Just a brief blog update really, as I head out to visit family in Cape Town again soon. Firstly, it’s very exciting to see a new online African SF magazine launched, called ‘Omenana‘, with a great mix of stories and non-fiction (interview and review article). The TOC for Issue 1 is:
Editorial: Speculative Fiction in Nigeria: The Journey to Being: Mazi Nwonwu
The 4:15 Appointment: Rafeeat Aliyu
HostBods: Tendai Huchu
Crocodile Ark: Oluwole Talabi
A Winter in Lagos: Saratu Abiola
Art: Mami Water: Calm Waters: Kelsey Arrington
Interview: The World According to Ibrahim Ganiyu
Essay: The Unbearable Solitude of Being an African Fan Girl: Chinelo Onwualu
Omenana is available here
Secondly, nominations for ‘the’ ‘Best Of 2014’ will be coming in for a range of media and genres. I’ve always been interested in ‘non-fiction’ articles critically addressing SF in its broadest sense. The annual anthology of online SF related articles is thus always of interest: So if you are interested in nominating any articles along these lines (e.g. the Chinelo Onwualu article in Omenana), Speculative Fiction 2014 is still open.
In this ‘best of’ spirit, here’s Bookshy’s top or favourite picks for 2014 African book covers
Thirdly, my story ‘Azania‘ is due to appear next year (2015) in ‘How to Live on Other Planets‘, a collection of migration themed SF stories. The KickStarter is here – This looks a great collection, so I’m really looking forward to reading the other stories. Further in this vein, here’s reportage of a Kenyan SF TV series with an interesting inversion of the immigration theme – Immigration is a fraught topic in the UK currently and as a migrant myself I found this following article insightful and resonant on this issue, ‘We Are all Migrants‘ by Mohsin Hamid
Next year I’m also looking forward to AfroSF Vol.2 coming out, which includes a story co-written with Tade Thompson, entitled ‘The Last Pantheon.’ Tade’s a gifted artist too, so I look forward to any illustrations that may appear alongside the story. It’s an African super-hero tale, pitching South African V Nigerian super-hero/villain against each other. For a take on black super-heroes, have a look at ‘Super Black‘ by Adilufu Nama
Finally, I believe there may be a Dilman Dila novella coming in the AfroSF Vol. 2 collection as well – so for Dilman’s exciting new speculative fiction short story collection, entitled ‘A Killing in the Sun’ – go here
The African Fantasy Reading Group, set up by Geoff Ryman, will be covering this collection after first looking at Deji Olukotun’s ‘Nigerians in Space’: Membership is open and active – so feel free to come along; either via Facebook or What’s App on phone:
Till 2015 then…happy reading – and writing!
Nick Wood (Nov/Dec 2014)