Futuristic Nigeria Writing Challenge - ENTER NOW

About Jide Okonjo Writers Club

Welcome to my existing members of the Jide Okonjo Writers Club. If you're not a member, or know nothing about our writers club, then let me give you a quick summary of who we are.

Jide Okonjo Writers Club is an online community where Nigerian writers, at different points in their career, have come together to create, earn, offer helpful critiques to each other, and mingle.

The community is broken up into 4 major sections: CREATE, EARN, CRITIQUE, and MINGLE.

• ✍️ CREATE: This is the heart of our community where you can introduce yourself, discuss general topics that pertain to writing and our community, learn, and self-promote your own work.

• 💰 EARN: In this section, we partake in and discuss a variety of community writing contests, as well as post writing gigs and opportunities.
• 💬 CRITIQUE: The critique section is where you can post any part of your work which you'd like helpful eyeballs on.
• 🤝 MINGLE: This is the section where we let loose and talk about books, movies, and trending TV shows.

To join the Jide Okonjo Writers Club, click here.

ANNOUNCING THE FUTURISTIC NIGERIA WRITING CHALLENGE

Imagine what Nigeria would look like a hundred years from now—a thousand years from now—a million years from now!

Pick any distant time in the future starting at least a century from today (i.e. 2123 at the earliest), and that's when your story will be set.

In this "Futuristic Nigeria" challenge, your goal is to write a compelling story, between 600 to 1,000 words, set in a future version of Nigeria.

Your story can be of any genre: romance, thriller, action, horror, adventure, etc—the only criteria is that whatever story you choose to tell must be set at least a hundred years from today, in Nigeria.

Some questions you can consider to get your creative juices flowing:

• Is the country divided the way it is now with states and cities within those states?
• Is Lagos still the capital or has the capital shifted. If so, why?
• What is the predominant language?
• Who is leading and what kind of leadership do we have?
• What does infrastructure look like?
• Is there still a middle class and what does life look like for the average Nigerian?
• Is your story set in a city resembling one we have today?
• What kind of technology does the average person have access to?
• Have things gone forward technologically (flying cars) or backwards (smoke signals)?
• Are things in the country better or worse than they are today?

Remember, you don't have to answer these questions in your story - they are simply here to get your mind thinking and developing your world.

You must come up with your own unique story. No AI-generated work is permitted.

JUDGING AND PRIZES

The Futuristic Nigeria Writing Challenge has a total of N100,000 in prize money to be won. Per the decision of community members, the prize money will be split accordingly:

GRAND PRIZE: N50,000

SECOND PLACE: N30,000

THIRD PLACE: N20,000

Deadline for entry submission is 31st December, 2023. Once submissions are closed, a shortlist of 15 stories will be selected and shared to the general public. From these 15, our third, second, and grand prize winners will be selected based on who told the best story.

Note: All stories will be kept anonymous till winners are selected. This way we eliminate bias and favoritism until the day of crowning when the best stories, regardless of writers, are chosen.

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

Entry to the Futuristic Nigeria Writing Challenge is now open. Each person can submit a maximum of 3 different stories to this competition.

ELIGIBILITY: You must be a member of Jide Okonjo Writers Club to participate in this challenge. Membership is free. To join, click here.

To submit an entry, fill the form below with your:

• author name,
• email,
• community (Discord) username,
• one sentence summary of your story (e.g. "A mother deals with increasing anxiety when her son acquires a trending new device she believes to be sinister.")
• and story (between 600 to 1,000 words)

GOOD LUCK!