Stephen Embleton

I am so glad, and proud, to have The James Currey Anthology, which I edited, included in the Brittle Paper 100 Notable African Books of 2022 🔥❤️ Congratulations to the 12 contributors whose works made this book what it is. C. S. Hadebe (South Africa)  Bontsi Z. Kennedy, nee Morewane (Botswana) Ifunanya Madufor (Nigeria) Gothataone Moeng (Botswana) Majini Ya Mombasa (Kenya)  Nzube Nlebedim (Nigeria)  Mbaeze Nnedimma (Nigeria)  Cheryl S. Ntumy (Ghana)  N. A. Ntumy (Botswana)  Lynn Nyaera Onywere (Kenya) Maxine Sibihwana (Uganda) Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike (Nigeria)  #africanliterature

Aké Review 2022 On their 2022 Festival theme of "Homecoming", my Ten Questions and Answers were published in the Aké Review Volume 9. Read the 10 Questions/Answers here.

Stephen Discussing the Sauúti Collective What an absolute adventure attending  Aké Arts & Book Festival 2022 in Lagos, Nigeria! The Aké event was held at the Strong Tower Events Centre – down the gauntlet of car hooters, traffic and vibrant and excited chatter in the bus. This was part of the atmosphere which carried through into the hall decked out with round tables and chairs – encouraging people to mingle and share ideas... and BOOKS! The writing on the wall prompt: I LOVE BOOKS BECAUSE… “…they build worlds in the minds of the readers that goes beyond what the writer wrote.” Aké Review 2022 WEDNESDAY, 23th NOV 2022: Arrived! At Ake Arts & Book Festival in kind of one piece. 😁❤️Meeting the 2021 Nobel Prize winner, Abdulrazak Gurnah and his lovely wife Denise DeCaires Narain, and so many people I’ve met virtually. Abdulkareem Baba Aminu Abdulrazak Gurnah and Denise DeCaires Narain Wole Talabi James Murua Toni Kan Me! THURSDAY, 24th NOV 2022: Day One 🔥❤️ The writing on the w

  Stephen, Cheryl Ntumy, Wole Talabi and Dare Segun Falowo Four of us members of the Saúti Collective were invited to present the Sauútiverse at Ake Arts & Book Festival on Friday 25 November 2022. What a reception and great support from everyone in attendance and online! With Wole Talabi steering the conversation and introducing our created shared world, Cheryl Ntumy, Dare Segun Falowo and I (Stephen Embleton) spoke about our experiences and the sound magic of the Sauúti Universe. What an awesome panel event at Aké Festival and what a day it was, sharing  The Sauúti Collective  with everyone and the buzz afterwards 🔥⭐️🔥⭐️  Wole Talabi, Dare Segun Falowo, Cheryl Ntumy, and Stephen Our Mother Creator (teaser) – The Sauúti Creation Myth Watch the teaser  to the The Sauúti Collective Creation Myth, which we kicked off with for our panel at Ake Arts & Book Festival. Check out the full panel session on The Sauúti Collective from yesterday at Ake Arts & Book Festival A great ex

  Cover Art by John Jennings COMING IN JUNE 2023 Languages of Water – a cross-lingual hybrid anthology This was an interesting anthology to participate in and so glad I could contribute. And it’s finally here (nearly)! I thoroughly enjoyed the research I did for my short story (" Taking Turns ").   Thanks to Eugen Bacon for her work 👏🏼in putting this together and Milton Davis and MVmedia for publishing! With this lovely cover art by John Jennings .  Featuring (in alphabetical order): Aldegunda Matoyo, Alvin Pang, Andrew Hook, Audrey Chin, Cheng Tim Tim, Clara Chow, Clare Rhoden, David Carlin, Dominique Hecq, E. Don Harpe, Erin Latimer, Eugen Bacon, Francesca Rendle-Short, Jill Jones, Kyongmi Park, Nikki Bacon, Nuzo Onoh, Oz Hardwick, Pandora, Quyên Nguyễn-Hoàng, Ramya Jirasinghe, Rina Kikuchi, Seb Doubinsky, Stephen Embleton, Sudeep Chatterjee, Tamantha Smith, Zephyr Li. Find out more on Eugen Bacon's blog and order here .

  We finally launched the Sauúti Collective with the online publication of  Our Mother Creator  – the Sauúti Creation Myth ( free to read online ). Hosted by Syllble , ten of us African writers came together to build a science fiction and fantasy world based on African traditions. The ten founding members of the Sauúti Collective defined the parameters of this world, wrote stories set in it and have created a detailed “story bible” describing the settings, history, politics, rules, key groups, motivations and general philosophy of the world, and stories set within it.  I cannot wait for all the stories to be published – all beautiful, poignant pieces. *** Our Mother Creator  – the Sauúti Creation Myth by Stephen Embleton & Wole Talabi, with Art by Akintoba Kalejaye. Wole Talabi and I crafted this piece of imagined mythology, with powerful visuals by Akintoba Kalejaye , which establishes the creation of our fantasy world centred on the Goddess as creator. Formulating the entire Sa

 It was a privilege to design the logo for the  Akachi Ezeigbo Prize for Literature . Having met Professor Akachi, and been in discussion on various panels with her, with much respect for her own literary work and her work in literature, particularly in Nigeria, I had to design something with an elegant and colourful flair. As a daughter of Nigeria, I thought what more fitting icon than the national flower of Nigeria:  Costus Spectabilis – the yellow trumpet flower. At the FT Weekend Oxford Lit Fest April 2022 At the James Currey Lit Fest Sept 2022 First, the bright yellow colour and shape of the flower, and then the rounded shape of the chunky leaves – with their distinct purple edging gave me the second colour to be incorporated. After a few iterations, I began to simplify my illustration of the yellow flower down to the bare essentials, and looking to many of the bold and colourful fabrics from Nigeria as another reference point. At the end, I happily found it lent itself to a patt