remembered the legend of the papyrus, how biros were made to connect with the human mind by the gods and bring great power to writers who were revered back then. The ink

Mawazo Africa Writing Institute announces a Call for Submissions for its first writing workshop: Writing the Novel , led by award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. The aim of the workshop is to provide advanced training and support to African writers who want to complete full-length novel manuscripts (normally of 30,000 words minimum). The workshop will be held online and is a free pilot program. Workshop Description:      The workshop will be held online over three months, from January to March 2018, and will consist of weekly 3-hour group sessions with the facilitator by video conference. Thereafter, participants will be given two months to revise their full drafts, and in June 2018, assigned editors to review the revised manuscripts. The workshop will be limited to six African writers selected on the basis of their draft manuscript excerpts. The workshop will focus on the discussion and critique of the participants’ writing and the study of craft through the

Ten writers from Nigeria have arrived Lebanon to participate in this year’s exchange programme in Lebanon under the “Study Abroad in Lebanon (SAIL) project, holding from 14th to 24th, September, 2017 reports PM News . The SAIL project is a collaboration of the Cedar Institute of Lebanon in partnership with the Wole Soyinka Foundation, Nigeria. The participating writers include Adenle Oloruntoba, Rev. Sister Mary Aboekwe, Oladele Faji and Khalid Imam. Khalid Imam, one of the participating writers. Others are Ms Salamatu Sule, Mrs Kassima Okani, Wole Adedoyin, Ms Blessing Christopher, Temi Soyinka and Christian Nayamali. The event which is the second edition in the series after the 2016 maiden edition, will have the writers undergo a rigorous course of eight hours interaction in 10-days with various faculties, guest lecturers and officially certified tourist guides at the Cedar Institute in Lebanon. Earlier at a press conference in Lagos on Monday, Nobel Laureate,

Every Wednesday, an uncommon literary fervor sweeps through the timelines of Northern Nigerian Facebook users. It is the ' Poetic Wednesdays’ , an online poetry movement founded and driven by millennials of Northern Nigerian origin passionate about writing and reading poetry in the English language. One 24-year-old poet from Zaria, a graduate of URP currently serving on the NYSC started it all. Read the Art-Muse Fair interview with Salim Yunusa, the founder of ‘Poetic Wednesdays’.          TAMF : This poetic movement, how did it all start? Salim Yunusa : It was more of an organic movement. I wrote a poem, used the hashtag #PoeticWednesday, and encouraged others to do so. Never knew it would be so well received by people. The movement started last year May. I was still in school then (ABU, Zaria). It's really surprising how far we've come along, all of us, with no external support. Consistency and dedication of our members got us to where we are today Salim

Gimba Kakanda is a Nigerian writer with a poetry collection 'Safari Pants', published in 2010. However, he is known more for his socio-political essays and commentaries than his poetry. Currently on a Writing Residency of the International Writing program of the Iowa University, US, he writes a weekly column syndicated in some Nigerian newspapers. When a few days ago he deviated from his normal commentary on social issues in Nigeria and began to share poems on his social media platforms, he got many readers to equally run ‘commentaries’ on this poetic side of him that’s getting revealed to many of his fans only now. One particular poem,  'I'm not your plural'  is being shared eagerly across facebook, twitter and whatsapp platforms by enthusiastic readers. Here, he explains to the Arts-Muse Fair the story about the  poem. TAMF : You rarely write, or do we say, post poems on your Facebook timeline. However, few days ago you gave us this poem that has got many of

The congress of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Niger State Chapter, has fixed Saturday, 23 September, 2017 for election of a new state executive to take over from the Hamza Kamar Caretaker Committee. Elections are to hold by 10:00am at the Niger State Book and Other Intellectual Resources Development Agency, Minna, Niger state. It would be recalled that following a protracted leadership crisis in the chapter two years ago, the national Executive of ANA dissolved the two contending state executives in September last year and inaugurated a 3-man caretaker committee to reconcile the feuding groups and restore peace and amity to the chapter. Announcing the election date last Saturday at the chapter’s weekly meeting, the Chairman Caretaker Committee, Kamar Hamza said that the election is due to be conducted before the upcoming national convention to allow the chapter to be led to the convention by a formally elected executive. Subsequently, the congress