October 29: Ake Arts & Book Festival 2021 #AkeFest21

The Ake Arts & Book Festival, popularly known as the Ake Festival, has been running in Nigeria since 2012. Lovers of books and the arts attend book readings, panel discussions, poetry recitals, film screenings, theatre and music performances and lots more over the week of the festival. The festival this year has the theme “Generational …

October 16: Pa Gya! A Literary Festival 2021

Pa Gya! A Literary Festival was first hosted by the Writers Project of Ghana and the Goethe-Institut in 2017. Its name Pa Gya! comes from the Twi word meaning “to lift up” or “to strike flame” and it was aimed at igniting passion for the literary arts. After hosting writers from within Ghana and across …

East Africa Literary and Cultural Studies Conference Keynote: Radical Joys and Solidarities in a Time of Mourning

Here is the keynote that I delivered at the East Africa Literary and Cultural Studies Conference at the Sirikwa Hotel, Eldoret, Kenya on Wednesday, September 8, 2021. Radical Joys and Solidarities in a Time of Mourning I hope you are well and thank you to all who are present physically and virtually.  My name is …

The Writer’s Voice in a Political, Social and Artistically-Conscious World

In this 24th year of  Time of the Writer Festival as we face a global pandemic for the second year, it seemed important that as I looked at the larger festival theme The Writer: Witness, Canary in the Mine or Testifier, I focus too on the writer’s voice in a political, social and artistically-conscious world. …