WIN AN ONLINE WORKSHOP WITH JAMAL MAHJOUB AND HENRIETTA ROSE-INNES, THE FACILITATORS OF THE CAINE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING WORKSHOP.

 

Plus R500 gift voucher and three copies of African Violet, the 2012 Caine Prize Anthology.

This year, Short Story Day Africa are offering you the opportunity to have a story whipped into shape by the 2012 Caine Prize Workshop Facilitators, Jamal Mahjoub and Henrietta Rose-Innes.

Jamal and Henrietta are astute. Their eyes are sharper than their pencils. They don’t mince words mincing your words. They take no prisoners. Letting Jamal and Henrietta loose on your story is all that stands between mediocrity and greatness.

Here’s what some of 2012′s Workshop attendees have to say about them:

“Jamal goes straight for the heart. He wants to see the structure. Where are you going with this; he asks? His pen slashes at it: the first two hundred words are superfluous (including the brilliant little metaphor in paragraph two). You try to sneak it in some other part and he still slashes it. Henrietta does not do much slashing, she imprisons whole paragraphs in brackets! Her eye can see the story in the horizon and in the first drafts you have brackets around the paragraphs where the voice wavered, you went on a tangent and headed south. I found both of them quite brilliant. Doing a short story in ten days was a first for me; I got lost. It was great to listen to the questions they asked. I still ask myself the same questions and do a little Jamal, Henrietta role play.” Waigwa Ndiangui

“I learned so much from the process of discussing my story with Henrietta and Jamal. At times it made me see where I had gone astray for my reader, places I couldn’t see alone, but it also forced me to find ways to defend aspects of the story I refused to change, to search deeper for the essence of the story I needed to tell. Both of these were important and taught me more about what I know and what I don’t know about this mysterious art of writing.” Lauri Kubuitsile

To win this online workshop, one of three copies of the 2012 Caine Prize Anthology, African Violet, and a R500 voucher from Exclusive Books, compliments of Books Live, send us a story on creatures creepy and crawly, in honour of Henrietta’s Sunday Times Fiction Award shortlisting for her novel, Nineveh. Then follow Henrietta on twitter @HenriettaRI and give us the title of one of Jamal Mahjoub’s novels.

The best three stories will each win a copy of African Violet. See competition guidelines here.