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Ayodele Arigbabu sets up a workshop for Lagos 2060 and that inspires Mazi Nwonwu, who attends Farafina disconsolately until Binyavanga Wainaina tells him that he loves SF and suggests that Mazi should set up a portal; and then Ayo and Tade Thompson encourage him; and meanwhile Farafina puts together an anthology and for it, Chinelo Onwualu edits Mazi’s story and gets in touch and says, “I’m a fan too”; and they and the Nerds all meet in Abuja and so Omenana is born; and since both Chinelo and Mazi had stories in AfroSF, and Ivor Hartmann wanted people to interact, they therefore have the email addresses of the other contributors so they are able to get name writers to contribute to issue one; and so Farafina asks Mazi to give a talk each year to the workshop so that writers like Edwin Okolo are also inspired to write SFF now that there’s a place that publishes it, and so the writers get feedback and validation—not to mention the exacting editorial input of that taskmaster Chinelo Onwualu—so that Mazi is able to say in 2016 how much better writers like Suyi Davies are getting, how the whole field is getting better.

Or it could be the guys in Nairobi pulling together Jalada, or the folk behind Saraba, or Brittle Paper, or Imagine Africa 500 or Femrite or Writivism.

Per literas ad astra.

Literature is not a form or forms—those are the outputs. Some people use “literature” to mean anything written that’s really good. But there is no present-day Aristotle, let alone a dominant culture. There is no authoritative aesthetic. We all get to say what is beautiful and why, so “literature” in that sense, in my opinion, is a self-aggrandizing way of saying you like something.

For me, literature is a social process that produces and then appreciates written work. We all play different roles at different times as readers, fans, writers, editors, publishers, critics, commentators, even agents or journalists ... and back again.

It’s a circular, self-reinforcing process—and at its strongest it resembles a whirlwind.

Next in Part Ten, I take a van (see photo below) and a plane to Abuja where I talk to Chinelo Onwualu, Odafe Atogun, and Vivian Ogbonna.

Odafe Atogun, Geoff Ryman, Chinelo Onwualu – V for Victory



Geoff Ryman is Senior Lecturer in School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester. He is a writer of short stories and novels, and science fiction and literary fiction. His work has won numerous awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award (twice), the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award (twice), and the Canadian Sunburst Award (twice). In 2012 he won a Nebula Award for his Nigeria-set novelette "What We Found." His story "Capitalism in the 22nd Century" is part of Stories for Chip, edited by Bill Campbell and Nisi Shawl and published by Rosarium.
Current Issue
31 Mar 2025

We are delighted to present to you our second special issue of the year. This one is devoted to ageing and SFF, a theme that is ever-present (including in its absence) in the genre.
Gladys was approaching her first heat when she shed her fur and lost her tail. The transformation was unintentional, and unwanted. When she awoke in her new form, smelling of skin and sweat, she wailed for her pack in a voice that scraped her throat raw.
does the comb understand the vocabulary of hair. Or the not-so-close-pixels of desires even unjoined shape up to become a boat
The birds have flown long ago. But the body, the body is like this: it has swallowed the smaller moon and now it wants to keep it.
now, be-barked / I am finally enough
how you gazed on our red land beside me / then how you traveled it, your eyes gone silver
Here, I examine the roles of the crones of the Expanse space in Persepolis Rising, Tiamat’s Wrath, and Leviathan Falls as leaders and combatants in a fight for freedom that is always to some extent mediated by their reduced physical and mental capacity as older people. I consider how the Expanse foregrounds the value of their long lives and experience as they configure the resistance for their own and future generations’ freedom, as well as their mentorship of younger generations whose inexperience often puts the whole mission in danger.
In the second audio episode of Writing While Disabled, hosts Kristy Anne Cox and Kate Johnston welcome Farah Mendlesohn, acclaimed SFF scholar and conrunner, to talk all things hearing, dyslexia, and more ADHD adjustments, as well as what fandom could and should be doing better for accessibility at conventions, for both volunteers and attendees.
Friday: The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinan Antoon 
Issue 24 Mar 2025
Issue 17 Mar 2025
Issue 10 Mar 2025
By: Holli Mintzer
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 3 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Feb 2025
Issue 17 Feb 2025
Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
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