{"id":23,"date":"2019-07-04T14:30:08","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T14:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.shortstorydayafrica.org\/?p=23"},"modified":"2019-07-04T14:30:08","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T14:30:08","slug":"announcing-the-2018-ssda-prize-long-shortlist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/?p=23","title":{"rendered":"Announcing the 2018 SSDA Prize (long) Shortlist!"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Every year, the SSDA team is confronted with an impossible task \u2013 choosing a shortlist from the twenty-one longlisted stories that appear in our annual anthology. We make this as fair as possible by using a panel of qualified judges \u2013 this year, we consulted fourteen (!), all of whom volunteered their time. The process is very democratic \u2013 votes are carefully tallied, and usually, the results are quite clear.<\/p>\n

Well, not this year. It\u2019s a credit to the quality of the stories chosen for the longlist that every single story in the Hotel Africa<\/em> anthology was chosen as one of the top six by at least one judge. And we\u2019ve never seen such a photo finish for the top end of the list. In past years, winners usually become clear at this stage, but this time, we couldn\u2019t even establish a shortlist of six. We tried for a shortlist of eight \u2013 as we had to do last year. Not even that worked. After hours of hair-tearing, recounts and attempted tie-breakers, this year we have no choice but to present a rather long shortlist of ten \u2013 and several stories missed being on this list by only one vote.<\/p>\n

Also every year, we congratulate not only those shortlisted but all the authors, assuring them that all their stories are excellent \u2013 and that\u2019s why they\u2019re in the anthology. However, this is our most evenly matched collection ever, and it\u2019s worth reflecting on the reasons why.<\/p>\n

One reason is that our volunteer slushpile readers are getting cannier at spotting potential, at choosing the truly original plot, or a startlingly fresh spin on an ancient theme. We actively look for raw talent, diamonds in the rough, to give them the same opportunities as more experienced authors, those who turn in smooth, fluent and error-free prose. It\u2019s a common when selecting stories for anthologies like these to feel drawn to stories that are \u201ceasy\u201d to read because they\u2019ve been professionally prepared and polished. We try to correct that unconscious bias. We try especially hard not to exclude stories written by authors for whom English is clearly not a mother-tongue or primary language. We embrace stories in which the multiple Englishes spoken on the continent can be heard. We don\u2019t discard strong stories that have weak or abrupt endings \u2013 because endings can and often should be rewritten.<\/p>\n

And this leads to the major reason we think the stories are so evenly matched this year: the in-depth editing process. The editing team \u2013 Ope Adedeji, Anne Moraa, Agazit Abate, with mentors Helen Moffett and Karen Jennings \u2013 gave copious amounts of feedback to enable authors to rewrite and rework where necessary. Notes from the selecting readers were consulted and incorporated into this feedback. This was followed by stringent editing, often characterised by much debate and comment. The goal of the editing programme and the mentoring process (which encompasses editors and authors) is to develop African writers so that their brilliance can shine on a world stage, alongside writers for whom professional editing is either built into their process, or easily accessed \u2013 not often true for writers from and in Africa. Those who read the \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafter\u201d versions of these stories all commented on how dramatically editing had levelled the playing fields. This is an excellent outcome, but it does make choosing a shortlist a far more onerous job.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is no doubt that while having a panel of judges is cumbersome, it makes the choosing of the shortlist a pretty democratic process. We\u2019re hugely grateful to all those who make the time to do this job, and for the seriousness and commitment they bring to it.<\/p>\n

Enough explaining. Here\u2019s the (long) shortlist for the SSDA 2018 anthology, Hotel Africa<\/em>, in alphabetical order:<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Thompson\u201d by Noel Cheruto<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy City Hotel\u201d by Adam El Shalakany<\/p>\n

\u201cOf Birds and Bees\u201d by Davina Kuwuma<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy Don\u2019t You Live in the North?\u201d by Wamuwi Mbao<\/p>\n

\u201cSlow Road to the Winburg Hotel\u201d by Paul Morris<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Snore Monitor\u201d by Chido Muchemwa<\/p>\n

\u201cOutside Riad Dahab\u201d by Chourouq Nasri<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Match\u201d by Troy Onyango<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Space(s) in Between Us\u201d by Lester Walbrugh<\/p>\n

\u201cShithole\u201d by Michael Yee<\/p>\n

Our hearty congratulations to you!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year, the SSDA team is confronted with an impossible task \u2013 choosing a shortlist from the twenty-one longlisted stories that appear in our annual anthology. We make this as fair as possible by using a panel of qualified judges \u2013 this year, we consulted fourteen (!), all of whom volunteered their time. The process […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,12,9,10],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hotel-africa","tag-shortlist","tag-ssdaprize","tag-ssdaprize2018","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortstorydayafrica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}