How female writer formed literary cycle for grooming up-coming ones

A female author has put up a literary initiative with a view to exploring ways of encouraging more people into writing as well as making Nigerians appreciate and patronise local written works. ENE OSANG writes.

Bashirat Abdulwahab, an author of many books, recently birthed a literary forum tagged ‘Literary Creatives Connect 1.0’ in Abuja, attracting writers and literary enthusiasts from far and near to discuss ways of promoting their labour of love, which is writing.

The maiden sit-out series featured discussions on how writers, particularly the aspiring ones, could go about bringing to reality, their dream of having published works.

According to the convener, the gathering became necessary as many writers still find it difficult to publish their works, saying that the forum was aimed to serve as a guide to prospective writers on how to go about publishing their books.

“Literary Creatives Connect 1.0, is a forum created to bring authors, publishers, editors, bookstores, artists, book lovers and other creatives under one umbrella.

“The aim is to promote our indigenous literary creatives, products and services and create an environment where aspiring authors and creatives can learn from the experts,” she said.

“We are here to share ideas, experiences, challenges as authors, aspiring authors, poets, creatives, publishers and to create that environment where those involved are in one place to connect and learn from each other,” she added.

Bashirat stressed the need for indigenous writers to be patronised, saying that this would encourage more of them to tell the African stories.

“Africa has evolved beyond the myth that says ‘if you want to hide something from a black man put it in a book’, the inspiration to convene this sit out series came when I wrote my latest book: ‘Help: there is a book in my head’.

“Considering the necessary steps to bringing the publication of my book to reality, I thought it would be a good idea to help people who are aspiring to become published authors know the steps they could follow,” she said.

The convener, therefore, tasked established and up-coming writers to begin to look inward as Africans and Nigerians with a view to promoting our cultural heritages.

“We have evolved and must not be bounded by those myths we must begin to unfold our own myth, and doing so means we must begin to write our own story, promote our culture and heritage, have those conversations and not allow the world to tell our stories for us,” she added.

Challenges most up-coming writers face

While commending the zeal by many writers to keep writing even with very low patronage, the convener regretted how most written works are still unpublished because of one bottleneck or the other.

“People should know that the processes to get an ISBN is not tough. Unlike before when we had the oral tradition as a means of telling stories a lot of things has changed for the better and writers should be encouraged to tell more of our stories.

“The social media is really a plus today and we are thankful for that because there are so many opportunities to make things happen.

“I think we are doing really good but people have not begun to understand how much efforts we put to bring our books to life.

“Some authors are very good but some Nigerians still believe that foreign books are better but I think our local content should be made to serve us instead of reading contents made to serve the foreign people.

“So, for me, I am promoting as many as I can some of our Nigerian authors and literary creatives and encouraging many people to patronise them,” she pointed out.

Bashirat maintained that there are minimal challenges to becoming an author today, revealing that the common challenge is the fact that most writers are still unaware that they could publish their books by themselves.

“I think we are getting better every day. The only challenge is that people don’t understand that they can self-publish so they still go to the traditional publishers who begin to give conditions or determine whether a book will sell or not.

“This is what most times kills writers’ ideas and morale. However, there are a lot of other digital publishing firms today who can actually make it easier for you and that is why I bring us together to discuss and know this,” she said.

Exploring new literary frontiers

Stella Nnodi, an Imo State indigene and writer popularly known as “grammar queen” said she never knew one could now sell their books themselves until she attended the Literary Creative Connect.

“This platform is commendable because I didn’t know there is any platform where I can sell my books until I got here. Networking events are very important for writers, aspiring writers and authors as well because one serious challenge is marketing.

“When you want to sell your book, the marketers give outrageous percentage that at the end of the day the writer is left with nothing, but today I have learnt a new way to market and sell my books so I will definitely get my works published this time,” she said.

Stella, therefore, urged authors to always make themselves visible.

“You can’t be an author and people don’t know you, you should learn to put yourself on people’s faces. I have seen a lot of writers who have made money from writing.

” You have to work hard, it may be rough at the beginning but with good write-ups and consistency you will make it but the key thing as a writer is to grow your sphere of influence,” she stressed.

She also said government have a great role to encourage writers especially the young and upcoming, saying that publishing a book costs some money.

“The ministry of education, ministry of youth, as well as the women affairs ministry should make available some kind of funds for young writers to assess and ensure that boarding authors are encouraged

“Though writing is a personal business, government can channel some money to this as a CSR project,” Stella stated.

Writing as lucrative business?

For Shareefah Ibrahim Zarma, a spoken words artist, women advocate and poet, the country’s writing environment is not competitive and encouraging.

Zarma lamented that in Nigeria, creative artists put in a lot of efforts into churning out a literary work but the value derivable were not commensurate with the energy channeled to the piece.

“Most times your creative work is not valued when it comes to patronage,” she lamented.

“Government on the other hand should support writers by creating a platform for people to showcase what they are doing,” Zarma stated.

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