Asked about rejections, E.C. Osondu admits that he had his fair share, sometimes leading him to question what he was doing wrong. Now he says, he keeps all his rejections in his basement in a bag, to remind him of the tortuous journey he has faced; including the frustration of experiencing multiple rejections having left his successful career in advertising in Nigeria to go to graduate school to study creative writing in the US...

"Ethnic stereotypes are absurd to me because I was raised in a part of Lagos that was unusual in the sense that almost all my friends and family had parents who were from different ethnic backgrounds..." - Sefi Atta

Okigbo will always be interesting to other writers. There’s always something romantic about a writer dying young. Where does all the talent go to, what would have become of all that passion, that zeal? - Helon Habila

'African writer' is, I feel, a label for those in the West to lump vastly different people together. 'Nigerian writer' is a more useful term, but then again it's not the same as 'Nigerian-born writer'  - 2005 $15,000 Caine Prize for African Writing Winner, Segun Afolabi.

"Do NOT copy John Grisham. And as you write a story, imagine that your parents and uncles and aunties and relatives will NEVER read it. You are more likely to write truthfully, more likely to write things as they are..."

Like the shekere rattle me gently
Let the steady staccato of bead against gourd
Recount step by step the follies that brought us here
Like the wooden xylophone strike me...

Writers are not protected from discrimination. When I worked as an accountant I dealt with discrimination and I'm still dealing with it now. It's funny, looking back from my first writing class, it feels like I've been on one long audition, standing before an audience who is yelling, What have you got? Go on, tell us an African story! - Sefi Attah