Lilongwe to taste storytelling session
Lilongwe will taste a story-telling session next month to be held at Story Club on March 17, one of the coordinators, Ekari Mbvundula, has said.
Mbvundula said this on Saturday during the third session at Jacaranda Cultural Centre (JCC) in Blantyre.
The holding of the story-telling session in Lilongwe next month means there will be no session at JCC, a development which disappointed some people during the third session.
Mbvundula said they have been receiving a lot of requests from people in Lilongwe since they started hosting the events in Blantyre last year.
“We have been getting requests and we thought we should give them a taste. So in March we have no session in Blantyre. We will be back in Blantyre in April,” she said.
Asked if they will be rotating the story-telling session, Mbvundula said:
“It’s not that we will be rotating but we have only gone to Lilongwe because of a request but we will be back in April in Blantyre.”
With the Northern Region crying foul of late that organisers do not consider them when it comes to hosting arts events, Mbvundula said they were open to go there as long as there was enough funding.
Mbvundula, who starred during the third session with her story ‘Undying Love’ published on omenana.com, which was then added to the Nebula Recommended Reading List two weeks ago, said she was happy that the story-telling sessions are getting attention.
“The turnout tonight is a testimony that we are making positive strides. It was all good and it was a vibrant session,” Mbvundula said.
She further said: “We had a little bit of overtime but all this was because people loved the work and the comments we got from the audience was inspiring.”
She said there was more room for improvement going forward.
“Going forward, I should say it here that people are looking at the stories we are getting, but there has to be support for these local writers and we hope to have publishers connecting with us,”Mbvundula said.
Running under the theme ‘Love Gained and Love Lost’, six writers, including Mbvundula, presented their works which saw the audience listening attentively.
After the reading of the stories, the audience had time to ask questions to all the writers on their stories with some wanting to know why the writers wrote those stories.
Some stories were fiction but, for other writers, it was true life stories and one of them was that of OJ Hara, who presented his story titled ‘The Fall of OJ Hara’.
This was not the first time for OJ Hara to star at the story-telling session as he was also on song during the second session but he presented a different story.
Other writers who presented their works are Dumisani Moyo, who did not show up and as such his work was read by Muyanga, Xara Hlupekire, Emma Holmquist and Sympathy Mandoloma.
“It was my first time to read my work at such a platform but it was exciting. I wrote my story after I saw a flyer put up by Ekari Mbvundula. I am a writer and I should say that I had fun reading my work and people were supportive,” Hlupekire said.
Victor Ayebazibwe from Uganda said he was happy with the event.
“I like entertainment, and the arts especially, and the story-telling event was very good because I listened to the best of stories. I had a good time and I am looking forward to patronising another session,” Ayebazibwe said.
He said every kind of story on the night had its own style, observing that the country has talent.
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