"Still I feel life seeping out of my scrawny bones." An Interview with #WriterPrompt winner Innocent Chizaram Ilo.

I am dreaming about a dream

Tonight, I am dreaming about a dream of being in a bubble. A pink bubble, silky and a bit gossamer. Wait, I am not the black scorpion gasping for air. I am standing on the hanging-pavement, puffing cheap cigars and nibbling at twigs. Still I feel life seeping out of my scrawny bones. 
She is standing beside Miss Ginger's mailbox, inflating and deflating the bubble. What will I call her, God?
"God isn't a woman, you prick!" Mr Judy says.
"But she has the bubble of life." I snap back.
Mr Judy is the voice in my head and we don't always agree on issues. But he is a sure brute and barrages me into doing his will.
"So, I will call her God," I say.
"This is not going to end well," Mr Judy mumbles.
She catwalks towards me; her hips swaying in the silent melody of midnight.
"Someone has a crush on God!" Mr Judy's tone is scornful.
"A scorpion is trapped in your bubble," I say to her.
"It's not really a trap," she says. "I'm breathing life into the scorpion." 
"How is she speaking with the bubble on her mouth?" Mr Judy asks.
She hangs a slender arm on my shoulder. I can see the scorpion clearly now, its claws are grappling to burst out of the bubble. My knees feel like melting butter. I am sinking. She laughs; a stinging laughter, and a cask of lifelessness envelopes me.

#WriterPrompt is a flash fiction event run on our Facebook page. Writers post stories, then workshop them with other participants and members of the SSDA team.  Innocent Chizaram Ilo won and he talks to Jason Mykl Snyman about his writing journey and influences.

"I've watched Innocent Ilo grow as a writer. In 'I am dreaming about a dream' he's managed to craft a story of surrealism and dread in a very short space. His characters are alive. They breathe. Mr. Judy, as only a voice in our narrator's head, is as well fleshed-out as any other character I've read in flash fiction. We get the sense that we know these people, that we are these people - and that we've seen this scene play out somewhere in the back of our own minds. Innocent has accomplished much, by saying very little. He's hasn't laid it all out in front of us, but simply invited us in. How deep you choose to go is up to you. This is the mark of a truly original story-teller, and I look forward to reading his work in the future." - Jason Mykl Snyman, on choosing the winning story.

What do you like writing about most?

INNOCENT: I love writing about what fascinates me; love, jollof rice, childhood memories and dreams. My characters evolve around people that I know nothing about, though I want to partake in their lives and people I see everyday.
 

Who are some of your favourite authors and why?

INNOCENT: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie!!!  Purple Hibiscus was the first novel I read with characters like myself. After Chimi is Tiah Beautement. Tiah would always say to me; "Shorten your sentences to achieve coherence. Play around with the story. Read it aloud to yourself." 

I also admire Alice Walker's unapologetic rawness, Chinua Achebe's unbridled wisdom, Noviolet Bulawayo's vibrant prose, Petina Gappah's finery, E. C Osondu's wry humor and Chukwuemeka Ike's sarcasm.

My writing family at SSDA's #WriterPrompt; Frances, CN Ndubuisi, TJ, Gab, Jason, Ibeh, Michael, Alex, you guys rock!  
 

What advice would you give to someone who wants to improve their writing? 

INNOCENT: Read anything you can lay your hands on (from a boring article on tectonic plate movements to a novel about Eskimos). Write. Watch a lot of good movies (it helps you to learn how to show and not tell). Listen to the tiny voice at the back of your head. Be your worst critic. Have a closely knitted circle of trusted writer-friends for advice, suggestions and feedback on your writing.

Innocent Chizaram Ilo is a Nigerian writer, economics undergraduate and an Iggy and Litro Alumnus. His story 'Vision' won the 2016 Oxford Arts Festival Stories for Children by Children.

Interview by Jason Mykl Snyman

Final #WriterPrompt For 2016: Guest Writer Wole Talabi

How quickly a year goes by! We have a treat for the final #WriterPrompt of the year but first a look at the micro-writing workshop's beginnings.

How #WriterPrompt Came To Be

Short Story Day Africa’s online writing workshop was launched back in April, 2015 with a gleaming line of text running across an image of an ominous alleyway;

“He wasn’t from around here, not really.”

Those words invited the damned and the lost and the aspirant, who came from far and wide with pockets full of pretty words and devastating imaginations. They breathed fire, and #WriterPrompt was a living thing.

Beneath the editorial gaze of SSDA’s devoted team, daring writers learnt how to interpret prompts in new and surprising ways, how to shock and inspire awe, create believable, loveable, detestable characters and how to navigate all those tricky bits like grammar, punctuation, sentence structure or flow. All in under 250 words. That’s all you get, and boy, do they make every word count.

Fellow writers, or indeed, voracious readers are able to stop by and drop their constructive critique, overwhelming praise or their simple thoughts into any given offering. This creates a productive learning environment for the writers – and at the end of the allocated time window – the piece which blows everybody away the hardest is chosen for publication on SSDA’s website.

To date, SSDA has published a multitude of winning pieces and unearthed diamonds.

The Twist In The Tale

The recently re-launched, re-vamped #WriterPrompt introduces a new twist – your stories may be critiqued and judged by guest authors. Some of the selected prompts have a new guest – and don’t expect them to pull any punches.

For the last #WriterPrompt of the year we decided to end with a bang, roping in Wole Talabi to be our Guest Writer. Here's a little bit about this fascinating writer. 

WOLE TALABI is a full-time engineer, part-time writer and some-time editor from Nigeria. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Lightspeed, Omenana, F&SF, Terraform, Abyss & Apex, The Kalahari Review, the anthologies Imagine Africa 500, Futuristica Vol. 1 and a few other places. He edited the anthologies These Words Expose Us and Lights Out: Resurrection and co-wrote the play Color Me Man. He currently lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. You can keep up with him on Twitter too: @WTalabi or catch up with him on his blog.

Watch out for #WriterPrompt 14 on the 28th of November and join the event on Facebook to take part. We can't wait to read your writing.

"He had lost count of the sunsets and sunrises." A Quick Q&A With #WriterPrompt Winner, Paul Behrens.

Perceptions of Time

It was all about perspective, although that word Alfie only came to know years later. It may have been perspective he understood, but it was frustration he felt and anger that he could barely control. Grown-Ups were the cause of his problems, why wouldn’t they listen or believe him? They kept telling him it was Tuesday, when it was on a Thursday that he’d left.

He had lost count of the sunsets and sunrises.

Even though he didn’t sleep the whole time he circumnavigated the earth in their craft, he knew that a few days had passed.

Then it dawned on him.

They had gone around the earth the opposite way and he had come back earlier – not later. Einstein would have whooped had he known that a young boy could comprehend relativity, albeit from the experience of a joyride with a bunch of aliens.

It all made sense to Alfie now.

His parents were also wrong about accepting rides from strangers, there was nothing dangerous or scary, despite them landing in the driveway and swallowing him whole, bicycle and all. They didn’t do things to him. He spent most of the time floating around, staring out of the window enjoying the view, of earth, the moon, the stars. No probes or strange food, just ice-cream and pizza.

Back home safe and sound he stood looking up at the night sky hoping to see their light.

Absentmindedly, Alfie scratched the back of his head where the hair like antennae protruded.

#WriterPrompt is a flash fiction event run on our Facebook page. Writers post stories, then workshop them with other participants and members of the SSDA team. The winner, Paul Behrens, talks about how a story comes to him and what the perfect playlist would be to accompany his story. 

Efemia Chela was #WriterPrompt 12's Guest Writer. She elaborates on why she chose "Perceptions of Time" as the winner. 

"I picked this as the winning story because I like the play of light and dark in this piece. It draws on childhood memories in such a fun way. It subverts the common human paranoia that aliens are out to hurt us and that makes for an unexpected plotline. Yet at the end we’re left uncertain about who or what the main character is, whether the adventures are real or not and that uneasiness made the piece stick with me. Ironically, Subterranean Homesick Alien by Radiohead came to me immediately.

“Perceptions of Time” flowed very naturally and Paul was quite clever with his word choices as you have to be in microfiction. In particular, I loved the layered meaning of the line, “Then it dawned on him.” The theme of youthful rebellion was a good way to approach the graffiti picture. Like the title of the story, it really is all about perceptions and perspectives and when you look at it from a couple of different angles this is a great little story."

Now, some thoughts from the winner himself, in conversation with Jason Mykl Snyman, one of the #WriterPrompt co-ordinators.

You’ve been participating in SSDA’s #WriterPrompt for a while now, and you’ve always managed to interpret the prompts in refreshing, interesting ways. You’ve also managed to produce multiple interpretations of a single prompt.  Where do you draw your inspirations and energy from?

PAUL: All my life I have been lucky that whenever I experience something, seeing a picture, hearing some music or being in a situation, the outline of a story comes to me quickly.

After that I make use of a number of sources for inspiration. Firstly, my life experiences, many of my settings are aspects of the places I have been. Secondly from all the media I love to adsorb: books, movies, TV series, music. Thirdly and most of all I draw inspiration from people, my observations of them and listening to their stories.

From all of this I allow the outline to stew in my head until the story is able to formulate itself to a point it can be written with some cohesion. Sometimes it fizzles out completely and other times it blossoms into something readable.

 

Many writers use music to set a mood, or simply for background noise while they work. Give us a five-song playlist to accompany your winning Writer Prompt piece, ‘Perceptions of Time.’

Starman

PAUL: David Bowie – Starman

Radiohead – Subterranean Homesick Alien

Coldplay – Yellow

Muse – Supermassive Blackhole

The Mars Volta – Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)

You’re not only a writer, but also an avid reader and supporter of short stories. What’s the best thing you’ve read this year? 

PAUL: It is probably very late in my life to do so, but I only discovered Ernest Hemingway this year and I was blown away by his work. When you first read his stories they flow very easily and seem quite simplistic, but quickly one realises how difficult it is to write like that. He truly was a genius.

While loving writing from school days, inspired by his English teachers, Paul never formally studied languages, rather choosing Engineering and later in life became a business management consultant within the IT world. Hence all his writing has been a part-time passion.

Paul has always been drawn toward the short story genre and finds the art of telling a story with as few words as possible while painting the whole picture a challenge he enjoys. Living in Johannesburg, Paul writes for pleasure and shares his stories on his blog https://paulabehrens.wordpress.com/

Interview by Jason Mykl Snyman

'The arena becomes tense as the boy drinks the poison.' A Quick Q&A with #WriterPrompt Winner, Ishola Abdulwasiu Ayodele.

The Last Bird

The arena becomes tense as the boy drinks the poison.

The crystal ceilings shine red.

Father speaks: “He stole, breaking one of the codes of order. This is justice, and we have one heart less to drain our insufficient air.”

And a few yell, ‘Justice!’

The boy drops dead.

I sigh.

Father is a tyrant. The boy only stole a few tablets of Nutrilets.

The black crystal hours, I sneak away through the high palace walls.

My torch pushing back shadows, I find the sewer that leads to the Rejects Section. They are waiting, starved citizens, thin as stick drawings.

The air here is hot and stuffy.

I distribute the Nutrilets and compressed ice cubes I’ve come with. They cry and thank me as they swallow.

And I smile.

The golden crystal hours, I hide the creature I found in the sewer in my robe and head for the Temple.

It tweets just like the others, the ones father kills. He believes they take people away.

At the Temple, a giant metallic clone of the creature stands. Myth says there used to be many, that our ancestors sought answers here. I bring it out and pray. It flutters its wings and flies and tweets.

I watch in awe.

Bang!

It falls.

I whirl to see father’s blazing eyes.

“What have you done?”

The metal god creaks and takes to the air. It twirls and drills through the crystal with its metallic beak. Soon, we are bathed in warm, golden rays.

#WriterPrompt is a flash fiction event run on our Facebook page. Writers post stories, then workshop them with other participants and members of the SSDA team. In an exciting new twist we've added the element of a guest African writer who also comments on the stories and chooses the winner.

2015 SSDA Prize winner, Cat Hellisen was this #WriterPrompt 11's Guest Writer. She elaborates on why she chose "The Last Bird" as the winning story.

"Reading the entries for #WriterPrompt has been very interesting—both in the way the prompt was interpreted and in the varying styles writers use to get their story across. There were snappy, punchy pieces, lyrical ones that bordered on poetry and everything in-between. While not every story worked for me, even in the pieces that would benefit the most from guidance and reworking there were lines that stood out: surprising and delightful metaphors and sentences of rhythmic beauty.

Submitting to magazines and reading slush piles has taught me that a story can work for one person and be completely broken for another. As you can imagine, this made choosing a winner a difficult task. I narrowed it down to three, and finally settled on Ishola Abdulwasiu Ayodele's "The Last Bird". There are several reasons for this. On a personal level, "The Last Bird" is specific, and that's my field of interest. Science fiction and fantasy stories tend to draw me in more.

When it comes to craft though, Ayodele was able to give us the sense of world and time in few words and without resorting to extraneous explanations that don't serve the story. He trusted his reader, and that's an important skill as a writer.

Where Ayodele can improve is by looking at the cadence and poetry of some of the other stories, and breathing some of that lyricism into his work in the way that Olakunle Ologunro did in "Here Lies Ra..." and CN Ndubuisi in “Finding Life."

Now, some thoughts from the winner himself, in conversation with Jason Mykl Snyman, one of the #WriterPrompt co-ordinators.

I mentioned your strong world-building during the workshop, how you managed to take us to a new world complete with myth and lore in a short amount of space. It certainly went down well with our guest writer, Cat. Have you always fancied yourself a writer of fantasy and science fiction, or how did this particular story come about?

ISHOLA: The unknown and the mysterious fascinate me. And I discovered Fantasy and Science Fiction have a reasonable dose of mystery. My early stories were very fantastical, thanks to Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth Series. So I could say fantasy, science fiction and mystery genres have always been a part of me.

On how the story came about: a flying bird generally denotes freedom, so I wondered what it would be like if a bird were to be the key to the freedom of an isolated civilization.

Your story feels as if it’s but a snippet, just a glimpse into a larger, bigger world you’ve already created. I think fans of this piece would love to know more. Can we expect something bigger from you in the future? Is a short story in the pipeline, or a novel perhaps?

ISHOLA: It was after I finished writing that I knew this was just a snippet. I became curious about the warm, golden rays which I intended to suggest sunlight. What was outside, above the Crystal Sky World? How did they come to be? Why were they isolated? To answer these questions, I expanded the myth. There could be a novel in the future, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi with a touch of fantasy.

What is your favourite opening line from a book, and what does it mean to you? 

ISHOLA: My favourite opening line would be from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: “The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane.”

This line is beautiful writing to me. It is short, sharp and mysterious. And it paints a scene that draws the reader in quickly.

Ishola Abdulwasiu Ayodele is an alumnus of the maiden ANA/Yusuf Ali Creative Writing Workshop. His fiction and poetry have been published on online literary platforms such as Dwartsonline, Hard Voices and OurPoetryCorner. He is also an amateur photographer.

Interview by Jason Mykl Snyman

Plans for "...world domination." An Interview with #WriterPrompt winner, Lester Hashimoto

Are you really you?

Morning light has yet to cross our feet. Calluses bump his. They are beautiful. I know them well. I look at mine and hide them under his leg; they need more mileage. 
Burnished skin stretches over his length; it contains him, his strength, his every potential. I draw the tip of my finger to his nipple. It hardens. He stirs. 
The toilet is hot. It is summer and I have forgotten to leave the window open. A drop of sweat rolls down my back. My pee hits the water in a thick stream.

His embrace awaits me.
Morning, says his sleepy smile.
I climb into his arms. They enfold me, like petals.
“How did you sleep?” I always ask.
“Mmmmm,” he always says.
“Last night was good.”
A kiss is his reply.
He runs his nail across my chest and flicks my nipple. It puckers up.
His face, his brow defy wrinkling; his mouth stays set; his eyes dart from side to side, over the whole of mine, and I wonder what he is looking for.
My eyes are calm, an antidote to the fever in his.
He climbs atop. His weight pinches my arm to the bed. I smile.
“I want you,” he says.
“You have all of me,” I say because he is perfect.
His lips brush mine and I wonder, again, “Are you, really you?”

#WriterPrompt is a flash fiction writing workshop hosted by Short Story Day Africa team, on our Facebook page. Lester Hashimoto was the winner of #WriterPrompt 10 and told us a bit about his writing routines, past and present as well as his travels. 

Can you tell us a little about your writing world?

LESTER: Writing has been sporadic. I used to teach English as a second language in Japan but have recently moved back to South Africa. In between the moving I've not had much chance to sit down and actually write. Before that, I used to write for an hour in the mornings.

There is no 'writing world' for me really. I don't know any other writers or writerly things apart from the guys I met attending a monthly workshop in Tokyo and, of course, the community at SSDA's #WriterPrompt.

Who are your top favourite authors?

LESTER: I'm fiercely non-committal, so my favorite authors are usually the ones I'm reading at the moment. In the past it has been Yukio Mishima, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Stephen King, Sidney Sheldon. I'm currently enjoying the fantastical Jorge Luis Borges.

What writing plans do you have for the future? 

LESTER: World domination. I started writing quite late and there is no room for modesty. I want a book deal. I want to get published.

Lester Hashimoto has taught English as a second language in Japan for the past eight years but has recently moved back to South Africa. A short story of his has been published in Die Laughing, the 2016 anthology of Short. Sharp. Stories, which is part of The National Arts Festival.

Interview by Jason Mykl Snyman