The Arts-Muse Fair

Three writers, a Kenyan and two Nigerians are in Iseyin, Oyo State for the May/June 2018 Ebedi Writers Residency Session. They are; Troy Onyango,  Socrates Mbamalu and T J Benson. Troy Onyango is a Kenyan writer and Lawyer. His fiction has appeared in various journals and magazines including Transition Magazine Issue 121, for which his short story 'The Transfiguration' was nominated for the 2016 Pushcart Prize. His short story 'For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings?' won the fiction prize for the inaugural Nyanza Literary Festival Prize. He was shortlisted for the 2016 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship. He is a Founding Editor of Enkare Review – a Nairobi-based literary magazine and the Fiction Editor of the East Africa issue of Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel. Troy will be using his time at Ebedi to complete work on his novel, tentatively titled The Sound of a Dream. He will also mentor secondary school students in Iseyin in the area

Deadline: 15 th June, 2018 Quramo Publishing Limited announces a call to African writers all over the world to enter their stories for the 2018 Quramo Writers Prize. Writers should submit unpublished manuscript between15,000 – 20,000 words. Please submit MS word documents, double-spaced, Times New Roman font, normal margins. Winners will receive N1 Million naira cash prize and the offer of a publishing contract. Submit your entry here .    

Maryam Idris Bappa is the winner of the female category prize of the Poetic Wednesday s second anniversary poetry award sponsored by the Arts-Muse Fair blog. Born and bred Zaria, Northern Nigeria, she has had all her education in Zaria where she is currently a Masters student in Architecture at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU). In this conversation with Salim Yunusa, she explains the intersection between poetry and Architecture. As an Architect, how has your profession shaped your poetry? Right from school, we Architects have been taught to make use of materials available in our locality in designing and constructing buildings. Not only does it save money, time, and energy, but it also creates this perfect scenario on ‘the definition of harmony and comfort’. (Look up Frank Llyod Wright’s Design of Falling) That said, I have also learned that poetry like architecture, is a very flexible art capable of changing with time. As an Architect, I define poetry to be a form of bu

Poets in Nigeria (PIN) has announced the winner of 2018 edition of the Nigerian students poetry Prize. The winners are Iberiyenari Godstime Tamunofiri, Amagwula Nnenna Comfort and Ikeobi Samuel Chukwubuokem. Iberiyenari, a 400-level female student of Chemical Science at Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Yenagoa whose poem was titled “Deep Dreams” was announced the first prize winner at the awards ceremony which held on Thursday May, 24 at the Convocation Hall of the Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu, Enugu State. Comfort, a 200-level female student of Physiology at the University of Lagos came second position in the contest with a poem titled “Yet Another Head” while “ Two Sides of Hakeem” , authored by Chukwubuokem, a 500-level student of Electrical Electronics Engineering at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta grabbed the third position. The first prize winners received the star prize of N150,000, the second prize winner received N100,000 while the thi

AFREADA x Africa Writes call for entries for 2018 AFREADA x Africa Writes Competition. This year’s exciting programme will showcase the very best writers and writing from the continent and the diaspora, including none other than the much-loved, Somali British poet, Warsan Shire, who will be in conversation on  Sunday, 1st July This year, we asked Warsan to come through with a writing prompt, and she certainly didn’t disappoint. We are inviting writers, anywhere and everywhere, to participate in a 500-word flash fiction competition based on this striking line from the poem,  The House .  It reads: Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women.  If you know anything about AFREADA competitions, you’ll know that we like to keep it simple with the rules. All you have to do is read this prompt until you begin to see colours and hear sounds. Read it until the sounds become voices, and the voices become conversations between characters… then use all that wonderful creativ

Hattat Yushaa Abdullahi obtained his Ijaza (License) as a professional Arabic calligrapher in 2013 after a rigorous 5-yr training at the International Research Centre for Islamic History, Arts and Culture (IRCICA) Istanbul, Turkey,   making him the first black African to get this license. He lives in Kaduna, Nigeria where he runs the 'Hattat Hassan Celebi' Calligraphy Centre, Nigeria’s only formal Arabic Calligraphy training centre. Late last year, two of his works were sold at an exhibition in Cambridge, UK, for 3,500 pounds, which he donated to the first Europe Eco-Mosque project in Cambridge. Last month April, his works were also exhibited and an international exhibition in Sharjah, UAE. More about the works he donated to charity The Cambridge exhibition was organised by the Cambridge Islamic Art committee with vision to seek donations from world's prominent Islamic Artists by sacrificing their valued artworks to the first Europe Eco Mosque project in Cam

This interview with Ayeyemi Taofeek Kehinde opens our series of interviews with the four winners of the Poetic Wednesdays 2nd Anniversary Poetry Contest co-sponsored by the Arts-Muse Fair blog.  F ondly called Aswagaawy, Ayeyemi Taofeek Kehinde is the author of "Oro n Bo: Dripping Words" (a poetry collection). Winning poetry competitions seem to come easy to him. His list of winnings include the First Runner-up of the BPPC September 2017 and February 2018,   TAJIF Poetry Contest 2017, First Runner-up of Okigbo Poetry Prize (University of Ibadan, 2016), 4 times winner PIN Monthly Poetry Challenge among other prizes, awards and honorary mentions. He is published in Authorpedia, The Quills, The Pengician, Tuck Magazine, Inspired Magazine, Peregrine Reads   and other online platforms. Here, Aswagaawy chats with Salim Yunusa on his poetry and more. How has your profession shaped your poetry? Being a Bar aspirant at the moment, my profession is a course you'd