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Take a seat, you are now in the village square. Enjoy!
“Our hybridity is one of our biggest advantages.” Su’eddie Agema

  A book festival in Makurdi? In these days of Boko Haram and insecurity? Jeez! You’ve got guts. This is our first reaction, though it is almost immediately replaced by awe, when we see the Instagram post announcing the inaugural Benue Book and Arts Festival. However, like the toad that does not run in the daytime for nothing, we dare the odds and end up having a refreshing time, learning and unlearning from and with other literature and culture…

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Runnin’ the River by Trish Nicholson

  In collaboration with Trish Nicholson, the New Zealander author of A Biography of Story, A Brief History of Humanity, we will be publishing a three-part coaching series on “the use of voice in storytelling” – which is intended to help writers of fiction navigate and master how voice and dialogue is used to capture the attention of their readers. As a prelude to this, we have decided to publish this flash story, Runnin’ the River which is mentioned…

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In November by Dermot O’Sullivan

  Eyes shut tight against the water; Andy MacAuliffe fumbled for the shower tap, found it, and twisted it shut. He opened his eyes and stood motionless as the water drained off his body in a shining tangle of shallow rivulets. When the din of tinkling had died down to a steady drip-drop-drip, he stepped out of the shower. He towelled himself dry and took a piss, savouring the long, satisfying gush and the frenetic bubbling as his jet…

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Summons to the Village Square No. 001

          A conversation between Obinna Udenwe & Jayne Bauling on her story, Ancient Words   Every time I visit my village of Ogada Edda – a rice-rich settlement – in the State of Ebonyi, Nigeria, I would be woken most morning by the thundering sound of the village gong, only that it is not a gong but an old vehicle rim hanging on a tree branch at the centre of the village. Most times, I…

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