The Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize: Prof. Wangari Mwai’s (Vice-Chancellor

The Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize: Prof. Wangari Mwai’s (Vice-Chancellor – PUEA) Presentation

1^st slide: All protocols observed…

2^nd slide: Intro – Respect authors smiley emoji

3^rd slide: This animal called ‘writing’

4^th slide: Writing – the process

5^th slide: Both academic & creative, writing is

6^th slide: Writing as prose

7^th slide: Writing, the plan

8^th slide: ‘Ws’ and ‘H’

9^th slide: Writing, pre-

10^th slide: You just can’t get away with it, can you? – Research

11^th slide: Research for creative writing

12^th slide: Research – its importance in creative writing

13^th slide: Research – its purpose in creative writing

14^th slide: Research – its importance, stressed

15^th slide: Research – the different types for creative writing

16^th slide: Research – back to the roots

17^th slide: Research – interviewing

18^th slide: The research process in writing

19^th slide: Research activities for creative writing

20^th slide: Focused research

21^st slide: Don’t be embarrassed – double check details

22^nd slide: Creative writings – maps just had to be there!

23^rd slide: Creative writing – in comes tech

24^th slide: Echoes of Military Souls - A celebration

25^th slide: Appreciation time – for writing ain’t easy!

26^th slide: Appreciation time – you the audience, the reader, matters!

Comments

My-Once Molly (Praying for a Rainbow),

Dear Molly, I hope you are ok and are keeping safe in these floods. As for me, I am heartbroken. I am in pain. My mind, my body, my spirit aches. I am numb with grief. As is the nation of Kenya. The picture just won’t get out of our minds – the father, trudging stoically, his dead, muddy son slung over his shoulder. It’s a devastating image… the screams, elsewhere, as a boat capsizes, the swollen river swallows a lorry… Izrael has visited the land. Dear Molly, a while back, the nation faced drought. Then, images of dead livestock, emaciated men, women and children, parched, cracked earth, haunted our screens. Elsewhere where there was a glut in food production, the farmers cried for their fellow starving countrymen. They demanded for lorries to traverse the rutted roads and take the produce to their brethren… collectively, we prayed for rain. Dear Molly... will we ever catch a break as Kenya? The Covid-19 pandemic that paralysed lives and livelihoods in 2020 as we recovered from th...

My-Once Molly (thinking of Valentine),

My-Once Molly… the girl who broke my heart, the one who got away, the one who promised me the world and left me to survive alone – typical of our Kenyan politicians… I hope you are good. Now, as February – the month of love – lurks about, I find myself thinking of you. Thing is, my dear Molly, I have new neighbours. A young couple, very much in love like we once were. The young lady, her name is Val… maybe Valentine… I don’t know. This Val, a spirited girl with rich, deep, heaving laughter - almost like yours. Her smile… ah! You should see it. The shine of the morning sun distilling the dew upon cool meadows… I am totally in love with her. Alarmingly, she teases me much and I am getting ideas… Molly, dear, wherever you are, please pray for me… the temptation is too much. If you don’t, the frail creature that I am may fall. This, despite having numerous songs in my playlist to warn me. Invariably, Majengo – that infamous locale – does a dishonourable appearance in most of them… ‘Maj...

My Once-Molly (A Theft),

Hi Molly. How are you? The floods are here and I almost drowned – should have gone for swimming lessons as you often times suggested. Anyways, I now walk with a motorcycle tire’s tube and pump in my backpack. DIY lifesaver gear as instructed by Grade 3 CBC cohort. Dear Molly, as I informed you last time, I shifted. Partly, the floods, partly, change, partly, finances. This Creative Writing journey is taking a bit of time to yield fruits, but I hang on, consoled by the words of one Ernest Hemingway, whose ending was horrible: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Where I shifted to, is a downgrade. ‘Mabati’ rooms – plenty of stories, though as living is communal and one’s business is everyone’s business. Such as the recent theft – a woofer, charger, ‘meko’ gas, a bar of soap, and a bucket of maize flower - that’s how ‘flour’ is pronounced, FIY. Must have been pretty hungry, them thieves. How it unfolded. A bit of commotion early mor...

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