Videos: Highlights and Readings from the African Literary Evening

Hello friends,

Compliments of the Season to all. Hope you had a lovely Christmas and you're looking forward to a wonderful New Year in 2015.

As promised, we now have a video showing the highlights of the discussions, readings, spoken word performances and other happenings at the African Literary Evening. I think it is a lovely summary of the event.


I also have a video recording of my reading two flash fiction stories. It's the first time I've recorded a reading and it feels very weird to watch myself.

I'm now considering signing up for public speaking classes.....

Hope you enjoy both videos.



Please feel free to comment and share. Thank you.

Photos from the African Literary Evening

Hello everyone! Hope you had a lovely weekend.

As promised, here are some of the photos from the African Literary Event that was held on the 8th of November @ The Proud Archivist in London. Enjoy and feel free to share or comment.

Thank you.

Photo credits: David Adetoye

Post by Accomplish Press.

Recap of the African Literary Evening

Hello folks! Hope you've all been doing great. I've been very busy, in my last post I mentioned I was planning a writer's event in London. Well, it finally happened! I was quite nervous about co-hosting and doing a reading on the day, but thankfully I got over my nerves long enough to last till the end of the evening :)

Here's a full recap of how it all went:

Last Saturday Accomplish Press and BlackandOutspoken hosted our first "African Literary Evening" @ The Proud Archivist in London. It was a great event, as we had in attendance: writers, readers,  journalists, publishers, poets, bookshop owners,  members of the press and people who love writing and literature, especially those who have an interest in promoting African literature to the world.

We had two panels discussing issues that are relevant to writers of African descent, based in the UK. The first panel was coordinated by Tundun Adeyemo and consisted of: Kemi Ogunniyi, Nuzo Onoh, Irenosen Okojie, Amanda Epe and Kiru Taye.

They discussed topics regarding Genres, Reaching an Audience, and The power of Blogging as a means of building an author platform.

 The second panel was coordinated by me, Tolulope Popoola, and consisted of: Sade Adeniran, Abidemi Sanusi, Abimbola Dare and Ola Nubi. We discussed issues such as Going beyond Print to tell our stories, New and different routes to Publishing, and Making it as a full-time writer.

(Click here for a download: Programme for African Literary Evening)
(Click here for a download: African Literary Evening Panel Members)

The panel discussions were interactive with the audience, and we had great responses, interesting questions, thoughtful contributions and many useful suggestions about the way forward in tackling some of theses issues. In particular, many people in the audience talked about a shortage of good books for African children and Young Adults, featuring African characters, morals and storylines that reflect our background. This is something that Accomplish Press is passionate about, and we will be doing something in the near future to address this gap in the market. We're already starting a new campaign titled "Get Young People Reading". Watch out for more announcements about this programme very soon.

Back to the event, there were interesting readings as well:

Ola Nubi read an excerpt from her forthcoming book: "Love's Persuasion". It is a romance story about characters based in Nigeria. It will be published next month by Ankara Press.

 Theresa Lola, a spoken word artist, performed two of her poems. One was dedicated to the girls of Chibok who were kidnapped so many months ago, and the other was a deep reflection on the power of womanhood. Everyone in attendance really enjoyed her performance.

Sade Adeniran read a short story, one of the stories from her collection in the Sade's World Podcasts. It was a story that reflected on a character's reaction to being fired from her job on the first working day of the new year.

Tundun Adeyemo read a poem from her collection, "The Immigrant" which described the farewell moments at Murtala Mohammed Airport as a character was about to leave Nigeria to study in England.

And I read two of my favourite flash fiction stories, one from the collection titled "Fertile Imagination" and another one published by Brittle Paper titled "The Alibi". I enjoyed reading the stories and I particularly liked the response I got from the audience at the end.

The evening ended with a networking session over drinks, book sales and signings.

We would like to say a very sincere Thank You to everyone who made this event possible. To the panel, the guests, friends who helped in really practical ways, to Battabox, Nigerian Watch, Mr Babatunde David Adetoye, the staff at The Proud Archivist, AUK Radio and many others. We really appreciate your help and support. We intend to host another event like this very soon, we'll keep you posted!

Read some of our attendees' comments about the event:

Obi and Titi - African Writers Literary Evening
Adeola Akintoye - A Literary Evening Extraordinaire 
Christopher Ejugbo - Do Africans Read? 
Watch the video below (and read the blog post) by Battabox. They interviewed some of the guests and asked them an important question:

I'm still waiting for the feedback from Nigerian Watch, when I get it, I'll update this post. I'll also upload more photos and videos as they become available.

That's it! Thank God that went well, On to bigger and better things next :)

Upcoming Event: African Literary Evening

Hello friends. Hope you've had a good week and a relaxing weekend. I mentioned in my last post that I was working with a friend to put together a literary event in London this November. Well, we're almost ready! So if you are in this part of the world, and you love books, writing, literature, poetry etc, and you would like to meet some really amazing, talented writers, then come along! I'll be there too ;)

Here are the full details of the evening:

Accomplish Press in conjunction with Femy and Remy Ltd and Nigerian Writers, presents an evening of reading, conversation and inspiration with the best of new generation African Writers. 

The event will be a mixture of literature, poetry and spoken word performances, as well as a panel to discuss issues relevant to writers in the UK.

Featuring: A panel of African Writers, Publishers, Journalists, Poets and Book Bloggers.

Abidemi Sanusi

Nuzo Onoh

Ola Nubi

Sade Adeniran

Kémi Ogunniyi

Irenosen Okojie

Kiru Taye

Abimbola Dare

Adura Ojo

Tolulope Popoola

Tundun Adeyemo

Amanda Epe

and many more.

Topics:

•Is it possible to make a living as a writer?

•The future of publishing in the UK: is it traditional publishing, self-publishing and collaborative publishing or hybrid publishing?

•Beyond print; moving with the digital revolution: ebooks, podcasts, audio books and short films

•Who is our audience? Our community or beyond?

•Genres: moving beyond expectations placed on African writing

Hosted by: David G. Balogun

With readings and spoken word performances from: 

Ola Nubi - she will be reading from her soon-to-be published novel

Adura Ojo - she will be reading from her newly published collection of poems, “Life is a Woman Breaking Eggs”.

Amanda Epe - she will be reading a chapter from her new book

Tolulope Popoola - she will be reading from her book as well as a couple of flash fiction stories.

There will be a variety of books for sale, and an opportunity to network and chat with the panel and other guests informally over snacks and drinks in the bar afterwards.

Date: Saturday, 8th November 2014

Time: 5pm to 8pm

Venue: The Proud Archivist, 2 - 10 Hertford Road, London N1 5ET http://www.theproudarchivist.co.uk/

Tickets: Early Bird £5, General £8

Please register and order tickets via Eventbrite:
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/african-literary-evening-tickets-12822098241

I look forward to seeing you there!