When a dream gets bigger than you

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Mazi Nwonwu
Mazi Nwonwu is the pen name of Chiagozie Fred Nwonwu, a Lagos-based journalist and writer. While journalism and its demands take up much of his time, when he can, Mazi Nwonwu writes speculative fiction, which he believes is a vehicle through which he can transport Africa’s diverse culture to the future. He is the co-founder of Omenana, an African-centrist speculative fiction magazine is a Senior Broadcast Journalist with BBC Igbo service. His work has appeared in Lagos 2060 (Nigeria’s first science fiction anthology), AfroSF (first PAN-African Science Fiction Anthology), Sentinel Nigeria, Saraba Magazine, ‘It Wasn’t Exactly Love’, an anthology on sex and sexuality publish by Farafina in 2015.

We didn’t know how big it would get!

It got bigger than us.

These are some of the ways explain my relationship with Omenana magazine and the fact that I’ve not been able to match the magazine’s growth with more time commitment.

In 2014 when Chinelo Onwualu and I published the first edition of Omenana we didn’t know where it would get to.

For sure, we wanted it to be a home for writers of speculative fiction and we wanted them to be from a community that had not seen much leeway in the world’s speculative fiction community – Africans and the African diaspora.

Starting the magazine was something we did because of the love we have for the genre specifically and literature in general.

There is no gainsaying the fact that it has not been easy producing each edition.

Since we wanted the magazine to be readily available to everyone that could access the website, we made it free.

We also decided that those who contribute to the magazine either as writers or artists or designers must be paid. These payments have majorly been out of pocket.

Thankfully we have gotten donations from writers like Wole Talabi, Mame Diene and Tendai Huchu (who graciously gave us his Nommo Award win) and from Goethe Institut and The Science Fiction Writers Association of America. These donations have served to ease the burden on our pockets.

Then there are the writers who refuse to be paid and instead insist their money be moved forward to pay another writer in the next edition. It is for these people, and their clear desire to see that this dream endures that we keep doing this – despite the constraints of funding it out of pocket.

This year Chinelo Onwualu stepped down from her role as editor after for years of selfless and exemplary work and we managed to convince Iquo DianaAbasi to step into the role and she is still here with us for the 14th edition.

Sunny Efemena, our go-to artist, is still with us as the illustrator and Godson Chukwuemeka Okeiyi has been gracious as our graphic designer.

These people only collect a fraction of what they are worth and we thank them for their sacrifice even as we make more demands of their skill and time.

I want to say that Omenana will carry on despite the challenges, but finding that my family and day job are making much more demands on me than before, I have no option but to be realistic.

The reality is that Omenana can’t survive for much longer, without help form without.

We need funding, we need people!

So, we are calling on lovers of the genre, where ever they may be, to join us and help keep this dream going. We will be adding a donate button to the website and we hope that you will help us keep this website alive by donating to through it. 

We are also calling on volunteers who want to play a role in the magazine to send us a mail. We are in dire need of the leg up.

In this edition, we are introducing some new voices from across the continent who we hope will join the dozens of other names we’ve been happy to publish over the years.

Yeah, this edition has been months in the making, but like we always say; “better late than never”.

Enjoy,

Mazi Nwonwu

Mazi Nwonwu
Mazi Nwonwu is the pen name of Chiagozie Fred Nwonwu, a Lagos-based journalist and writer. While journalism and its demands take up much of his time, when he can, Mazi Nwonwu writes speculative fiction, which he believes is a vehicle through which he can transport Africa’s diverse culture to the future. He is the co-founder of Omenana, an African-centrist speculative fiction magazine is a Senior Broadcast Journalist with BBC Igbo service. His work has appeared in Lagos 2060 (Nigeria’s first science fiction anthology), AfroSF (first PAN-African Science Fiction Anthology), Sentinel Nigeria, Saraba Magazine, ‘It Wasn’t Exactly Love’, an anthology on sex and sexuality publish by Farafina in 2015.