The Arts-Muse Fair

Book Title: Sail Your Boat: Success is a Lifestyle and a Journey Name of Author: Musbahu El Yakubu Genre: Nonfiction (Inspirational) Publishers: Amazon No. of Pages:177 (to include about the Author) Year of Publication: 2018 ISBN:978-978-964-788-0 Reviewer: Salamatu Sule
Reading inspirational books are a rare creative endeavor for me due to the simple fact that it gives short cuts to making money and not realistically for the sake of its entertainment and educational purpose. They also do not fall into the category of what we know as bibliotheraphies. When I first laid my hands on this very insightful and thought provoking book, I was skeptical, judging by the title, whether if the book will deliver on its thematic concern. I was not disappointed even though; curiosity bade me to go on this exciting journey.
Success is a subjective term as it has a different meaning to different people. Success as depicted by the sub tittle of the book is a lifestyle and a journey. As a lifestyle, it refers to…

November 2019 would forever remain indelible in the minds of six young African writers.

The six writers are Modou Lamin Sowe from The Gambia; Sakina Traoré, from Cote D' Ivoire; Tega Oghenechovwen, from Nigeria; Ngang God'swill N, from Cameroon; Maryam Boyi, from Nigeria and Edem Azah, from Ghana.
They would never forget November 2019 because of their convergence in Abuja, the Nigeria’s Capital city, for a residency program organised by the African Writers Development Trust, AWDT. The residency started on the 1st of November and ended on the 21st. 

According to their accounts, the residency program tagged: ‘PenPen Africa Writers Residency’, was an opportunity for them not only to learn how to improve their art, but also an opportunity for learning new cultures, new environment and, above all, an opportunity to make more friends and writer colleagues.
Speaking on her experience during residency, Ms Edem Azah said she learnt a lot about other residents’ cultures and how to live toge…

The Caine Prize for African Writing is open for submissions for 2020. The deadline to enter is the 31st January 2020. The prize is awarded to an African writer of a short story in English. To enter please send six original published copies of the work for consideration to the Caine Prize office including a publisher’s letter detailing your author's qualifying nationality, word count, as well as the title of the story, year of publication and title of publication. The Award There is a cash prize of £10, 000 for the winning author and a travel award for each of the shortlisted candidates (up to five in all); the shortlisted candidates will also receive a prize of £500. Full details on how to enter can be found athttp://caineprize.com/how-to-enter - please send any queries to: info@caineprize.com
Eligibility Unpublished work is not eligible for the Caine Prize Submissions should be made by publishers only Only fictional work is eligible Only one story per author will be considered in any on…

Abdulbaki Abubakar Ahmad is the winner of the maiden National Engineering, Science & Tech. (NESTEC) Essay Competition with a prize money of N300,000. Abdulbaki is an Engineering student of the Kano University of Science and Technology, Wudil. He takes Poetry seriously a much as he handles Engineering. Recently, he was in Lagos to receive his NESTEC award and he braved the chaotic Lagos traffic from Ikeja to Victoria Island to meet with his inspiring Mentor, Mr. Eriata Oribhabor, the President of Poets In Nigeria (PIN). In this conversation with Mr. Oribhabor, we read of his love for power and poetry! Sounds mutually exclusive? Well, not with Abdulbaki, the chap who loves science and arts in equal measure. Read on.
Congratulations on your win. Is this the first edition of the competition? If not which institution won it before yours?
Thank you. This is actually the maiden edition of the prize and I am happy that my university left a legacy as the first, ever winning institution of th…

You see, that Friday morning, I was on a road trip to Lagos alongside eleven professional colleagues, in an Eighteen-seater bus branded "Department of Sports and Human Kinetics, Kwara State University, Malete", on the Ilorin-Ogbomoso Federal Highway. I like to take back seats when I am almost sure I would sleep during the trip.
For some funny reasons I am confident aren't unconnected with the national shame that are our roads, I get worked up nights before road trips, especially if long, ruminating about how much headache I would have to deal with, wishing I did not have to go, and ultimately praying for some magic to get the to-fro trip over with, even before it begins, so that eventually, I would hardly get any sleep. Only I was on the last row of seats in this bus of discuss, snoozing off and coming back on at intervals.
As we had miles to cover, our driver was quite out to beat time- expectedly so, because there's an annoying thing with group trips; one or two dir…

Review by Eugene Yakubu
Behind this unpromising title are promising verses that will hold a reader spellbound with the wittiness, precision of imagination and prominent conceits. Garko’s poetry invites the reader to go beyond his imagination and expand his worldview with carefully molded verses and turgid images.
What makes his poetry amusing is that it possesses a fair amount of literary and linguistic acuity that exudes enormous meaning in little lines— a feature of some of the most sophisticated poets only.
It leaves the reader begging for more, cut too quick from this imaginative ecstasy that delivers in its first and short verses then allows the deafening sound of the mental images created to echo in the reader’s head.
This is a collection to be read even though the themes end at surreal surfaces, only striking at the emotions, it offers a lot about love and nature, nostalgia and identity, virtues and vices and the illusory feeling of connection with the world and the floating time.
I…