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Dear all,
It's with joy that we introduce you to our most daring issue yet: Coming Out!
akpatamag.top/issue-three/
Akpata Magazine
1,852 posts
Akpata Magazine
@AkpataMagazine
Telling stories of Africa and the world at large | Fiction, Poetry, Non-fiction, and more!
Joined April 2024
- "Write what you know" is terrible advice that kills imagination. Write what obsesses you, what terrifies you, what you can't understand. Research exists. Empathy exists. Creative fiction doesn't have to be an autobiography.
- Replying to @koreatimescokrWhat sets Han Kang apart is her ability to capture these emotional extremes with poetic elegance. In ‘Human Acts,’ she writes, “After you died I could not hold a funeral, And so those eyes that once beheld you became a shrine.” akpatacww.com.ng/2024-nobel-pri…
- Too many writers mistake verbosity for brilliance. Just say what you mean. A beautiful sentence that says nothing is just literary makeup. Scrub it off. Get to the bone.
- Buy books. Stop downloading pirated PDFs and Epubs. Books aren't expensive, you just do not value them enough.Reader to Reader:
- Your writing will always feel awkward to you, because you wrote it. Your plot twists will always feel predictable, because you created them. Your stories will feel a bit boring to you, because you've read them a million times. They won't feel like that for your reader.
- Replying to @KM__archWhy did a Korean woman win the Nobel prize? Maybe because she's better than all the male Korean writers?? 🤷🏿 akpatacww.com.ng/2024-nobel-pri…
- Replying to @KM__archThe Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to 121 individuals. Of these, ONLY 18 are women. It's because of humans like these that this inequality persists. Women writers like Han Kang deserve better. They deserve to win awards without having to receive patriarchal
- The biggest lie in African literature is that we must write "authentically" for Western audiences. Your grandmother's proverbs don't validate your art. Stop performing Africa. Write the messy, contradictory, globalized reality you actually live in.
- The recommendation to "write every day" ignores how creativity actually works. Some writers need time to percolate between sessions. Some need intense bursts followed by reflection periods. Find your natural rhythm, ignore universal prescriptions.
- The bigger the issue, the smaller your focus. Don't write about the vastness of the ocean. Write about the tiny seashell lying on the shore. Don't write about the entire war. Write about the one soldier's lost glove. Pick the smallest piece of the big thing, and work off theWriter to Writer:
- Writers, always read your works aloud when revising. Ears catch problems eyes miss. Awkward rhythms become obvious when vocalized. Read everything aloud—fiction, poetry, even essays benefit from vocal testing.
- A lot of young writers are too concerned with being published instead of being good. They submit rough drafts to magazines and pray an editor graciously helps them fix the errors. Excellence takes time. Stop rushing. Perfect your art first.
- Editors obsessed with "show don't tell" have forgotten that some things need telling. Internal thoughts require exposition. Historical context needs explanation. Great literature balances showing with intelligent telling.
