IN ABUJA: Free writing workshop to be conducted by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Elnathan John, on June 27

Top Nigerian writers Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Elnathan John
Photos borrowed from Facebook

With support from the French Institute in Nigeria, two Caine Prize for African Writing short-listed writers will be facilitating a one-day free workshop for fiction and narrative/creative non-fiction on Thursday, June 27, 2013.

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Elnathan John will be discussing elements of prose, in both fiction and nonfiction. The workshop will include interactive sessions, and lessons drawn from the best writing available today. Interested participants are expected to send in a brief bio of not more than 100 words and a writing sample of not more than 300 words of prose, fiction or nonfiction, published or unpublished, not later than Monday, 24th June 2013, to proseworkshop@mtnnigeria.blackberry.com with the subject: WORKSHOP APPLICATION. The workshop is open to anyone above 18 who is resident in Abuja.

Twenty participants will be chosen to attend the workshop on Thursday, 27th June 2013. Only selected participants will be notified. Participants will receive an email of invitation with materials for the workshop which they will be expected to read BEFORE coming. 

Please do not apply if you will not be able to stay for the whole period of the workshop. The workshop will last from 9am until 3pm. The two facilitators will also read excerpts from their work.

Elnathan John, a satirist and lawyer, is a full-time writer who writes for Metropole Magazine and Sunday Trust newspaper. His fiction has been published in Per Contra, ZAM Magazine, Sentinel Nigeria and Otis Nebula. His non-fiction has been published in Evergreen review and several Nigerian publications online and in print. Two of his stories appear in the 2013 Caine Prize for African writing anthology. He was shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize. Currently he has completed a collection of short stories and will have a book of non-fiction satire out, early 2014. He has taught writing as a guest lecturer at the American University, Yola and the Kaduna State University, Kaduna. 

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is an award-winning writer and journalist. The author of the collection of short stories The Whispering Trees published by Parressia publishers in 2012, Ibrahim is a Gabriel Garcia Marquez Fellow and won the BBC African Performance Prize in 2007. He is the arts editor of Sunday Trust newspaper. Two of his stories appear in the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing anthology, one of which got him shortlisted for the Caine Prize this year. He has finished work on a new novel which will be out, early 2014.