'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

 

#WeekendRead - Juliane Okot Bitek's 100 Days

      This excerpt comes from Juliane Okot Bitek's first published collection is 100 Days. It is a poetic, painful countdown that both pays tribute to and records the horrific Rwandan genocide. It was originally part of a public loose collaboration with Wangechi Mutu, on Facebook.  

 

     Day 98
If this should be a list of betrayals where should we begin?
At last, we’re here
At last, we’re gone
What is this life beyond one hundred days?
What is this life beyond one hundred days, twenty times over?
What days are left?
We were already in medias res
We were always inside one hundred days
.
Day 99
It was sunrise every morning
It was the same land
The same sky
The same rivers, hills, valleys
It was the same road that led away and back home
Same sweet air that amplified the voices through whispers, gossip, airwaves
Words leapt into our eyes and burned this new knowledge that was never new
But it was the earth that betrayed us first
In those one hundred days that would never end
.
Day 100
It was the earth that betrayed us first.
It was the earth that held on to its beauty, compelling us to return.
It was the breezes that were there, and then they were not there.
It was the sun that rose and fell, rose and fell, as if there was nothing different: as if nothing changed.

 

 

Juliane Okot Bitek is a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia and a Liu scholar at the Liu Institute for Global Issues. Her latest book of poetry, 100 Days is published by the University of Alberta Press. Her dissertation looks at the impact of forgetting on citizenship. She lives and loves in Vancouver, Canada.

#WriteTips: Three Writers, Three Perspectives.

Earlier in the year we were lucky enough to interview Yewande Omotoso, Mahtem Shiferraw and Edyth Bulbring - three writers who are equally talented but have quite different styles. They gave some insight into the writing process and self-editing and hopefully some of these gems inspire and challenge you.  

 

Yewande Omotoso

On Writing

 

- Give yourself permission.

- For people who “don’t have time to write” carry a notebook everywhere. Sure you might not have chunks of hours available but everyone has a few seconds to take down a sentence or two – this is writing. 

On Editing

- Edit with the question, “Does this belong? If it wasn’t there would they miss it?”

 

 

Mahtem Shiferraw 

- Things that really helped me: read your work out loud. A lot. Always. Distance too; learning to distance yourself from the work & give it enough room to breathe.

- Always inquire. What does the work want to be? Measure the work within the parameters of itself, not of others' work. Don’t be afraid to take it apart, and by that I mean: do take it apart. Don’t kill your darlings, but extract them, & place them somewhere else; you never know what they will blossom into.

- Share your work with peers, family, friends, co-workers; it’s always good to hear how your work is reflected in the world.

- Sometimes it’s good to begin things in the middle and work your way around a poem/story.

- And the golden rule: read. Read everything & anything. Reading will not only make you a great writer & editor, but a wonderful human being too.

 

Edyth Bulbring

  1. Cut, cut, cut (Less is more)

  2. Don’t be scared of a good adjective or adverb

  3. Be very scared of an exclamation mark!

  4. Use simple words

  5. Avoid long sentences

 

 

 

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