Seven Stories and a festival like never before.

The Storymoja Hay Festival is drawing ever closer. As you may have noticed, I am dedicating this month’s blogs to informing you of what you can look forward to. Already one of you, Marvin Tumbo, has been rewarded with tickets to the festival, and one other writer will be rewarded before the festival begins.

The festival is going to be a rich literary and cultural event that will definitely be the herald of change both in the publishing scene as well as in the economic and social arenas.

You will have a chance to explore Citizen Journalism: How using online platforms or phones to share information can empower you to hold our leadership to account. This discussion will be led by the Imagine Company on Friday 31^st July, at 12 to 1.30pm at the Impala Club Grounds.

Ladies, you will have a chance to explore Make-Up Secrets that enhance your best features, minimises the flaws and help bring out a more beautiful you with Nthenya also on Friday 31^st July, at 2 to 5.30pm at the Impala Club Grounds.

At the same time, that is Friday 31^st July, at 2 to 5.30pm, there will be another session going on where UK storytelling professionals will join exciting local talent to run a Storytelling Skills Factory Workshop certain to inspire a new generation of storytellers.

Indeed these events will be worth your time!

And back to the Contest where you stand to win tickets. As I explained there was a mishap with our web mail which resulted in a very sad loss of emails which included some of your submissions. For that reason the entries to this week’s contest are a bit more. Please vote for your favorite story by placing a number between 1 and 10, with 1 indicating weak and 10 indicating strong. Remember that we are voting on:

1. Excellent style and presentation.
2. Accurate Grammar and punctuation.
3. True Creativity and skill with words.

We will take the two stories that have the highest figures, and they will be entered into the final Story of the Month contest. The winner will get those coveted tickets. But I will look forward to seeing you all enjoy the Storymoja Hay Festival programme.

So here we are;

1. Dignity my foot! By Titus Kaloki: ‘How could she disagree, he was the one? I mean he had paid for her. Her hairstyle, food, drinks, clothes, bus fare to school and even that little money she bought presents for her nephews. He had every right to dictate and she had every reason to agree lest she lost favor with him.’
2. Catching a Pickpocket by Waliaulia Lukamba Patricia: I vowed not to use public vehicles for a long time and my mechanic was not lucky at all as I personally supervised him as he did repairs to my vehicle. A process he had said would take a whole three days, took less than five hours! I have since then had to change mechanics!
3. Elevation by Ndago Abenea Odhiambo: The one who was cooking clicked wrathfully. His right hand which gripped the ladle halted. “I will one day murder with my bare hands. –Not even the death of a tenant reduces the greedy punctuality of care-takers in the slums of this city!”
4. A Dove from No-Where Land by Gituri Kihuri: I came to the decision after the realization that eating the bird might meet my immediate need; that of satisfying my palate and curiosity but come tomorrow, I will still wake up hungry minus the dove.
5. Now it will be light by Peter Oduor: “Obange is no longer a child, Seeing twenty two Decembers is not a child’s play. Why do you want to keep him chained like some pet dog of yours? He is a man now and men have needs. He has to meet his friends.”
6. My time to eat by James Kemoli Amata: As I ate his eyes kept on following me. When I broke ugali his eyes followed my hand. As I put my lump in my mouth his eyes followed it to the mouth. At one time he looked like he wanted to snatch me my staffed chicken. I had to eat watchfully.
7. Times are hard by Nikko Tanui : Here is my letter which I am going leave on the table for my  girlfriend who is still enjoying her sleep in the bedroom and mark you  its around  8am (sometimes I wish I was  a woman and had a man take care of me and my needs)

Here’s wishing you a wonderful week, full of creativity!