Get Terra Incognita with The African Speculative Fiction StoryBundle

The African Speculative Fiction StoryBundle curated by Ivor W. Hartmann

We’re so happy to share that our speculative fiction collection, Terra Incognita, has been chosen by Ivor W Hartmann to be included in the African Speculative Fiction Bundle. This StoryBundle is available until 12 June 2020, and a portion of all proceeds will go to the African Speculative Fiction Society.

Here’s what Ivor has to say about the bundle:

This is the most comprehensive collection of African speculative fiction authors ever assembled. With the complete bundle containing nearly 100 authors and over 145 works it stands both as an excellent introduction to the rapidly evolving canon of African SF and a unique one-time collection of their works. From established stars you might know such as Nnedi Okorafor, Tade Thompson, and Sarah Lotz, to upcomers like Wole Talabi, Chinelo Onwualu, Nerine Dorman, Dilman Dila, and so many more.

The bundle starts in 2012 with the first AfroSF and goes right through to 2020 with the first special edition anthology from Omenana magazine, providing a healthy cross-section of African SF over eight years and in some cases the development of individual authors from their first publication onwards. And it is precisely for these reasons I have selected anthologies over novels in this inaugural bundle so as to better represent the full scale of African SF, though you will find too the bonus individual collections Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor and A Killing in the Sun by Dilman Dila.

The road to this bundle has been paved by the work of countless African writers, editors, publishers, and most importantly readers. For too long was the African experience, imagination, and insight, held captive and until relatively recently only glimpsed through the thick lens of other cultures and their inherent biases. In a big way this is what the new wave of African Speculative Fiction is about: telling our own stories, revealing our vibrant cultures from within, sharing our unique perspectives, and writing ourselves into futures that for so long seemed to spell our doom by virtue of our absence.

Indeed, our progress over just the last eight years has been phenomenal. We have not only won international awards like Arthur C. Clarke, World Fantasy, and Nebula, etc., but gone on to create our own like the Nommos now in its fourth year, the SSDA Award now in its eighth year. African publishers such as Jalada Africa, Seven Hills Media, StoryTime, Short Story Day Africa, DADA books, Pan African Publishers, and Black Letter Media, all of whom contributed to make this bundle, have actively encouraged and published more speculative fiction than ever before, and we have only just begun.

In this vein, the charity giving chosen for this bundle is the African Speculative Fiction Society, to help with the tireless unpaid work of this collective NPO. The ASFS was formed in 2016 and primarily at present is focused on the Nommo awards. The awards are nominated and voted upon by ASFS members for excellence in four Speculative Fiction categories. The importance of these independent awards and the ASFS as a part of building a robust and diverse homegrown African SF canon cannot be overstated nor underestimated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I trust you will enjoy all the works in this bundle as much as we did in writing and publishing them for you. I hope you will be introduced to new authors to look out for, new ideas about the world from our perspectives, and see an inclusive future that proves we are so much stronger together than we can ever be apart, especially in these trying times and the times still ahead.

A massive big thanks goes out to all the authors, editors, and publishers, who made this possible, and especially Jason Chen of Storybundle for giving us this chance to present our works to you.

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For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.

•          AfroSFv1 edited by Ivor W. Hartmann

•          Lagos_2060 edited by Ayodele Arigbabu

•          Terra Incognita edited by Nerine Dorman

•          Jalada 2: AfroFuture(s) by Jalada Africa

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular books, plus six more books, for a total of ten. That's a total of five StoryBundle exclusives!

•          A Killing in the Sun by Dilman Dila

•          Kabu-Kabu Stories by Nnedi Okorafor

•          AfroSFv2 edited by Ivor W. Hartmann

•          AfroSFv3 edited by Ivor W. Hartmann

•          Omenana to Infinity by Omenana

•          Imagine Africa 500 edited by Billy Kahora

This bundle is available only for a limited time via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub, .mobi) for all books.

'The story always came first': Editing Fellows report on their experience

“This Fellowship has disabused any notions that I may have unconsciously held about writing being solitary work.” Agazit Abate, 2019 SSDA Editing Fellow

Hotel Africa, the sixth Short Story Day Africa anthology, is safely uploaded onto the web (you can get the ebook here if you’re in Africa) and off to the printers, so it’s time to reflect back on an essential and unique part of the production process: the Editing Mentorship.

You can read more about this programme and why we run it here, but the short version is that we see our mission as not only identifying, nurturing and supporting talented writers from the continent, but developing editors as well. Our hope is that will lead to closer partnerships between African writers and editors, with the latter confident of their ability to provide context-sensitive developmental and copy-editing of the highest professional standards.

This year, we made the application process more formal, which led to 57 applications being received – with every single candidate a deserving one. It was with great difficulty that we settled on Agazit Abate (Ethiopia), Ope Adedeji (Nigeria) and Anne Moraa (Kenya) as our Editing Fellows, but we did so because they convinced us they would be adding value to African writing and publishing for decades to come. Although we usually take on only two Fellows, this year we made the “wonderful mistake” of taking on three, as Karen Jennings, an award-winning author and gifted editor, and herself a SSDA “alumni”, offered to help with mentoring. It was a “mistake” in that it made the programme very cumbersome: our inboxes groaned under the weight of the mails going back and forth, especially once the authors were swept into the process. It was “wonderful” in that writers and editors – whose jobs are definition very lonely ones – got a chorus of voices commenting on each other’s work and interacting with one another. It also really highlighted that there is no “correct” formula for editing, and the reports from the Fellows bear this out.

Here’s what Ope Adedeji said:

“The Fellowship was an intense few months where I got to work with incredible editors, and hone my editing by reading and editing brilliant writers from across Africa. I remember being unsure, and second-guessing my abilities when I received my acceptance email. Now, I’m mostly grateful; it has been a rewarding experience. I was able to learn a lot -- from the rules of constructing a seamless sentence to the importance of cultivating a relationship with the writer. It’s interesting that this latter point may be one of the most under-rated skills people deem necessary in an editor. It’s just as important as knowing the rules of grammar. A good set of people skills will help the writer trust the editor to make their work the best version of what it currently is, without changing their distinct voice.

I worked primarily with Helen, who re-emphasised that “You don’t need to tell what’s already been shown.” One golden writing rule is “show, don’t tell.” When a writer does both, perhaps as a form of filler, it’s the editor’s job to find these passages, and cut out the “telling”.

Working with other editors made me understand that editors won’t always agree. In the end, doing the best for the writer's work is what solves any differing opinions.

You know what was very helpful? Doing the “read-aloud” test. This was one of the more useful techniques I took away from this fellowship. It helps you do so much when trying to fix sentences: knowing when to remove or insert commas, testing the sentences for rhythm and pace, catching errors, etc.

One of my first lessons was that when something has been written by the author, we can’t “improve” on their choice of words. A character in the first story I edited, “The Last Resident”, was holding on to a set of banisters. I suggested the addition of the adjective “sturdy” to describe the banister. But the author hadn’t in fact suggested that they were sturdy. So while in theory my extra word might have “improved” the sentence, adding it was erroneous on my part. If an editor does this consistently, it would compromise the voice of the author.”

And this was what Anne Moraa had to say, especially about freedom:

“I have always loved editing. The process of working with an author to have a story reveal itself, fully formed, to both of us. I wanted to do this fellowship because SSDA has published some of the best short stories I had ever read and, having been published once by them, I was fascinated by the editorial approach. Every story has knots, like the knots in your hair, that have to be untangled or cut off. A great editor sees those knots immediately and can help guide the author into fixing them. The SSDA process is relatively unique in its approach, having us as Editing Fellows and the Editing Mentors not only giving their perspective, but having a conversation in the comments for the author to read. Having two different editors approach the same knot in the story, sometimes in agreement, sometimes not, then getting the story back to discover how the author untangled the same knot, sometimes in ways neither editor foresaw, was illuminating. That process gave both editors (Fellow and Mentor) the freedom to be tough on the work, and it was freeing to the author, who knew they could find their own solution if neither of ours fitted. The story always, always, came first."

Agazit Abate made us smile with these words:

“If I am being honest, I must say that my interest in the SSDA Editing Mentorship Programme was sparked in equal parts by a desire to 1) learn how to edit fiction; and 2) be involved in a writing process without having to write. That is, I wanted to hide, to seek refuge from writing in a place that was close enough to not feel like I was running away. 

At the offset, it was clear that this programme would be less about theory and more about practice. There was no practice run. We were not given a long reading list, nor did we have a how-to editing guide. What we did have was 21 stories of which we, as Fellows, were primarily responsible for four. Helen and Karen trusted us, and they trusted the process.

For the few stories of which I was a primary editor, I read through each one at least four times before being able to give comprehensive feedback. These are short stories, no longer than 4 000 words and I was editing with the knowledge that an experienced and professional editor would catch everything that I miss and add insight that would better guide the stories. I can’t imagine the time and effort that a lone editor must put into longer pieces of work, into novels. I am in awe of the work of editors.

I have learned so much about words, how they fit together and can be taken apart. How a story can be transformed by the addition of one line, a change in tense, the removal of a section. How a story can come back to the writer, one month later, with comments that inspire a complete rewrite. I have learned, through Helen and Karen’s mentorship, that editing isn’t about the editor. Their edits and gentle pushback on my comments reminded me that the editor is not the writer, and the goal is not to change the writing style to ones own.

I have been given the chance to be a part of the life process of stories. Stories that began long before I knew I would be an Editing Fellow, that transformed during the editing process, and that will continue to live and be changed through the eyes of readers. This Fellowship has disabused any notions that I may have unconsciously held about writing being solitary work.

I wanted to learn how to be an editor, and I wanted to engage with stories that were not my own. This Fellowship has been more than a refuge; it has been an active learning experience, one that has changed the way I look at writing and words and storytelling.  I am grateful to SSDA for this unique opportunity, to the writers for allowing me to engage, to Ope and Anne for their inspiring work, and to Helen and Karen who mentored with patience, kindness, enthusiasm and generosity of spirit.”

We loved working with these three enthusiastic, dedicated and wise young women, and look forward to following their future careers. Things got really rewarding when the authors joined the party: as Karen says, “Having the opportunity to work with the SSDA longlisted authors has reinforced my sense of the depth of creativity and talent that the African continent is home to. The small role that I played in getting to know a few of those talented individuals has been a valuable experience that I will carry with me always.”

And Helen wraps up: “Every year I think this is a special kind of madness: to add EXTRA people to an already riotous mix of 21 authors from all corners of the continent. And every year, the experience is more fulfilling and satisfying. I learn so much, first from the Fellows, then from the authors, and then from seeing how the Fellows and the authors interact with and teach one another. It’s humbling, enlightening, and one of my most favourite things. Thank you, all – and thanks to the SSDA team and Board, for supporting this vision with such dedication.”

SSDA response to allegations against "All Our Lives"

We have been approached for comment on allegations levelled at Tochukwu Okafor, winner of our 2017 SSDA award for his story in ID. We have worked with him for several years, both in our Flow Workshops, and during the editing process for two of our anthologies. Our team has supported his journey over the years and will continue to do so, as we believe him to be a person of great integrity and a writer of exceptional talent.

Short Story Day Africa does not countenance plagiarism. We ask all who submit work to us to provide a declaration avowing that their work is their own and original. We take these declarations on trust.

An essential element of our work and mission is to identify, nurture and develop young and novice writers from the continent. Each year we receive excellent stories from established authors who have been published multiple times. It would be easy to compile our anthologies from these submissions alone. But we believe it is vital to spot raw talent, pull it from the pile, develop and polish it. We are often the first to give gifted aspiring writers a platform, guidance, professional editing.

This means that we see almost every variety of novice error. Some are technical; others are extremely sensitive: for instance, we’ve had to help young, less experienced writers grapple with representations of sexual violence, hate speech, racial slurs, mental illness and more. We learn as much from this process as the authors.

No one on the SSDA reading panel, the judging panel or the editing team had read the initial work that inspired our author during his research. Having now read the materials under discussion, the consensus is that there has been no clear or deliberate lifting of phrases, sentences or passages, or an attempt to pass these off as the author’s own intellectual/creative work. When asked publicly about his influences, the author has openly named the works (both Khadivi’s and more indirectly, Otsuka’s) from which he took inspiration, with no attempt to dissemble. 

If we had read Khadivi’s piece, we would still have published the story, as the writing is clearly original, if not the opening structure. Mentoring editor Helen Moffett says, “I found the voice in this story authentic – I recognised it as the author’s own, having worked closely with him before. If I had known the story relied, especially at the start, on the structure of a short story on Russian mail-order brides by Laleh Khadivi (itself drawing from Julia Otsuka’s Buddha in the Attic), I would have asked for an attribution. Better still, I would have suggested an epigraph from the influencing work, as a more elegant way of signalling intertextual influence. Future print editions of ID will indeed have such an attribution.”

SSDA does not throw its authors to the wolves, especially not when they have made an honest mistake, and one which we missed. We find “call-out” and shaming culture, all too easily whipped up online, both saddening and alarming. It’s easy to see how a twenty-three-year-old engineering student might have read Khadivi’s interpretation (Russian brides) of Otsuka’s work (Japanese brides) and been inspired to dream up a Nigerian alternative that involved young men. The use by all three authors of the rare first-person plural as a narrative voice also sets up an echo – but one that dissolves on closer reading.

This opens up the complex and tricky territory of intertextuality. What we’re all agreed on is that we need to offer our writers, especially the less experienced ones, more explicit training and open platforms for debate on intertextuality.

African writers need to know that sadly, they are held to higher standards than Western writers, for whom intertextuality in publishing is a matter of implicit cultural heritage. This can be popular: fan-fic, musicals based on Shakespearian tragedies, sequels to classics like Rebecca and Jane Eyre, or even Disney’s recycling of fairytales; or academic, as in the central theoretical understanding of the literary author as an individual Romantic voice (rather than a representative of communal voices, custodian of shared narratives, harvester of story seeds). 

These faultlines were shown in the controversy that arose some years ago over the world-renowned and prolific Zakes Mda’s use of historical materials in his award-winning novel Heart of Redness. The unpleasantness and heatedness of the debates surrounding the above and other similar accusations (such as the Krog-Watson controversy) have scarred the South African literary landscape; they make it hard to have candid discussion and honest debate about influence and inspiration, and how to interact with and interpret the works of others in ways that do not simply mimic Western models of literary theory and practice.

To this end, SSDA commits to providing more solid and explicit training on and discussion of plagiarism and intertextuality, in our sought-after Flow Workshops held around the continent; and in the editing structures and materials posted on our website (we are currently preparing these materials). So far, during editing, questions about influence have indeed been asked, but informally and in an ad hoc manner; we will now explicitly ask our authors about their sources of inspiration and influence. We also commit ourselves to learning more, from our authors and each other, and indeed the African publishing community, about these thorny questions, so that we can do better, and continue to move towards “best practice” models for our authors. We welcome constructive comments and suggestions from our peers on the continent and abroad.

Hotel Africa: Announcing the Winners of the 2018 Short Story Day Africa Prize

As we explained in our (long) shortlist announcement, choosing winners for the 2018 Short Story Day Africa award was almost impossible, and not just in the usual sense – how to choose between a crisp apple and a sensually scented orange – but in terms of the democratic voting system adopted by the judges, which led to the closest competition yet seen in SSDA’s history.

Adam El Shalakany, Winner of the 2018 Short Story Day Africa Prize.

Having so many closely matched and high-quality stories is an excellent outcome, of course; but it did make choosing a shortlist and the winners a far more onerous task than usual. We broke the deadlock by pressganging an additional judge into providing three extra votes, and this is how, by a whisker, Adam El Shalakany’s “Happy City Hotel” took the winner’s place, nudging Noel Cheruto’s “Mr Thompson” into second place, while Lester Walbrugh’s “The Space(s) Between Us” was established as holder of the third spot. We congratulate these authors sincerely and enthusiastically while once again noting that this competition was the tightest we’ve yet seen; if this had been a horse race, we would have had to call for a photo finish.

Noel Cheruto, 1st Runner-up for the 2018 SSDA Prize, and Lester Walbrugh, 2nd Runner-up for the 2018 SSDA Prize

 We are especially delighted to have the length of the continent represented by the top three stories. Given our commitment to featuring literature from all over Africa, which has to be juggled with practical and financial constraints that mean we can only accept submissions in English, we are very pleased that the winning story is our first ever winner from Egypt (and North Africa, in fact). It’s hard to explain the charm of this story, which features a small and shabby hotel in Cairo, and a cast of strangely endearing characters, but everyone who read it said it made them “happy”; which, given that it features very ordinary people living somewhat melancholy lives, is testament to how deeply it resonates with the reader.

Noel Cheruto represents Kenya with her moving story of the dashed dreams of a hotel worker who silently confesses all to a guest. This rich and subtle piece, in which wit and compassion are skilfully blended, was extremely popular with the judging panel. And South Africa’s Lester Walbrugh, who was shortlisted in last year’s anthology, provides one of the most original and haunting versions of a “romantic getaway” at a fancy hotel you’ll ever read.

The following stories are particularly highly commended (they all featured in the photo finish): “Why Don’t You Live in the North?” by Wamuwi Mbao, “Slow Road to the Winburg Hotel” by Paul Morris, “Outside Riad Dahab” by Chourouq Nasri, and “The Snore Monitor” by Chido Muchemwa. Mbao’s story is a subtle meditation on the landmarks, both inner and outer, that colonial histories leave, while Morris’s is a deceptively simple account of a journey to a hotel that has a double twist at the end. “Outside Riad Dahab”, a particularly moving account of contact between outsiders and insiders, describes the interaction between a privileged hotel guest and the homeless man who camps outside the building. And “The Snore Monitor”, in which a young Zimbabwean woman has a most unusual job in a South African hotel, also explores the theme of fleeting contact between wealthy tourists and those who are obliged to care for them.

We heartily congratulate the winner and runners-up once again, and close with the truism that the real winner is African literature, with this exceptionally fine selection of stories.

Hotel Africa: New Short Fiction is now available as an ebook in Africa. Click here to buy your copy!

Coming soon in paperback!

Announcing the 2018 SSDA Prize (long) Shortlist!

Every year, the SSDA team is confronted with an impossible task – choosing a shortlist from the twenty-one longlisted stories that appear in our annual anthology. We make this as fair as possible by using a panel of qualified judges – this year, we consulted fourteen (!), all of whom volunteered their time. The process is very democratic – votes are carefully tallied, and usually, the results are quite clear.

Well, not this year. It’s a credit to the quality of the stories chosen for the longlist that every single story in the Hotel Africa anthology was chosen as one of the top six by at least one judge. And we’ve never seen such a photo finish for the top end of the list. In past years, winners usually become clear at this stage, but this time, we couldn’t even establish a shortlist of six. We tried for a shortlist of eight – as we had to do last year. Not even that worked. After hours of hair-tearing, recounts and attempted tie-breakers, this year we have no choice but to present a rather long shortlist of ten – and several stories missed being on this list by only one vote.

Also every year, we congratulate not only those shortlisted but all the authors, assuring them that all their stories are excellent – and that’s why they’re in the anthology. However, this is our most evenly matched collection ever, and it’s worth reflecting on the reasons why.

One reason is that our volunteer slushpile readers are getting cannier at spotting potential, at choosing the truly original plot, or a startlingly fresh spin on an ancient theme. We actively look for raw talent, diamonds in the rough, to give them the same opportunities as more experienced authors, those who turn in smooth, fluent and error-free prose. It’s a common when selecting stories for anthologies like these to feel drawn to stories that are “easy” to read because they’ve been professionally prepared and polished. We try to correct that unconscious bias. We try especially hard not to exclude stories written by authors for whom English is clearly not a mother-tongue or primary language. We embrace stories in which the multiple Englishes spoken on the continent can be heard. We don’t discard strong stories that have weak or abrupt endings – because endings can and often should be rewritten.

And this leads to the major reason we think the stories are so evenly matched this year: the in-depth editing process. The editing team – Ope Adedeji, Anne Moraa, Agazit Abate, with mentors Helen Moffett and Karen Jennings – gave copious amounts of feedback to enable authors to rewrite and rework where necessary. Notes from the selecting readers were consulted and incorporated into this feedback. This was followed by stringent editing, often characterised by much debate and comment. The goal of the editing programme and the mentoring process (which encompasses editors and authors) is to develop African writers so that their brilliance can shine on a world stage, alongside writers for whom professional editing is either built into their process, or easily accessed – not often true for writers from and in Africa. Those who read the “before” and “after” versions of these stories all commented on how dramatically editing had levelled the playing fields. This is an excellent outcome, but it does make choosing a shortlist a far more onerous job.

Finally, there is no doubt that while having a panel of judges is cumbersome, it makes the choosing of the shortlist a pretty democratic process. We’re hugely grateful to all those who make the time to do this job, and for the seriousness and commitment they bring to it.

Enough explaining. Here’s the (long) shortlist for the SSDA 2018 anthology, Hotel Africa, in alphabetical order:

“Mr Thompson” by Noel Cheruto

“Happy City Hotel” by Adam El Shalakany

“Of Birds and Bees” by Davina Kuwuma

“Why Don’t You Live in the North?” by Wamuwi Mbao

“Slow Road to the Winburg Hotel” by Paul Morris

“The Snore Monitor” by Chido Muchemwa

“Outside Riad Dahab” by Chourouq Nasri

“The Match” by Troy Onyango

“The Space(s) in Between Us” by Lester Walbrugh

“Shithole” by Michael Yee

Our hearty congratulations to you!