Where Stephen writes about his writing and other writing things, and some other things as well.
Aké Festival 2022 – Lagos
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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 wall prompt: I LOVE BOOKS BECAUSE…
“…they build worlds in the minds of the readers that goes beyond what the writer wrote.”
FRIDAY, 25th NOV 2022:
What an awesome panel event at Aké Festival and what a day it was, sharing The Sauúti Collective with everyone and the buzz afterwards 🔥⭐️🔥⭐️
I’m really proud of what our ten-person The Sauúti Collective has achieved so far, and to be representing them at Aké Arts & Book Festival and supported by Syllble is an experience on another level. The feedback continues to inspire us onward and upward. We cannot wait to share it with those of us who were unable to attend but were here in Spirit. 🔥❤️💫
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 experience all around and lovely support from everyone. ❤️💫
In the group (top left) with Professors Abdulrazak Gurnah and Wole Soyinka
In the group (middle left) with Professors Abdulrazak Gurnah and Wole Soyinka
Flora Nwapa and "The Lake Goddess":
So many exciting things happening in Lagos. I met with Ejine Nzeribe, eldest daughter of Flora Nwapa, for exciting literary developments for 2023 ❤️ and Flora Nwapa’s legacy – publishing Flora Nwapa's posthumous novel "The Lake Goddess". 🔥
Stephen & Ejine Nzeribe
Bones & Runes:
For sale
On the shelves
Somto!
Ifeoma
The James Currey Anthology:
Giving writers their physical contributor copies in person is great! So glad for them to feel their words in their hands and the fruits of their labours seeing the world. Nzube Nlebedim it was great to finally meet and get a chance to chat! ❤️🔥
2015-2024 Fiction: 'Land of Light' : 'Imagine Africa 500' speculative fiction anthology (2015/2016) (Speculative Fiction). 8,000 words. Read more... (Malawi)/(UK reprint 2017) 'Veiled ': 2016 'Beneath This Skin' Edition of Aké Review (2016) (Fiction). 1,450 words. Read here... (Nigeria) 'Water' : 'The Short Story is Dead, Long Live the Short Story! Vol.2' anthology (2017) (Fiction). 3,100 words. Available on Amazon or Read Online (South Africa) 'Sub Migratio' : the debut edition of Enkare Review (2017) (Speculative Fiction). 3,500 words. Read here... (Kenya) 'Inktober' : 2018 edition of 'The Bloody Parchment' (2018) (SF/Horror). 1,250 words. Available on Amazon . (South Africa) 'The Girl with Two Bodies' : The Kalahari Review (Nov 2018) (Fantasy). 7,050 words. Read here... (South Africa) 'Journal of a DNA Pirate' : Volume 3 of 'AfroSF' (Dec 2018) (SF). 8,150 words. ...
It was a real pleasure to be able to create something unique for a friend and Sauúti Collective colleague – Cheryl Ntumy – for her new novella coming out with Atthis Arts press: a custom display typeface and title design. Design & Typography: Stephen Embleton, Illustration: Akintoba Kalejaye Find Atthis Arts here. A latinised version of the Adinkra alphabet from Ghana (because Cheryl is Ghanaian!), it has some fantastic characteristics and a very modular form which made it a fun, yet simple, design to work on. I first focused on the letters needed for Cheryl's book cover, and then fleshed out the other characters, as well as creating a "light" version. One happy accident for the cover design was incorporating the "working" components of each letter in the design itself. i.e. when I work on fonts, I find the common weights (stroke thicknesses) and common shapes, and move these around to exact positions. And by making them separate bright colours enables m...
UPDATE: Cover Reveal April 2024 Great to part of this! Thanks, to Eugen Bacon, who initiated this over a year ago: Bloomsbury Academic will be publishing this essay anthology covering a HUGE range of topics and insights within Afro-Centred Futurisms, including my essay “Cosmologies and Languages Building Africanfuturism”. Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction is an accessible work of criticism that will appeal to scholarly readers and broader enthusiasts of Afrocentric and speculative literature. British Fantasy Award winner Eugen Bacon (ed.)'s AFRO-CENTERED FUTURISMS IN OUR SPECULATIVE FICTION, an anthology of original artistic essays infused with creative excerpts from award-winning African writers on the futurisms in their speculative fiction; a new kind of African study in an evaluative gaze at African history, African spirituality, Afrosurrealism, 'becoming', black radical imagination, cultural identity, decolonizing queerness, myths, linguistic cosmolo...
