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It’s All Write
WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN TO WRITE FROM CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE?
May. 17 | Chimamanda Adichie The Farafina Trust Workshop is being held again in Lagos Nigeria. The main teacher for the workshop is Orange Prize winner and author of Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Adichie. You will need to pay for...
WHY YOUR PUBLISHER IS PROBABLY NOT A CROOK
May. 10 | The other day someone said to me, “I’m going to self publish because these publishers are crooks.” I asked why he was saying that and he said because the publisher only gives the writer 10% of the income and they take 90%. Obviously this...
BLACK CRAKE BOOKS
May. 3 | According to the owner of the publishing company, Nick Green, “The aim of Black Crake Books is to nurture and promote Batswana and expat authors in Botswana who have a writing ambition and bring them to an international audience.” Black Crake...
TWO NOVELS FROM BOTSWANA ON KWANI? LONGLIST
Apr. 26 | Billy Kahora Kwani? Manuscript Project has announced its longlist for its one-off PanAfrican literary prize for unpublished novel manuscripts. It includes 30 titles (no authors names were given as the judging process is ongoing) and among the 30 are...
BESSIE HEAD LITERATURE AWARDS BACK IN BUSINESS
Apr. 19 | This year the Bessie Head Literature Awards are being run again, sponsored by The Bessie Head Heritage Trust and Pentagon Publishers. They’d put out a call for submissions with a deadline on the 23 March, 2013, but it wasn’t that widespread so...
MY PRESIDENT THINKS READING IS BORING
Apr. 12 | In a recent interview reported in one of the midweek papers, President Ian Khama repeated, yet again, that he thinks reading is boring. This is the second time that a national paper has reported the president uttering such a statement. I’m shocked that...
FAMOUS POET HOLDS WEEKLY SESSIONS AT GABS LIBRARY
Apr. 5 | I recently interviewed academic and acclaimed poet, Tiro Sebina about his weekly poetry sessions held at the Gaborone Public Library. Tell the readers a bit about your poetry writing sessions held at the library in Gaborone. TS: The poetry sessions...
MEANWHILE IN THE WORLD OF BOOKS…
Mar. 29 | OSCAR PISTORIUS BOOK IN THE PIPELINE Pan Macmillan South Africa has announced that it has signed a deal with two journalists, Mandy Wiener and Barry Bateman, for the book Behind the Door: The Oscar and Reeva Story. Bateman was one of the first journalists...
WRITING OPPORTUNITIE FOR JOURNALISTS
Mar. 22 | I THOUGHT THIS WEEK WE’D LOOK AT SOME OPPORTUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD FOR JOURNALISTS. 1. Journalist Competition: The CNN African Journalist of the Year Competition African Nationals, working on the continent for African owned, or headquartered, media...
USING BLOGS TO SPREAD YOUR WORDS
Mar. 15 | Blogging has not really taken off in Botswana. I searched around the web and found very few blogs coming from the country except those from expats talking about touring and animals. One quite impressive blog I found, though, is Who Is Mickey? (http://www.whoismikey.net/blog/tag/botswana/)...
KNOWING PUB LIBSHING TERMS
Mar. 8 | Book publishing has jargon like any other industry and it is important to know that jargon if you intend to be a published writer. This week I thought we’d look at a few key terms. Advance: an advance is money paid to an author by a publisher when they...
ARTIST IS A WORD OF VALUE
Mar. 1 | I’m aware that the world has changed. According to the new dispensation, if you want it, you should get it, and it shouldn’t involve much work. There’s an easy way and that’s always the way you should take. The entire and only point is to reach...
AFRICAN PUBLISHING NEWS
Feb. 22 | New Random House Imprints Traditional publishers are finally paying attention to the power of ebooks. Random House has launched four new imprints exclusively for manuscripts that will be published only as ebooks. The four are Loveswept (romance and women’s...
Writing About Love
Feb. 20 | Photo: Anything to do with Valentine’s Day Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d write about love. I have four published romance novellas (Kwaito Love, Can He Be The One?, Mr Not Quite Good Enough and Love in the Shadows) all published in...
The Difference between Short Stories and Novels
Feb. 8 | I recently read a novel written by a short story writer I really respect and it got me wondering. This writer’s short stories are wonderful. But I was disappointed by her novel. There were places of fine writing indeed, but the novel didn’t resonate...
A LOOK AT THE KALAHARI REVIEW
Feb. 1 | Some time back I let you all know about our new, online literary magazine based in Gaborone, The Kalahari Review. Since its launch it has grown quite a bit. It is truly a Pan-African journal with contributions from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South...
MARKETS FOR SETSWANA WRITING
Jan. 25 | Finding markets for Setswana poetry and short stories as well as Setswana book manuscripts is not easy. People writing in Setswana need to accept that the bulk of the published works will be for schools. The trade market for Setswana is minimal if even...
ART AS CAREER? NOT LIKELY
Jan. 18 | Despite the hype, no one really takes the arts seriously in Botswana. There’s a lot of talk as of late, but talk is that- just talk. People talk about the arts diversifying the economy but they don’t really mean that. In Botswana, the arts, all of...
TIME TO SET YOUR 2013 WRITTING GOALS
Jan. 11 | Most of us do not have the luxury to be full time writers. We still have our day jobs. What this means is that our writing takes second and more often than not, third seat to everything else. The best way to keep that from happening is to have writing...
