How did you guys even draw the line from piracy to reading literacy and poor people not getting access to read ? because I don’t think that’s how that works….
“Piracy is stealing” has no bearing on capitalism. That is just a fact. You are taking something that’s not yours. We can acknowledge the nuance of people not being able to afford books and even accessibility for willing buyers, but it still stealing.
You are right that the conversation to be had is about how we can make more classics accessible and we should, but people taking matters into their hands and arrogantly distributing other people’s hard work should not be celebrated. If you want that for yourself as an author, you can do that, but many authors do not.
We speak of most of our greats(writer of the classics) living in abject poverty and their families having little, but encourage systems (piracy) that keep them there.
"Show, don't tell," is advice that knocked the breath out of American literature. It's good advice against a specific sort of literary sin where the author turns fiction into an essay, but it's been taken to the extreme that any hints of interiority or direct description of thoughts and emotions are suspect.
But telling is the superpower of a novel! Too many authors, agents, and publishers seem to think novels are just unfilmed movies, and should follow the beats and convention of that medium.
Novels are uniquely suited to convey the inner life, whether calm or turbulent. They are the medium where a character can watch the steam rising from a cup of tea and find himself undertaking a ten thousand word struggle against his own beliefs, and it's more gripping than a thousand car chases.
To toss away this unique feature of novels is a kneecapping of the art form.
Based on events in my short story, "The Last Piece of Me," published on @AkpataMagazine, I wrote a sequel titled "The Broken Piece of Me," published today on @LiterallyStory. 🎉
Nonetheless, you can enjoy it as a stand-alone story.
https://t.co/zlvXLexIVQ
It's why we must continue to acknowledge and promote the good works of @PoetryColumnNnd, @AkpataMagazine, @agbowoart, @poetrysangoota and other Nigeria based magazine. The priority shouldn't be coming every year to tell us "Nigeria lit is dead" but rather what should be done....
someone said
you don’t act gay enough to be gay,
as if queerness is a TikTok filter
& not the reason i flinch
when God is used like a belt.
https://t.co/5iYOtgp9eR
someone said
you don’t act gay enough to be gay,
as if queerness is a TikTok filter
& not the reason i flinch
when God is used like a belt.
https://t.co/5iYOtgp9eR
We should support magazines run by younger or newer writers.
They started them because they have zeal. And an industry survives, from generation to generation, because of the zeal of new people. Without that, we have nothing.
Support newer platforms.
Marginalised communities do not belong in the margins of the page. We have always been and will continue to be at the center of society, at the heart of everything. So I’m not interested in conforming to societal expectations.
- Rigwell Addison Asiedu
https://t.co/aBsJ3HhALG
As a Nigerian writer, I faced challenges like frequent power outages and access to supportive institutions, like comprehensive creative writing programs in Nigeria. This is what led me to pursue an MFA in the US.
- Chukwuebuka Ibeh
https://t.co/nO1j2UKTYF
Marriage often looks beautiful on the outside. But that’s only what people are allowed to see. No one tells you what happens after the guests leave. When it’s just two people in a house, surrounded by expectations, silence, and regret.
https://t.co/Sd2k0s7DSp
Writers are the most enlightened minds you will ever encounter. They are also the most dangerous. We wield articulation like a weapon, dress up our egos in beautiful sentences, and call it wisdom... https://t.co/dONQdud35I
We can’t and we won’t respond to the plethora of diverse insults, because we understand that it’s in the nature of certain persons, which may often include acclaimed names, on X, to think through the limited fringes of their bias.
https://t.co/VmJ5G6hV9S
Listening to audiobooks while doing dishes isn't reading, it's multitasking with podcasts that have chapters.
You're not "reading" 50 books a year, you're half-absorbing them at 1.5x speed.
Real reading requires focus. It requires intentional engagement with the subject.
“When did the literary community become so fragile that it cannot withstand a conversation about attention spans?”
Victims. They’re everywhere. 🤪
Akpata out here telling the truth! 👏🏼
We can’t and we won’t respond to the plethora of diverse insults, because we understand that it’s in the nature of certain persons, which may often include acclaimed names, on X, to think through the limited fringes of their bias.
https://t.co/VmJ5G6hV9S