Ovo Adagha
12 January 2008
Bruce Cook is a writer and publisher of the popular online literary journal, AUTHOR-ME. In this interview, he enumerates the motivation, idea and thrust behind his work. He also talks about his soft spot for budding African writers and the vast possibilities that await them.
TELL us a little bit about Bruce Cook, your background and what motivated you to go into publishing.
David C. Cook, my great grandfather, started a publishing house for Sunday School materials in the 1880s, and the business remained in my family until 1949, when ownership was transferred to the David C. Cook Foundation. After my military years, David C. Cook III, my father, requested that I began working for this foundation, and I did so until the early 1980s, when my job in communication research was eliminated. During my tenure there, I was able to visit various countries in Africa and visited various Christian publishers. After I left, I worked as a literary agent and began to understand (and sympathize with) the plight of new writers. Later, I worked for 11 years for various newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, in marketing research.
Your publishing house tends to place more emphasis on African writing and new writers, why is this so?
Actually, Author-me.com started for family reasons.A few days before his death, my father asked that I place his last manuscript with a publishing house, since I had worked as a literary agent, and his own publishing house had rejected it. I explained that Christian publishing houses competing with David C. Cook Publishing Company would be unlikely to publish a book by David C. Cook, but that I could place it on the Internet for him. He was pleased, and said that he only wanted to reach readers, and a website could certainly do that. It took until 1999 for me to start author-me, and it is still dedicated to his memory, and contains his manuscript.
As part of my dedication to writers, I invited all new writers to submit works. At first, I received many stories from American youths, but always nurtured stories from other countries. As for Africa, I was very disappointed because submissions were few, except for one American contract employee who lived in Africa. Then a series of badly formatted e-mails arrived urging me to publish poems in a book to be called Nomad.
After ignoring the poems for a time, I realized that they came from a missionary computer near a refugee camp in Uganda and that the poems were the dream of a refugee from D.R. Congo. Reading some of the poems, I recognized them as poetry of hope from a person who had every reason to have no hope. I believed in him and invested in our first book production, Nomad. The author of those poems is now a prominent peace researcher and writer in Norway.
Soon, I was approached by several African writers, including Uganda's Monica Arac de Nyeko, who published with us and was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing within two years. Last year, she won that coveted prize (in a work she published with Ayebia Clarke Publishing in 2006). Publicity from accomplishments by Monica and other Author-me writers attracted many African writers to our site, and I was very pleased, for I have always believed that literature from Africa needs to be promoted and preserved, whether it originates from the Igbo market or the University of Nigeria, etc.
Is this why you dedicated an anthology, Author Africa, every year to celebrate budding and established African writers?
Yes, we began the Author Africa series so we could preserve the writings of those who sought our help in submitting their stories for the Caine Prize. This is particularly important because we can only submit a few stories each year, and this means that we are forced to reject some wonderful stories. Through Author Africa we can still make these authors and their writings available and promote them in the United States.
From your experience so far, would you describe the average African writer as talented and able to compete with his contemporaries in other parts of the world?
I have always felt that the vitality and honesty of writing from Africa makes it worthy of publication within western markets. I love to read stories from almost any African country, and I feel the typical author is highly talented and fully capable of competition with the best of world writers. The recent critical and commercial success enjoyed by contemporary writers of African descent such as Zadie Smith, Maya Angelou and Bebe Moore Campbell are an encouragement. The increased adoption in American public schools of works by Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and other authors of classic literature also speaks well for the future readership of budding African writers.
But the problem today is to convince major publishers that African fiction can truly succeed with the mainstream audience. Unless this can be done, African writers must flock to the Caine Prize and other contests which do show greatest respect for African writers. Frankly, I have been disappointed because my agenting research (which I no longer do) made me aware that only a few major publishing houses have series dedicated to African literature, and I feel that, from a marketing point of view, even these publishers basically view these as books which will only appeal to black readers, a minority group in the USA.
I have also noted that, when I tried to market African writing to
university publications, I have encountered a bias, and it seems that African writers are sometimes published to round out a list, but the editors and publishers seem predisposed against writers from areas outside the USA and Europe. Thus, I feel strongly that we need to use printed magazines and the Internet to bring these writings to the attention of readers. Once the publishers see that readers are interested in African writing, they should begin to give African writers a fair evaluation.
This goes to say that you must have discovered some good writers through your publishing outlets, could you tell us more about these writers and what they have been up to recently?
For myself, I feel wonderful about the writing career of Monica de Nyeko, for Author-me was privileged to help her in the early stages of her brilliant career. I feel close to Jane Nteyafas (Uganda) and Moraa Gitaa (Kenya) and Valentine Umelo and others. But few are the writers who can sustain themselves with revenue from their writings. I also have greatest respect for Author-me's writers like John Oryem, active for peace in Darfur, Sudan, and Rais Boneza and Claude Shema Rutagengwa, who work with Johann Galtang's peace movement in Europe.
Nigerian authors
And, of course, recent writings on our website from Nigerian authors: Clarius Ugwuoha, Rudolf Okonkwo, and Chika Onyenezi, to name but a few. But I feel badly to omit so many talented writers from my short list.
In your opinion, what should serve as the best motivational tool for budding writers, especially those from developing countries?
At present, I believe that writers from Africa will achieve success through a continued aggressive drive toward publications in popular magazines and the Internet and, of course, continued submissions for the Caine Prize and other contests. Once a writer has achieved a considerable track record, it is time to begin marketing skills to book publishers.
Would you say that the time is ripe for African literature to take centre stage?
Yes, I feel it is high time that western academics and publishers turned a new eye to writings from Africa. Now that problems of world peace have sensitized readers to the importance of international affairs, it is time to satisfy readers' curiosity about differences of culture, religion, and oppression. In many ways, the lessons of African nations can well prepare international readers to better deal with the challenges of tomorrow's literary world.
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