Afripot – Africa’s melting pot!

Afripot.com is a web portal designed to bring together the North, South, East and West of Africa, and indeed the African Diaspora throughout the rest of the world, in a conglomeration of information, discussion and creative intercourse that aims at opening the doors to the further development of our beloved Africa.

International Storymoja Hay Festival

2009 Theme: “Many Stories, One World”

The international Storymoja Hay Festival is expected to draw 10,000 visitors in a three-day celebration of stories, ideas, writing and contemporary culture through books, storytelling, skits, music, live discussion forums, demonstrations, workshops, open-mike sessions, debates, exhibitions, live performances and competitions. There will be plenty of entertainment including music concerts, storytelling and mchongoano competitions.

The festival is modelled on The Hay Festival held in the UK every May in which up to 100,000 people attend – ranging from presidents to authors to fans. The Storymoja Hay Festival will run as a partnership between Storymoja, an emerging local company, and 22 year-old, Hay Festival (UK).

The festival will be held in a temporary ‘tented city’ at the Impala grounds and will include a main stage for live performances and competitions, and themed tents in which 4-6 two-hour events will be held concurrently. The events are intended to generate public debate around critical issues facing East Africa including Literature, Environment, Gender, ICT, Health, Diversity, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Gender, Beauty and Self-Development.

Venue: Impala Club, Ngong Road, Nairobi

Dates: Friday 31st July, Saturday 1st August, Sunday 2nd August 2009

Day Pass: 500 Kenya Shillings

Festival Pass: 1500 Kenya Shillings (covers unlimited events throughout the festival including the launch ceremony on 30th July)

Over 50 international and local literary luminaries are invited to this monumental event, including leading thinkers and writers Wangari Mathai (Kenya), Hanif Kureishi and Vikram Seth (UK), Petina Gappah and Brian Chikwava (Zimbabwe), Danial Morden, Germaine Greer (UK), Monica Arac de Nyeko and Doreen Baingana (Uganda), Sarah Manyika and Tony Kan (Nigeria), Suleiman Addonia (Ethiopia/Eritrea), Mohamed Haroun Kafi (Sudan), Sandra Mushi and Abdou Simba (Tanzania), Mukoma wa Ngugi, Billy Kahora, Rasna Warah and Parselelo Kantai (Kenya) and many others.

What is the purpose of the Storymoja Hay Festival?

The festival hopes to encourage Africans to ‘own’ their problems by exploring our situations/stories, and search for solutions by generating platforms for discussion and debate. To achieve our 2030 vision, Kenyans need to read widely, discuss ideas, and exploit our diversity of stories/backgrounds for the greater good. It is also part of a longer-term campaign to get East Africa to value reading, writing and ideas in general.

Who are Storymoja?

Storymoja, a publishing company formed in 2007 by five writers committed to spreading the gospel of reading, writing and ideas, has held two previous annual festivals to promote books – dubbed Storymoja Nyamachoma Fiesta. We actively nurture partnerships and work closely with NCC, NBDCK, and Enterprise and Leadership Foundation. Our 2008 event attracted 2200 people. The 2009 Storymoja Hay Festival will utilise and build on that experience, and is the next step in achieving our Storymoja mission of getting ‘A book in every hand.’

Build-up events to the festival include:

1. Storymoja’s Cut Off My Tongue is currently performing back-to-back venues in Kenya before going on tour in the UK

2. Battle of the Universities Storytelling Competition commences in June, 2009

3. Mchongoano Competition commences mid- June, 2009

4. Diversity Case Study presentations – Nigeria, USA, India, SA and Rwanda – public discussions from June

5. ‘Women in Leadership’ mentoring series meets once/month from January 2009

6. ‘To Be A Man’ meeting series to commence in May 2009

7. Spelling Bee in 203 schools around Nairobi – ongoing, and televised show to air on Citizen TV from June 2009

8. Writing Workshops – Testimonials (based on interviews and essays), Crime, Fiction, Self-development/Motivation, Writing for Children, Editing, Manuscript doctor etc – ongoing

For more information, contact Storymoja Africa on:

E-Mail:info@storymojaafrica.co.ke

Tel: (+254) 20 208 9595

Text / Call Mobile: (+254) 722 838 161

There will be weekly updates of the programme and participants on the Storymoja Website and Writer’s Blog.

This Blog is Technorated!

Since we need to keep up with things Web 2.0, I have claimed this blog on Technorati. Keep it locked to this URL. Very inspirational poems coming soon. I have been researching, dreaming and compiling my very best.

Nairobi’s Booksfirst online

Just stumbled across this link to a site for Nairobi’s premier bookstore, Booksfirst. They accept many forms of payment and the books are actually cheaper online. Check it out!

The Blogger Lives On

So I have been face down, drinking from the well. The well that bubbles with wisdom and sagely sayings, thought-provoking discourse and sharp commentary. In fact I have discovered, while face down at the well, that I was very thirsty, parched. Cracked lips and dry mouth, not mention a raspy throat. I share below some of the wisdom I imbibed while at the well.

(This is extracted from Kahlil Gibran’s seminal work, The Prophet, published by Pan Books, 1991)

The Prophet said when asked about Giving

You give but little when you give of your possessions
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space

And The Prophet said about Work

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music

And The prophet said about Reason and Passion

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas

And The Prophet said of Self-Knowledge

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and nights
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams

And it is well you should

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes

Keep drinking from the well! Slake your thirst, won’t you?

New to Microsoft Word 2007

I have been drive testing the above, and one cool feature is the word count thingy at the bottom left on the status bar. Nothing could be more exciting as you write a book! I can literally see my word count grow in tandem with the soreness of the finger tips. This “live ticker” of word count into numbers keeps me motivated and hungry for more!

Am at the phase of wrapping up the my book and it has come out well. I have a list of publishers whose doors I shall be knocking soon, so all you publishers out there, am coming !

I also discovered Notepad ++ ver 4.8.5, a great application that I write my blogs (like this post) offline and do other plain text editing. It is also great for XML and HTML editing, other things am learning! Did I mention 7Zip? Check out these utilities, and donate.

Am also waiting for my new Ubuntu CDs to be shipped, since downloading the ISO image on this side of the digital divide is a real pain in the back side. Are the ISPs and the fibre optic cablers reading this? I terribly need broadband (real, not imagined) on my balcony, barefoot (bila shoes). Talk to me people!

Still, hey life is truly phenomenal! Am enjoying it!

Google Books (http://books.google.com)

Been trawling through the above site as part of my research. It is a very worthy initiative by the Google gang, and I cannot thank them enough. Research is very key to any writing endeavour. Your thoughts alone may not suffice in a full length book. To add value and perspective, one needs to quote and bring in perspectives from other writers.

This adds a lot of value for your book and also makes it a reference point to other written works. I was particularly impressed by the classics, since these tomes contain invaluable wisdom that has consistently stood the test of time. It is still relevant today as it was in those ages. Am currently reading Thinking and Deciding (Third Edition) by Jonathan Baron. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is next.

This got me thinking about the more reason we need high-speed Internet access for all, since the we can travel to many places in the world and experience a richer life. I am still waiting patiently for the day I shall do high-speed surfing from my balcony, barefoot (which has a nice view of a forested area in my new neighbourhood).

…… come back

So it’ s been a while. I have been busy researching and writing my book. Yesterday I hit the 10,000 word mark. I was jumping all over the house carrying my laptop, and showing anyone who cared the mile stone. I have another couple of thousand words to go, and we shall be home and dry.

It is very gratifying to see the work of your hands come to fruition, and actually do it one step at a time.

More on the road to publishing soon.

This and that ….

The 5 AM dispatches are currently on hold, awaiting new levels of inspiration and resumption of the morning run. I have been on R & R for some time now as I take stock of my journey so far.

Life can get very interesting at times. When faced with  daunting tasks and times, one usually goes through the strangest motions to cope. I have been reading on vision and its place in the larger scheme of things. Very informative stuff.

The purpose of life. Why were you born? As in do you know why you are here? Been pondering these for some time. I am surely on my way to my destiny …………..

Thought Provoking Lines

What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your personal life?

What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your professional life or work life?

If you know these things would make such a significant difference, why are you not doing them now?

________

Excerpts from “First Things First: Coping With the Ever-Increasing Demands of the Workplace” by Stephen R. Covey, Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill.