Stephen Embleton

While you are looking rosily at your past, complaining about your present, and spreading fear and despair for your future, there are kids trying to find their place in that noise, challenging the negativity and old ideas to find promise and hope for their lives ahead.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 Lion Sculpture #6 #7 #8 Wild Dog #9 Lion Skull #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 - Riley #24 #25 #26 #27 #28 #29 #30 For the vervet that lay paralyzed and dying by our front door tonight. #31 Happy Halloween. Hope you get your Monday coffee :O   #InktoberSelfie  Final Inktober.

I'm happy to announce the release of the Amazon Kindle version of "Imagine Africa 500" today: My short story among good company in this gem from Shadreck Chikoti and Billy Kahora, fifteen SFF writers from Africa, imagining Africa in 500 years: Muthi Nhlema, Dilman Dila, Chinelo Onwualu, Hagai Magai, Frances Naiga Muwonge, Lauri Kubuitsile, Aubrey Chinguwo, Wole Talabi, Tuntufye Simwimba, Musinguzi Ray Robert, Derek Lubangakene, Catherine Shepherd, Hannah Onoguwe, Stephen Embleton, Tiseke Chilima. Kindle iPad Kindle iPhone Kindle Imagine Africa 500 - Speculative Fiction From Africa 3,000 Words Quoted in the foreword. We shouldn't look at ourselves as "The Dark Continent" but rather as the Land of Light. The land of so many possibilities. BACKGROUND:  Stories set in Africa 500 years from now. Genre: Speculative fiction. Publisher: Pan African Publishers Ltd (Lilongwe Malawi) Editor: Billy Kahora (editor at Kwani) Co...

Two things: I'm really proud to be part of the rising tide of African speculative fiction, I'm really proud to have been given the opportunity to create the logo/brand. With member input, we managed to steer the design into something unique - and most importantly for me - not clichéd African (continents, design motifs, rough textures). The central character (literally) is the Nommo : "The Nommo are mythological ancestral spirits (sometimes referred to as deities) worshipped by the Dogon people of Mali. The word Nommos is derived from a Dogon word meaning "to make one drink." The Nommos are usually described as amphibious, hermaphroditic, fish-like creatures. Folk art depictions of the Nommos show creatures with humanoid upper torsos, legs/feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail. The Nommos are also referred to as “Masters of the Water”, “the Monitors”, and "the Teachers”. Nommo can be a proper name of an individual, or can refer to t...

Geoff Ryman takes on the momentous task of tracking down and interviewing  100 African Writers of SFF  in an eyeopening series on TOR.com. The initial instalment focuses on the diversity of talent in Nairobi and surrounds, setting the stage for the world to wake up to the talent already prospering on this beautiful continent. It reveals an exciting time in speculative and science fiction fantasy literature, never mind traditional fiction, as writers deal with their own languages and culture in the local and global context. Testing their boundaries, screwing with the norms and dictates of english "rules" to hone their own voices and speak for themselves. A particularly difficult task in traditional publishing with its own "guidelines" (aka rules). This has lead to many self publishing or starting their own mags, anthologies and books - with great success and following locally. "No audience" for this content? It's already there, as Omena...

Mark Bould gives his insights into this collection of speculative fiction from Africa: Imagine Africa 500 is a smart and engaging addition to the growing number of anthologies of African sf, not quite as literary as Nerine Dorman’s Terra Incognita, nor quite as pulpy as Ivor Hartmann’s AfroSF collections. Billy Kahora, The Story Club and Pan African Publishers are to be congratulated for setting this all in motion, for their commitment to developing new writers, for their efforts to address the domination of African sf by South Africa and Nigeria – Imagine Africa 500 includes five authors from Malawi, four from Uganda and one from Botswana, as well as three Nigerians and two South Africans – and by male writers – two-fifths of the stories are by women, which is not parity but is heading in the right direction. Read the original review here.

In 2010, after I had submitted the draft manuscript of a full length novel to a publisher, I decided to start Journal of a DNA Pirate as a means to continue writing - in any way possible. The objective was NOT to be bogged down by creating a story that had a known end or where I knew it needed to go. I just had to write from one end point to he next. The journal format worked for that purpose. Each time I came back to it I had to ask myself "What now?" And so I began. I stopped it in 2011 but had some ideas of where it was going. I had interest in my novel manuscript so I focused on that once again. Then in 2014, there was a call for submissions by Fox & Raven for their second Ravensmoot speculative fiction anthology - maximum 8,000 words. Journal of a DNA pirate fitted the bill. I just had to finish it off. So, for a few days I wrapped up what I had in mind and made the word count - 8,000 words exactly. I submitted it and waited. The long list was released 1 October 2014...

15/10/2015 215 Words Short Story Day Africa #WriterPrompt He looked into the void and the void screamed back. Blackness speckled with a few stars was how he had always imagined traveling through the vastness of space. Before any campaign he would picture, from his position on the ship's bridge, a 270 degree view of a silent depth, the blackness occasionally interrupted by the mass of a gas giant growing to dominate his vision. Smeared across the charcoal canvas was something alive, breathing its gaseous paints into every inch of black; a myriad of pastels bleeding into one another.