The Arts-Muse Fair

With a cup of cold tea in her trembling hands, Zaenab parked herself on the edge of the only upholstered piece of furniture in Bulabulim Ngarnam Police Station. Her whole body vibrated, though unusually hot-tempered was the Sun that day. “Hi there, how are you doing?” a voice said. She ignored it. “Whenever you are ready ... please, we would like to know all that happened,” the same voice continued. It was Officer Danladi, the one she ran to for safety just an hour earlier. She must have been focusing so hard on trying to regain control of her body that she was unaware he had taken a seat beside her. ‘All that happened,’ she thought to herself and sighed. Then, as though time had moonwalked a bit in reverse, she became overwhelmed with fear. And thoughts. And sounds. She smelt the odour of gasoline evenly distributed in the car. And she could feel her belly aching from the device tightly fixed upon it.   It was the beginning of the

AMAB Books & Publishing, Minna and Home of Books Foundation, Lagos have announced the shortlist of the 2017 Nigerian Flash Fiction Contest. This year, organisers received 76 entries with equal balance of love stories, loneliness and longings, dystopianism, contemplation and other themes that reflect contemporary Nigerian situations. A long list of 17 was earlier released in June. Writers on the short list are: Adekunle Adebayo - A Call from Heaven Damilare Bello - Roughshod Michael Larri - Still Miracle Amanda Madumare - Uchenna Samuel Ogechuckwu - One Hundred Tales Deborah Oluniran - Last Man Standing Fred Atanda - A Day You Lost Your Virginity  Judges for this year's contest are Abimbola Adunni Adelakun, University of Texas; Dr. Ismaila Bala, Bayero University, Kano; Uche Peter Umezurike, University of Alberta and Adeola Opeyemi , Poet & Critic, Lagos. The winner, 1st Runner-up and 2 nd Runner-up of this writing contest will