On Writing (Advice from my email box)

"...you do what you need to do to survive and then you do whatever else you can manage [writing] on top..."
--- Ike Oguine, author of A Squatter's Tale (October 2006)

"...it's never too early (nor for that matter too late) to start [writing]. There's a bright future for new Nigerian literature, and I think as many as can write, should."
-- Okey Ndibe, Author of Arrows of Rain (April 2004)

"As one character states in my novel, "A story that must be told never forgives silence." We need to tell the story of Nigeria, to call villains by their proper name, to demur from theapotheosis of rogues, to enter our moral objection tothe coronation of knaves as heroes. Somehow, even if in frustratingly slow degrees, these interventions touch people, enlighten, vivify, illuminate."
-- Okey Ndibe (February 2004)

Never give up on the wonderment of life. Write on and live on
---Uche Nduka, Poet, (September 2004)

"Remember that a long poem has to earn its right to be long -- what are you saying in this poem that deserves such length? Can it be said more succinctly? Where is it's heart?"
--- Bernardine Evaristo, Novelist (October 2005)

"... flattery won't make you a better writer..."
--- Bernardine Evaristo (October 2005)

Here's a link to a wonderful article on writing, from the Atlantic Online.