Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has ‘confessed’ that he is not the best person to approach by would-be writers wanting to be groomed.
Although many a good number of people have acknowledged the role he played in their journey to getting published, he says he is not very comfortable mentoring writers.
Yet, his advice for the aspiring and budding ones is that they should seek those who can do so.
During a conversation with Professor Wale Adebamwi, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, Department of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania, he said on whhat the dreamers should do:
“Get ready to receive your rejection slips. And don’t be discouraged. In other words, I am saying just write. Write. Send to literary magazines. Don’t wait until a publisher is ready to publish your book Go to workshops and keep pestering publishers. Because no writer is ever content until he or she sees that work in print. That is quite natural. But even the literary journals will do to start with.
“And if you have good teachers around you who are writers, consult them. I don’t consider myself a good teacher of writing, even though I teach literature. I mean I find it more comfortable teaching other people’s works than teaching mine. So I am not a good person to groom would-be writers.”
