Columns

by Paul Chuks Alina Fedorchenko I sprung into life as the black sheep of the family. No one told me it’d hurt. Black Sheep is the corrupted word for different. Although different becomes layered when we begin to consider whether humans differ. It is a psycho paradox that has left scholars sweating without an answer for centuries. The debate is not in the biological aspect — every human has a single unique gene encoded in them. It is in the psycho-social aspect. The bandwagon

by Paul Chuks Oladimeji Odunsi The Portuguese sauntered into Congo via the great Congo river in 1488 with the aim of making their state a vast African-Indian empire. Africa was not invaded earlier on due to a long held belief in the Western world that Earth was flat. After it was sufficiently debunked by Copernicus, Gil Eanes, sponsored by Prince Henry, dared in 1434 to sail beyond the area where the Atlantic ocean supposedly ended. It was the first successful voyage southwar

by Mandira Pattnaik This week two opposing letters written by a bunch of very famous authors, publishing agents and members of cultural organizations made it to my social feed. The first one was published on October 28 in Literary Hub, and was titled ‘Hundreds of Authors Pledge to Boycott Israeli Cultural Institutions.’ Signed by such eminent authors as Sally Rooney, Ocean Vuong, Kaveh Akbar and Jhumpa Lahiri, the letter said: “We have a role to play. We cannot in good consci

by Paul Chuks deshawn wilson In what is now a hit tweet circulating the ‘muskverse,’ a Nigerian X (formerly Twitter) influencer, from the perspective of red-pillism — a term popularized on social media which means an idea that despises ‘victim mentality’ or weakness, whether true or not — tweeted that ‘Blacks let go of racism and stop fighting for equality because our African ancestors had slaves equally as the whites and had a chance to lead the world economy with their labo

by Paul Chuks To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture, said Frantz Fanon. A fact of language that has eluded us for many years. Perhaps this is why Obi Wali started the campaign for African writers to write in their native language. When writers replied that the most common language in the country was the colonial one, Obi Wali urged the military to overhaul the English language and make Hausa the Lingua Franca. Even the military ignored him and the argument was

by Mandira Pattnaik Daniel/Unsplash Last week, the managing editor of a prominent publication I had never before submitted to, reached out to me through my author website. They had read "Dark Matter" (published 2022; Selected in Best of 20 Years’ of Contrary Magazine; Pushcart nominated) and liked it enough to invite me to submit. A communication such as this, without doubt, is enormously flattering for any writer, and when the froth settles, one is bound to feel a surreal co

by Mandira Pattnaik Mike Von My writing life began in 2019. So I am a five-year-old kid-writer. For me, I feel the same awe and bewilderment as a kid in the world, newly discovering things. I have sad days and happy days. I feel tired like a five-year-old after school. I feel elated when an editor (to me, a teacher) praises my work. Like a five-year-old who collects pebbles and fallen leaves, I collect (and gratefully safekeep) editorial notes, reader comments, notebooks and

by Mandira Pattnaik Lucas Margoni The Booker longlist was announced on July 30. About the 13 books (by 8 women and 5 men), the statement that accompanied the announcement said: “Works of fiction that inhabit ideas by making us care deeply about people and their predicaments” — which is exactly what is truly needed in today’s world of paradoxes and mounting inequalities. Expectedly, readers across the world eagerly wait to find out who will win. They scramble to read the longl

by Mandira Pattnaik Julian Gentile “Rejection” is a violent word that speaks directly to the body, says neuroscientist and literary scholar Laura C. Otis. Otis wasn’t talking about literary rejection but personal rejection. Yet, for the longest time, writers have experienced this type of a cascade of emotions. Turns out, rejection does have physical reactions in our body that can actually be recorded, according to scientific evidence. That’s mind numbing. For sure. My editors

by Mandira Pattnaik USGS Saudi Arabia hosted the 2024 World Environment Day global celebrations last week. This year’s campaign focused on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience under the slogan “Our land. Our future. We are #GenerationRestoration”, which was great because land is the only thing we have. We can’t live on water, or under the surface, or up in the air. It is particularly vital for a country like India where a new analysis showed that the built

by Mandira Pattnaik Raajit Sharma It is the peak of summer. Until a week ago, day temperatures were hovering between 40 and 45 degree Celsius, but there’s been an early onset of monsoon, and we should be enjoying the steady drizzle while munching pakodas and meeting friends over cups of chai. Seems, we are not. Instead we are debating furiously. Wait. Am I in the middle of the greatest exercise in the assertion of choice in the history of the planet? You bet I am — general el

by Amy Cipolla Barnes Michael Gault I see dead fonts It’s one of my quirks. I also didn’t get the ending of The Sixth Sense until I worked backwards with all the red clues in place. In hindsight, a fiction writer should have known better. The foreshadowing was not laid on with a light brush. I also hate Arial and am angry that it’s now apparently the default in Google Docs. I’ll switch this essay to Times New Roman before I finish it. Signs and billboards are my constant writ

by Mandira Pattnaik Marek Piwnicki Literary novels are refugees of a time in the past, escaping to the future to tell forgotten and forgiven stories; to tell the realities of the people inhabiting these lands, and their woes and dilemmas. And curiously, also to uncover the stories behind those narratives — how they came into being. These past few weeks, two novels captured my attention for very different reasons. I received the news of the publication of Gabriel García Márque

by Mandira Pattnaik Ashlyn Ciara Lost on Me, written by Italian writer, translator and screenwriter, Veronica Raimo, longlisted in The International Booker Prize 2024 announced on March 11, has a curious narrative line: Vero has grown up in Rome with her eccentric family consisting of an omnipresent, anxiety-filled mother, a father ruled by hygienic and architectural obsessions, and a precocious genius brother at the center of their attention. Vero wishes to break-free, but h

by Mandira Pattnaik Tom Hermans When the New Delhi World Book Fair 2024 ceded space to participating countries to showcase tourism and heritage and promote higher education opportunities available, I felt a certain sadness. It was like the organizers (National Book Trust, Ministry of Education, Government of India) had accepted that books alone, and literature alone, would not attract crowds. Not only was such presence of ancillary purposes prominently advertised, but thought

by Joel Worford Markus Spiske Last year, last January — I wrote a column called “How Does a Writer Practice?” in which I tossed and turned over not knowing how to objectively improve at writing. My anxiety stemmed, I guess, from the fact that, as a storyteller, you never outgrow not knowing what the hell you’re doing. “It frightens me to practice a craft in which the skills I regularly rely on, I can’t call upon, at will” (the writer I am today would have cut that last comma.

by Amy Cipolla Barnes AWP is impending. As in doom. I’ve started having the bad dreams I think only writers have, or maybe just me. Not simple naked-in-a-college-classroom dreams. Or even naked-at-my-first-in-person-readings. That would be too easy. My dreams involve things like wandering out of the hotel (where I share a barracks style room with random people who sing show tunes and steal from the baked potato bar) into long creepy mall corridors, until I’m in a muddy under-

by Mandira Pattnaik Florian Olivo Currently fascinated about Japanese culture after watching a series of travel videos, I have been reading up about food (onigiri, udon, yakitori) beyond the more popular sushi and tempura, places (Nara, Asakusa) beyond the usual Mt. Fuji and Shibuya, and about festivals like the Gion and Tenjin Matsuri beyond the Cherry Blossom and Snow Festivals. I laugh at myself for the depths that I go, and feel happy when I use bits from the info I have

by Amy Cipolla Barnes Tamanna Rumee I’ve struggled to find words in 2023. Full stop. The words stopped. As the year ends, my pantser-self has no list of submissions, acceptances, rejections, books read or not read. I tried. There are scattered documents entitled “2023 writing progress” on my computer. I signed up for and wrote absolutely nothing in several month-long writing sprints. I haven’t managed to write this column in months. I did read thousands of brilliant submissio

by Mandira Pattnaik READ: If you haven’t heard it enough, here’s reiterating it one more time. READ. Publications that you’re fond of, publish what you love to read (plain logic). Send them what they’ll read with interest rather than pushing something which might be new to them, say a piece where you’ve experimented with form. From my experience, established places are unlikely to serve their readers with something that the readers are least expecting. Conversely, newer magaz