14 Things

We Can All Appreciate

About Neil Degrasse Tyson

When you declare that everyone's favorite underdog planet is no longer a planet, you become a pretty polarizing figure. But Neil Degrasse Tyson really has a lot going for him.

posted on March 8, 2013 

 

By Tanner Ringerud BuzzFeed Staff

1. He's not afraid to call people on their bad science:

 

When he was a guest on The Daily Show, his first order of business was to call Jon Stewart on the fact that the computer generated globe in the show's intro spins the wrong direction.

Source: thedailyshow.com  /  via: comedycentral

2. Even when it's 3rd graders defending Pluto's planethood:

Source: pbs.org  /  via: not-blonde

3. He's so quotable, he's even got his own prayer candles:

NDT is an outspoken religious non-believer, but he puts a lot of faith in science and the universe. He once said:

Source: thehumanzee

"Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don't know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me."

Source: haydenplanetarium.org

4. He was a total bad ass when he was younger:

Source: flyingantday

Source: sparkerpants

Source: i.imgur.com

5. In 1985, he won a gold medal at a national Latin Ballroom tournament with the University of Texas dance team.

Via: dougmenagh

6. He's also pretty good at moon-walking:

Via: scienceing

Via: scienceing

7. He makes for good nail art:

Via: nailsyall

8. He met Superman one time:

I mean, Superman isn't real, but NDT did appeared in issue #14 of Action Comics, where he helped Superman find his home planet of Krypton. That's about as close as most people will ever come to meeting Superman.

Source: head-case.org

9. He also helped put the weight of Thor's hammer into perspective:

Source: @neiltyson

Even though he was incorrect:

"The critical mistake Tyson makes is thinking that Mjolnir was forged of the core of a dying star, when it was actually forged in the core of a dying star," says Suveen Mathaudhu, a program manager in the materials science division of the U.S. Army Research Office, adjunct materials science professor at NC State and die-hard comics enthusiast. "It's well documented that the hammer is made out of 'Uru,' a fictional metal from Thor's native realm of Asgard."

"...Mjolnir is made of Uru and weighs precisely 42.3 pounds. "

Source: web.ncsu.edu

10. This is what he looked like when he was a baby!

Via: reddit.com

11. He collaborated with GZA from the Wu Tang Clan to release an album about space:

It's going to be called Dark matter, and it's expected to come out later this year.

Source: startalkradio.net

12. He appreciates Beyoncé... for science:

Via: elfennau

13. He just wants you to be yourself:

Source: youtube.com  /  via: thebrownpaperbag

"You don't think about Michael Jordan the basketball player and say, "Oh, he was just like this other player." No, you don't even say, "He was like this player plus that player divided by two plus this." No. He's Michael Jordan."

Source: youtube.com

14. His most astounding fact about the universe is pretty damn astounding:

Via: slate.com

"When I look up at the night sky, and I know that – yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe – but, perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the universe is in us."

Source: vimeo.com

The 22 year old who wrote

President-elect

Uhuru Kenyatta’s speech

 

Posted by admin on Sunday, March 10, 2013 ·

Julie Wang’ombe is only 22 years old but she has already created a name for herself.

Ms Wang’ombe is credited with writing President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory speech which was delivered on Saturday at the Catholic University.

She also said a prayer for President-elect during the Catholic University event.

She is widely known for her poetry which she discovered in 2009 at the Slam Africa events in Westlands. She moved to US in  2009 to attend Duke University after her high school education at Hillcrest

During her time at Duke, she met other several experienced and outstanding poets. One of the poets was Joshua Benne who she admired and who continued to inspire her. She has since set out to create her own poetry choosing not to conform to the the usual format of contemporary poetry.

Watch her Poem “A poetic reintroduction to Africa” given at TED Worldwide Talent Search in July 2012

Here is Julie as she said a prayer during the Cathlic University event on Saturday

Yari Yari Ntoaso:

Continuing the Dialogue

 

By Kate Haines on 10 March , 2013 •

Yari Yari Ntoaso: Continuing the Dialogue is a symposium of literature by women of African descent taking place in Accra, Ghana, May 16-19, 2013.  This free gathering will put writers, critics, and readers from across Africa, the USA, Europe, and the Caribbean in dialogue with each other through readings, roundtables, screenings, and performances.  

YYN continues the dialogue of the first two Yari Yari conferences, which put hundreds of writers in dialogue with thousands of readers. 

 

Programme

The programme which includes Ama Ata Aidoo, Akachi Ezeigbo, Monica Arac de Nyeko, Veronique Tadjo, Bibi Bakare‐Yusuf and many more, is available here.

The event is organised by the Organisation of Women Writers of Africa (OWWA) and you can register to attend  here.

Help OWWA Cover Writers’ Travel Costs

Most of the participants are paying their own way to Ghana through their jobs, their own finances, or other fundraising. But a number of participants who are not university professors and not in the US or Europe are having a hard time raising their travel costs. OWWA have therefore started an online fundraising campaign to support writers who do not have other means to get to Yari Yari.

You can make a donation to this campaign here and help to ensure that diverse voices are present at Yari Yari.  If you need more reasons to give, there are lots of gifts available to say ‘thank you’ for your donation.  There are just 6 days left to donate.

Decolonizing the Mind:

The Language of North Africa

by Nuunja Kahina

An Amazigh child writes in Tifinagh, the script of Tamazight. Although Tamazight is now taught in a few schools in Morocco, it is still repressed and children continue to be abused for speaking their mother tongue in schools. (Photo credit: AFP / Abdelhak Senna).

While in prison, Kikuyu scholar Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o famously rejected English, the colonial language of Kenya, as a medium for his creative writing, and later committed himself to writing solely in his native Gikuyu after writing Decolonizing the Mind. Along with English, Ngũgĩ continued his decolonizing praxis by renouncing Christianity and his colonial name. His theory and example inspired an essential conversation in African Studies regarding the problem of colonial vs. indigenous language use. Yet this conversation has so far failed to move beyond the issue of European colonial languages, ignoring or even indigenizing the colonial dominance of Arabic in North Africa.

The Amazigh (pl. Imazighen) are the indigenous people of North Africa, a region internally called Tamazgha, but often known as part of the “Arab world.”  The Amazigh language is Tamazight, and is the mother tongue of tens of millions of people in Tamazgha and the Amazigh diaspora. Since Arab invasions in the 7th century C.E., Arabic has been a colonial language in Tamazgha, although the process of Arabization was dramatically accelerated after North African countries became independent of European colonialism in the 20th century. Arabization, under the thin guise of decolonization, supposedly sought to reduce the use of French in "post-colonial" North Africa, but in actuality targeted the indigenous Tamazight language for discrimination.

Berber language slipping away door afpenglish

 

Why limit our rejection of colonial languages, if we are to do so, to only European languages? Arabic has been used in an at least as destructive and anti-African a manner as French, English or any other European language in Africa. Just as Ngũgĩ describes the schism and alienation created by repressive language policies in a colonial school, an Amazigh writer does the same:

You are not even able to speak Arabic, he told us… ‘You are savages. How will I ever manage to civilize you when I have to start from scratch?’…I was already considering how I was going to tell my parents who were unable to understand the teacher’s language. Should my parents see me suddenly deny the patrimony of my ancestors and my mother tongue? It would be far better to disappear along with that language. (Almasude, originally Oussaid 1989).

These discriminatory policies and practices still continue at the expense of an indigenous African language that is degraded and disparaged in comparison to the supposed prestige of Arabic. Despite this, Arabic is granted the status of “African” even while it acts as a colonial language, imposed by those who identify as "Arabs" in North Africa. Within scholarship about African languages, as well as African Studies in general, many seem to have forgotten that European colonialism is not the only form of colonialism to affect the continent.

 

"Amazigh Dance" is an oil painting by Chama Mechtaly, an Amazigh artist and activist.

 

Although Arabization policies were implemented to create a false unity of the supposed "Arab" people of North Africa, this imposition of a foreign language and identity on Imazighen has created alienation and supported colonial entrenchment in the region. Today, Amazigh parents who want to register their children with indigenous names are routinely rejected, a policy that has been criticized by human rights organizations. Children are often still physically beaten for speaking their mother tongue in school, as is the case in many other African countries where only colonial languages may be spoken in school. Despite the prominent role of Imazighen in the revolutions in Libya and Tunisia, painfully dubbed the “Arab Spring,” Tamazight continues to be excluded as an official language in these countries.  There is a ban on Tamazight in the Moroccan Parliament after Fatima Tabaamrant, an Amazigh MP, asked a question in her native language in a bold action reminiscent of Kurdish MP Leyla Zana. Islamist opposition to Tamazight and the use of its indigenous script, Tifinagh, continues in Morocco.

Does it matter whether the language of dominance is French, English, or Arabic? Certainly not to the children who are forced to reject their ancestors and mother tongue, children who are told they must learn that language in order to be civilized.

Given the colonial nature of Arabic in Tamazgha, and its imposition on the indigenous people, there are significant reasons that Africans ought to reject the use of Arabic in favour of their indigenous language. When we do this, we participate in decolonization by supporting the survival of African languages in opposition to the policies of former or current colonial powers. Decolonization is not a metaphor; to decolonize our minds and unsettle Arab hegemony in Tamazgha, we must recognize and fight against continuing linguistic repression.
_________________________________________________________________
Nuunja Kahina is an Amazigh student and activist living in the United States. She is interested in liberation, decolonization and linguistic rights.

This article was written originally for the Decolonization journal, and is republished here with permission of the writer and journal owners.

TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE &

THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION

diasporicroots:

Egalite for All. Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution (PBS) PBS documentary on Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution.  It was the only successful slave insurrection in history. It grasped the full meaning of French revolutionary ideas — liberté, eqalité, fraternité — and used them to create the world’s first Black republic. It changed the trajectory of colonial economics…and led to America’s acquisition of the Louisiana territory from France. “It” was the Haitian Revolution, a movement that’s been called the true birth moment of universal human rights. Vaguely remembered today, the Haitian Revolution was a hurricane at the turn of the nineteenth century — traumatizing Southern planters and inspiring slaves and abolitionists, worldwide.

(Source: pbs.org, via yourhue)

Beats for the Revolution:

The World Must Hear

the Words of a Sista

We did our thing the other day on All Day Play radio with my show Breakdown FM…There is so much good music out there its unbelievable.. No excuses for those who say its lacking…With all the new technology, good music is there for the embracing..

Hundreds of female emcees are out there.. no excuse to say they are not.. From Dessa Darling to Kellee Maize to Vanessa German to Raw G to Aima the Dreamer to Devynity there’s a lot of sisters catching wreck.. One of the things we in Hip Hop must do is see our music as timeless and without limits..The music industry wants us to retire artists and dope jams from 5 or 10 years ago and act like they never existed.. That’s done so that we can develop the mindset of a consumer vs having the mindset of a cultural preserver..The saying Old is New and New is Old applies here.. As we continue celebrating Women’s History Month, enjoy this mix.. Its a gem among gems and our second offering in a 4 part series..

Special shout out to Aisha the Raptivist who gave me some killer drops in the form of speeches and sayings.. Click the link below to go to ADP  and hear the show via our archives  or hit the download links

http://www.alldayplay.fm/episodes/yeee

Playlist:

01-Sweet Honey & the Rock ’I'm a Woman’

02-Shirley Chisolm and Aisha the Raptivist ’Speaking Truth to Power  (Menahan Band remix)

03-Kofy Brown ’Playing Fields’ (rmx)

04-Roxanne Shante Independent Woman

05-Monie Love ‘Detrimentally Stable”

06-Monie Love ‘Swiney Swiney

07-LA Star ‘Fade to Black’

08-Sonya Blade ’ Blade is the Name’

09-Bahamadia “spontaneity’

10-Mystic ‘Ghetto Bird’

11-Lauryn Hill ’Lost ones’

12-Hurricane G ’Whateva’

13-Poetess ‘Simply Poetry’

14-Heather B ‘Glocks Down’

15-Conscious Daughters ’Come Smooth Come Rude’

16-Queen Latifah ‘Wrath of My Madness’

17-Sweet Tee ’Its My Beat’

18-Lady of Rage ‘Sure Shot

19-Medusa ’Fix is the Fiend’

20-Da Brat ’Give it 2 You’

21-Queen Latifah ’Just Around the Way’

22-Queen Mother Rage ’Slipping Into Darkness’

23-Sista Souljah Speaking Truth

24-Aima the Dreamer ‘All you Need’

25-Dessa ‘The Crow’

26-Godesa ’Social Ills’

27-Vanesa German ‘Two Wings’ (Zion I remix)

28-Jezzy P Ecatapec ‘La Formula’

29-Melina Jones ‘Rock w/ Fire’

Download: Breakdown Fm: Womens Mix Pt. 1

 

 

Part 2

01-Laura ‘Piece’ Kelly ‘Sound Awake’

02-Mystic ’Fatherless Child’

03-Kellee Maize ’Story of Me’

04-J Ross Parelli ’Home is Where’

05-Dessa ’Children’s Work’

06-Desmonda ‘Faulty Fuses’

07-Queen Latifah ’Nature of a Sister’

08-Devynity ‘Heard em Say’

09-Brigette Gray ’Shades of Gray’

10-YoYo ‘ Don’t Be No Fool’

11-Medusa ‘Mine to Give’

12-T-Love ’When You’re Older-Ode to the Picanniny’

13-Kofy Brown ’Turned Out’

14-Raw G w/ Aima the Dreamer ‘Connexiones Subterraneas’

15-Kemelo ’Audry Funk

16-Cihualtl Ce ’Rise Above’

17-Cihualtl Ce ’Dreamah’

18- Women’s Roundtable’

Download: Breakdown Fm: Womens Mix Pt. 2

Weedie Braimah and

Amadou Kouyate’s Blends

March 8, 2013 By Tom Devriendt 

Guest Post by Robert Nathan

They’re not your average musicians. Sons of West African griots and court musicians brought up in Washington DC and St. Louis, Weedie Braimah and Amadou Kouyate have straddled the Atlantic all their lives. Indoors, they assiduously studied the kora and the djembe under the guidance of their fathers — master musicians from Senegal and Ghana. But outside people weren’t too familiar with the instruments they played, much less the historic institutions to which their families belonged. “I grew up in an African house, true enough,” Weedie says. “But at the same time when I walked out of my door, I had a whole different world. I grew up in the Hip-Hop age.” That’s a paradox they’ve been living with all their lives. 

But it’s one to which these uniquely placed artists have reconciled themselves. Masters of their craft — and just as comfortable on snare and guitar as on calabash and kora — they’re one more example of artists experimenting with a fusion of African and American musical influences. Inheritors of those two traditions, they move between them like there were no boundaries at all.

And that, in a way, is what Weedie and Amadou are all about. They’re not parroting old djembe rhythms, nor curating a musical museum of African sounds. Above all else, they’re creators. And they’re letting their creativity run wild.

The result is a duo with a captivating show. One minute you’re at a Dakar dance party, the next Weedie is hitting the snare so hard you think you’re at a Roots concert, and then Amadou lays down a luscious kora riff that unexpectedly turns into a Bill Withers song. They’re all over the place — and it works. See for yourself in this clip recorded before a 700-strong crowd at Victoria’s McPherson Playhouse in Canada:

This organic blending of influences is infectious. Weedie and Amadou are masterful with any material, and you catch that vibe when they’re on stage. They feel the weight of their African musical lineage, but they also that of the American musical greats who inspire them. “I feel a responsibility to my Kouyaté lineage. But I’ve got a sense of responsibility to making sure Sam Cooke and Donnie Hathaway are heard, that Coltrane gets heard, too.” And they want to be understood in that transcultural context. They aren’t a curiosity. They don’t want people to dig them because they’ve never heard a kora before and the experience is novel. They want people to like what they do because they like it, and because of the musicianship they bring to the stage.

From their perspective, while they respect the Africa-US musical collaborations that have taken place in recent years between artists like Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Touré, these have tended to be superficial. “It’s mostly cosmetic,” Amadou says in an interview outside a djembe workshop at the University of Victoria. They have the right to speak that way. After all, if you didn’t grow up in an environment where you ate your Corn Flakes and then practiced kora with your master musician father before heading to school with the rest of DC, how could you gain the knowledge required to fuse the African and the American at such a profound level?

Weedie and Amadou are proud of their complex musical heritage. And they want African Americans to be proud of a musical tradition that belongs to them too — one that many in the US don’t know much about. But at the end of the day, they’re artists with musical sledgehammers, and they’re breaking down the borders that exist between ‘African music’ and music writ large. In this respect they’re part of a broader global movement to deparochialize African art, and their work resonates with efforts like the Manifesto for a World Literature in French (a document signed by authors like Alain Mabanckou and Nobel laureate JMG Le Clézio that aims to erase the difference between African literature and literature tout court). Indeed, the day when djembe and kora get the same respect as piano and saxophone is they day they’ll rest easy.

In a way that day’s already here, because they play with jazz greats like Chick Correa who love their style. But there’s still plenty of work to be done. So until then, expect Weedie and Amadou to bring their transgressive sound to the world stage by stage, showing everyone what it means to be an African, an American, and an artist who transcends these narrow boundaries.

* Robert Nathan is a doctoral candidate in African History at Dalhousie University (Canada). Weedie Braimah and Amadou Kouyate’s first album will be out soon.

Transition Abroad's

2013 Student Travel Writing Contest

($500 top prize)

Posted 25 February 2013 | Deadline: 15 April 2013

Here's a competition for students who are studying abroad or non-Africans who are here in Africa to study. Transition Abroad's Student Writing Contest - the only student travel writing contest to cover studying, working, interning, volunteering and living abroad - will award the 2013 winner $500 to share their student experience. Details below.

CONTEST GUIDELINES:

TransitionsAbroad.com hosts an annual student writing contest for all currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students, students who have graduated within the past year, and students currently on leave from school are eligible.

The following prizes will be awarded for the winning student writing submissions:

• 1st Place: $500

• 2nd Place: $150

• 3rd Place: $100

• Runner-up: $50

All winning pieces will be published on www.TransitionsAbroad.com and in the monthly Webzine (TAzine).

Transitions Abroad has long featured regular articles on the subject of Student Participant Reports, Student to Student Advice, Student Volunteer Service Learning, and Internships Abroad where students share information and experience with other students contemplating educational travel abroad, whether formal study abroad, internships, volunteering, or short-term work abroad.

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR:

Think about what you were looking for when you were planning to study, travel, work, or live abroad as a student and please use the guidelines below as a basis of your travel writing:

• What motivated you to go abroad?

• What subjects or activities were your primary interests abroad?

• How did you select your program or activity abroad? Search engine, word of mouth, database, or other?

• Emphasize essential practical information such as how you selected a program or arranged your own independent study, job, or internship.

• Where did you go abroad and why?

• Once you were abroad, what did you wish you had known before you left?

• Were there any unexpected events or realizations while you were abroad?

• Do you consider your venture abroad as achieving or exceeding your goals?

• Would you go abroad again? Would you recommend that others do the same?

• Did you consider yourself a good ambassador while you were abroad? Did you feel you gave as much as you took from the people and culture who hosted you?

• What role did social media and online communications play in your experience abroad? In these days where so much time is spent online, how did you balance such activity with cultural immersion and direct connection with locals and/or host family?

• Since you have returned (if you have), how have you been able to fit what you did and learned abroad into your life—academic, career, and otherwise? Do you feel the experience changed your life spiritually, academically, and will alter your future life or even career choice?

• Think of yourself as an adviser or counselor and your reader as a student like yourself before you decided to study/live/work abroad. Offer your best practical advice.

• Be specific: Vague and flowery evocations of the place(s) you visited and what a wonderful time you had there are not always helpful to someone preparing for his or her own trip. Good writing avoids cliches.

• Think of yourself as a journalist seeking to tell a story with as much objectivity as possible in order to reach a wide and educated audience.

• If you write about your experience as a student with a specific program, remember that the appropriateness of the program depends upon the individual.

• If you write about one program or independent activity, please provide a list of similar programs or opportunities you researched for your reader to choose from.

• While remaining practical, please do not hesitate to offer inspiring experiences and your own personal passions relating to traveling, living, and learning in the country(ies) in which you visited.

• If you feel that anecdotes offer a view into the core of your experience, please provide them or any dialog with locals who may have changed your perspectives while abroad.

• Note: Include a sidebar with relevant information or related programs which you considered.

• Optionally provide photographs, Youtube video(s), links to blog posts or multimedia of any kind which will help evoke what you experienced abroad and inspire others to follow in your footsteps.

• Note: High quality photos, video(s), and links to other forms of multimedia will make your submission stand out, though we emphasize a command of the written word as the primary form of narrative, since language leaves so much to our readers' imaginations.

WORD COUNT: 1,000-2,000 words. One or more photos strongly preferred.

CONTEST DEADLINE:

The Contest begins June 1, 2012, and all entries must be received by April 15, 2013. Transitions Abroad Publishing, Inc. will require first-time Worldwide Electronic rights for all submissions which are accepted as contest winners and for publication. In addition, Transitions Abroad Publishing, Inc. will reserve the right to reprint the story in a future publication, with additional compensation. The writer may republish the unedited submission as desired six months after initial publication on TransitionsAbroad.com. Winners will be notified by phone, mail, or e-mail on or around May 2, 2013 for publication in May, 2013 or at such time as all winners have signed Agreements, received, and cashed payment.

STUDENT WRITING CONTEST TERMS:

• There is no entry fee required for submissions.

• Submissions that have been published during the current academic year by home academic institutions are eligible.

• Transitions Abroad Publishing, Inc. is not responsible for late, lost, misdirected, incomplete, or illegible e-mail or for any computer-related, online, or technical malfunctions that may occur in the submission process.

• Submissions are considered void if illegible, incomplete, damaged, irregular, altered, counterfeit, produced in error, or obtained through fraud or theft.

• Submissions will be considered made by an authorized account holder of the e-mail address submitted at time of entry.

• The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners—along with any other runners-up accepted for publication—will be paid by Transitions Abroad Publishing, Inc. either by check or PayPal as preferred by the author.

• All federal, state, and local taxes are the sole responsibility of the Contest winners.

• Decisions of the judges are final.

FORMAT: Typed in Microsoft Word and sent by e-mail to studentwritingcontest@TransitionsAbroad.com. Your name and your email address should be on the document and the "2013 Transitions Abroad Student Writing Contest" as the subject of the email. Please let us know at webeditor@transitionsabroad.com if your submission did not get through for any reason.

COVER SHEET:

Please provide your name and contact information (address, email address, telephone number), your college or university, and your year in school or year that you graduated or expect to graduate. If you traveled on your own, list the countries and dates and what you did (worked, backpacked, etc.) If you traveled with a program, list the program name and institution, and the dates. Include your current and permanent address, your current and permanent phone number, and e-mail address if applicable. Include a short biographical note (hometown, major, etc.). This information can be in the body of the email which includes your submission.

TRANSMISSION: Send electronically as an attached MS Word file which includes the submission title, your name, your email address, and the story. If you cannot attach the submission as an MS Word file, then please paste the article into an email message.

* Please do not send a hard copy submission by mail, as it will not be judged.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries: webeditor@transitionsabroad.com

For submissions: studentwritingcontest@transitionsAbroad.com

Website: http://www.transitionsabroad.com

 

SA Writers' College |

2013 Short Story Competition

 

 

 

THE SA WRITERS’ COLLEGE

2013 Annual Short Story Award

For Emerging Writers in South Africa

 

This competition is to acknowledge excellence in creative writing in the Short Story genre. The contest is open to any emerging writer residing in South Africa who has had fewer than four stories/articles published in any format (print or digital).

 

PRIZES:

• First Prize: R 5 000.00 plus entry into one of our short courses

• Second Prize: R2 000.00

• People's Choice Award R 1 000.00

Top five entries will be published on our college site and the top five winners will receive editorial comments on their submitted works.

 

THEME:  Doing the Right Thing

 

GUIDELINES FOR ENTRIES:

• Entry is limited to South African residents only.

• Entrants must submit a story of maximum word count: 2000 words. Any entries exceeding the word count by 50 words will not be considered.

• We aim to support and acknowledge beginner writers, so we only accept stories from writers who have been published fewer than four times in any genre, in any publication (for payment or otherwise). This does not include articles for community or work newsletters where the circulation is under 1000.

• Stories must not have been previously published. Entrants must own full copyright to the story submitted.

• Only one story per entrant is allowed.

• Only e-mail submissions are acceptable, with stories attached as Word Documents. Mark your entry clearly with the subject line: SAWC Annual Short Story Competition, and submit according to rules below.

• If you have not received an acknowledgement of your submission within three days, please re-send your entry.

• All submissions must be sent to Nichola Meyer: Nichola@sawriterscollege.co.za

 

ENTRY FORMAT:

• Your first page of your Word document must include the story title, your name, email address, and total number of words of the entry.

• Do not include your name on any page of your story, except the title page. All entries will be judged blind.

• Make sure your story has been edited and polished according to tips and guidelines provided on our college site under “Writing Resources”.

 View our Archived Competition Entries Here

 

THE JUDGES: Our panel of judges for 2013 include Ginny Swart, Lisa Lazarus, Karen Jeynes, Alex Smith and Sarah Lang.

Ginny Swart has sold over 500 short stories to women's magazines all over the world. On any day of every month she has at least 30 stories out there on editors' desks. Her more serious work has appeared in literary publications in America, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and on the Web. She is also the author of three romance novels (Ulverscroft Press UK) and a book of short stories (Lulu.com) and a book for teenagers: Nosipho and the King of Bones (MacMillan Boleswa SA). She has an eBook available on Kindle called Something to Read, a collection of short stories. In 2003 Ginny won the esteemed UK The Real Writers' Prize from over 4000 entrants.

Alex Smith is the author of three novels, Algeria's Way and Drinking from the Dragon's Well, both published by Random House Umuzi. Drinking from the Dragon's Well was long-listed for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. Four Drunk Beauties, her third novel, was published by Umuzi in 2010.

Alex has had many short stories published in anthologies and journals. Her short story 'Buffalo Panting at the Moon’ was short-listed for the 2007 SA PEN Literary Awards. Most recently her writing appeared in Touch, along with other SA writers, including Henrietta Rose-Innes, Damon Galgut, Andre Brink, and Nadine Gordimer.

Alex was shortlisted for the 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award. She won a silver award at the 2010 Sanlam Youth Literature Awards and has been nominated for the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing. Most recently her latest novel, Four Drunk Beauties, won the Nielsen sponsored 2011 Bookseller's Choice Award.

Karen Jeynes has an Honours Degree in the Art of Writing and is currently pursuing her Masters in Adapting Austen for the Stage at UWC. Her plays include "Getting There", "Laying Blame", "sky too big", "I'll have what she's having", "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee", and the multi award-winning "Everybody Else (is Fucking Perfect)". Her adaptation of Thomas Rapakgadi's "The Purse is Mine" aired on Bush Radio, and Safm has featured her series "Office Hours" co-written with Nkuli Sibeko, as well as the radio version of "sky too big". She also writes for SABC,and is currently on the writing team for Thabang Thabong and other works in planning.

Her teenage novels, Jacques Attack (co-authored with Nkuli Sibeko) and Flipside, co-authored with Eeshaam September, were released by New Africa Books. She has a children's story published in the new anthology "Metz and Bop and other stories".

Karen also freelances for online and print media, and lectures and consults in Digital Culture and playwrighting.

Lisa Lazarus is a freelance journalist for a variety of publications, including Men's Health, Femina, Psychologies, Shape, Cosmopolitan, Femina, Healthy Pregnancy and the Mail & Guardian. Her memoir The Book of Jacob, co-written with Greg Fried, has  been published by Oshun. She has also published a novel When in Broad Daylight I Open My Eyes (Kwela, 2012) with Greg Fried, under the pen name Greg Lazarus. Lisa tutors both the Magazine Journalism Course and the Memoir Writing Course

Previously she worked as Principal of City Varsity for six years. She has a Masters Degree in Educational Psychology. In 2011 she completed her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town (cum laude).

Sarah Lang, an award-winning feature writer,  began her career on staff at North & South magazine, and for the last five years has freelanced for around 20 publications. She is a book reviewer of novels, short stories and occasional non-fiction.

Sarah has interviewed everyone from Dame Helen Mirren to sick children and science boffins, and has written hundreds of stories from profiles, entertainment and arts features through to science and business stories.

Awards and nominations include: 2007 Qantas Media Awards: Human Relations winner, 2008 Qantas Media Awards: Science and Technology winner, 2008 Qantas Media Awards: Junior Magazine Feature Writer finalist, The Magazine Awards 2010: Journalist of the Year (Women’s Interest) finalist, The Magazine Awards 2011: Journalist of the Year (Home, Food & Garden) finalist, and The Magazine Awards 2011: Journalist of the Year (Lifestyle) finalist.

Sarah is a booklover with a BA in English Literature from Victoria University of Wellington and a Bachelor of Communications (journalism major) from AUT University.

 

COMPETITION RULES:

• The competition is open to anyone living in South Africa over the age of 16.

• The competition closes at midnight on 31 March 2013, and winners will be announced and displayed on our web site by 30 April 2013.

• Prizewinners will be notified via email as well as on our web site; please ensure you supply a valid email address with your entry.

• Prize money will be paid via electronic transfer.

• We only accept entries written in English.

• Entrant must own full copyright of the piece.

• Writers retain copyright, but give permission for their work to be displayed on our website.

• The judges' decision is final; no disputes will be entered into.

• If your entry has not been acknowledged within 72 hours, please contact us –your mail may have got lost in transit.

• SA Writers’ College reserves the right to extend the competition deadline, or cancel the competition should the entries not be of publishable quality or up to the required standard.

 

Submissions

General Overview

Unlike many magazines, Creative Nonfiction draws heavily from unsolicited submissions. Our editors believe that providing a platform for emerging writers and helping them find readers is an essential role of literary magazines, and it’s been our privilege to work with many fine writers early in their careers. A typical issue of CNF contains at least one essay by a previously unpublished writer.

We’re open to all types of creative nonfiction, from immersion reportage to personal essay to memoir. Our editors tend to gravitate toward submissions structured around narratives, but we’re always happy to be pleasantly surprised by work that breaks outside this general mold. Above all, we’re most interested in writing that blends style with substance, and reaches beyond the personal to tell us something new about the world. We firmly believe that great writing can make any subject interesting to a general audience.

Creative Nonfiction typically accepts submissions via regular mail and online through Submittable. Please read specific calls for submissions carefully.

We try to respond to all submissions as soon as possible. If you submit by regular mail, you will receive an email from us (typically within a week of your manuscript’s arrival in our office), confirming we have received your manuscript. If you submit online, you will receive a confirmation email from Submittable.

We read year-round, but it is not uncommon for a decision to take up to 6 months; unfortunately, this is especially true of work we like. If you have not heard from us since the initial confirmation email, please assume your manuscript is still under consideration.

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A Note About Fact-checking

Essays accepted for publication in Creative Nonfiction undergo a fairly rigorous fact-checking process. To the extent your essay draws on research and/or reportage (and ideally, it should, to some degree), CNF editors will ask you to send documentation of your sources and to help with the fact-checking process. We do not require that citations be submitted with essays, but you may find it helpful to keep a file of your essay that includes footnotes and/or a bibliography.

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Current Submission Calls

EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES

We're currently seeking experimental nonfiction for the "Exploring the Boundaries" section. ("Experimental," "boundaries" ... yes, these can be loaded terms.) We want writing that blows our minds with its ingenuity--essays that not only push the boundaries of the genre, but tear down the borders. Be ambitious. Deadline: May 13, 2013. Complete guidelines »

SUSTAINABILITY

We're looking for essays that illuminate environmental, economic, ethical and/or social challenges related to the state of the planet and our future. Your essay can channel Henry David Thoreau or Henry Ford, Rachel Carson or (a literary) Rush Limbaugh; but all essays must tell true stories and be factually and scientifically accurate. Deadline: January 15, 2013 May 31, 2013. Complete guidelines »

We're also looking for an artist to illustrate the issue. Deadline: May 31, 2013. Complete guidelines »

TRUE STORIES, WELL TOLD
(Un-themed Submissions)

We read general submissions year-round and are open to all subjects and forms. Whatever your story is, we want to hear it! Accepted Year-Round. Complete guidelines »

PITCH US A COLUMN

Have an idea for a literary timeline? An opinion on essential texts for readers and/or writers? An in-depth, working knowledge of a specific type of nonfiction? Pitch us your ideas; Creative Nonfiction is now accepting query letters for the following sections of the magazine. Accepted Year-Round. Complete guidelines »

ILLUSTRATIONS

Since every issue of Creative Nonfiction features original illustrations, we are always on the lookout for new work and new artists. Accepted Year-Round. Complete guidelines »

TINY TRUTHS CONTEST

Can you tell a true story in 130 characters (or fewer)? Think you could write one hundred CNF-worthy micro essays a day? Go for it. We dare you. There's no limit. Simply follow Creative Nonfiction on Twitter and tag your tiny truths with the trending topic #cnftweet. That's it. We re-tweet winners daily and republish 10-12 winning tweets in every issue of Creative Nonfiction. Not sure what we're looking for? Check out all of our past "Favorites".

 

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FAQs

How much do you pay for a published essay?

We typically pay a $50 flat fee + $10/printed page, plus a copy of the magazine.

My essay is over your word limit. Will you still consider it for publication?          

We’re very sorry, but we have to draw the line somewhere.

Do you always charge a reading fee?

No: you can always submit non-themed essays for consideration without a reading fee, if you send a hard copy via regular mail. Like many other magazines, we charge a $3 convenience fee to submit non-themed essays online through Submittable. In the case of contests, reading fees generally offset the costs associated with those issues, as well as (in most cases) the prize money; or, for a small additional cost, you can become a subscriber, which also helps keep the lights on at CNF.

Will you consider excerpts from longer pieces?

We are happy to read excerpts from longer pieces, though in our experience it rarely works to pull 4,500 words from a longer piece and call it an essay. Rather, we suggest you consider adapting part of your longer piece so that it can truly stand alone.

Can I change the names or distinguishing characteristics of the people in my story to protect their privacy?

We typically prefer that you not do this, and would argue that, in most cases, there are better ways to approach this type of challenge. That said, in some cases—for example, if you’re a doctor writing about your work with patients—sometimes this may be appropriate. Regardless, we’re big fans of transparency, and greatly appreciate a note in the cover letter or perhaps even footnoted in the manuscript itself, if you’ve taken this type of liberty. 

Will you give feedback on the essay I submitted?

Unfortunately, due to the high volume of submissions we receive (in the neighborhood of 100+ essays per month), we can’t send detailed feedback or responses. If you are interested in having a professional editor review your manuscript, we encourage you to check out CNF’s mentoring program and online courses.

Can I submit an essay I wrote in one of CNF’s online courses or in the mentoring program?

Sorry, no. But we do wish you the best of luck placing such work elsewhere, and hope you’ll keep in touch with your teacher or mentor and let us know about any successes!

What are CNF’s copyright requirements?

CNF typically considers only unpublished work and seeks first publication rights. After publication, CNF typically retains certain reprint rights, and some other rights revert to the author. We find that when people ask this question, they usually mean, “I’m submitting a chapter from a book I’m writing, and I need to have the rights to it.” Please know that we absolutely do not retain any rights that would interfere with your ability to publish your work in your own book.