Wednesday, December 30, 2009

At the threshold of 2010

After today by the special grace of the Almighty, I shall arrive at New Year's eve. I shall be spending the night of the New Year's eve with my wife and children attending the last night of Giant Strides crossover services into 2010 at the Hope of Glory International Christian Centre, in Plumstead. I look forward to Victor Iruobe's insightful and energetic word on the night.

2009 has been a year of several highs as well as several lows for me. It was also a year in which I made so many worng choices, took on too many projects at the same time, and all suffered in one way or another. I also spent more time than necessary on social networking; tweeting, facebooking, beboing and so on.

In 2010, I am praying for the grace to streamline my work and make the fewer projects bigger and more successful. I am praying for the discipline to do the social network thing at the weekends only. I ask all my friends and associates who for some inexplicable reason prefer to send important messages to me on Facebook rather than one of my standard e-mail addresses to note that in 2010 I will not see any messages on Facebook until the weekends, in which case they might be late. My best e-mail addresses are:
nnoromazuonye@easternlightepm.com
nnorom.azuonye@sentinelpoetry.org.uk
nnoromazuonye@gmail.com
rommy67@yahoo.com

If you send to my facebook e-mail address i.e. rommyfacebook@gmail.com I may never see it.

Better still call or text me +44 7812 755 751

Ah, 2009, I shall remember you as the year that Sentinel Poetry Movement moved forward in realising some of our long-held dreams. In November 2009 we successfully established the Nigerian chapter of Sentinel www.sentinelnigeria.org, and published Champion Poems our new print magazine of selected poems from the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition series. We also held the first Sentinel Literature Festival in London. In 2009, Excel for Charity - the writing competition series I established in late 2008 successfully held two writing competitions in aid of Diversity House and the Psychiatry Research Trust. A paperback version of Blue Hyacinths - an anthology of selected poems from the Diversity House (Excel for Charity) Poetry Competition 2009 edited by Geoff Stevens and Nnorom Azuonye was published on 28th of December and is available for purchase or download now at: Buy Blue Hyacinths

I can also now announce that My Trousers are Longer than Yours - an anthology of short stories examining the shifting gender roles in the Nigerian family edited by Chika Unigwe will be in all good bookshops including Amazon.com in the 3rd week of January 2010. I wish to thank all the contributors for their patience while I dealt with many issues on the way to realising this project.

I truly thank God for my health, and the lives of my mother and my parents-in-law, my wonderful wife Thelma NwamAmaka, my exceptionally glorious children Arinzechukwu Chinedum Nnorom and Nwachiamanda Ola Akuoma. I thank God for the love of my brothers and sisters Chukwuma, Ikechukwu, Ndubuisi, Adindu, Uzoma, Obioma, Uchechukwu, Chike, Chukwuemeka, Kodi, Kelechukwu, and Chinyere. May God's ministering angels also reach out and protect my brothers and sisters in law, my nephews, nieces, grand-nephews and grand-niece, cousins, uncles, friends and associates. May the year 2010 be a year of triumphs in everything we do in the powerful name of our Lord Jesus the Christ.

I also pray for the souls of friends, and artists who went into transition in 2009 including Chienyem Okoroafor-Nwosu, Michael Joseph Jackson, and Dennis Vincent Brutus. I also remember my incredible only uterine sister Ngozi 'the wind' Ezeobi (1956 - 2008), I cannot believe it has been more than a year since you continued your journey, Ngozi, be well. My father Stephen Onyemaechi Azuonye (1916 -1982), my brother Chidi Iroanusi Azuonye (1963-1982), my fantastic nephew, the majestic mista mystic Nnamdi Obioha Azuonye (1982 - 2001). You travellers gone, I thank you all for the love we shared while you lived among us, and I thank God for the privilege of knowing you and for the honour of calling you nephew, sister, father, brother, friend, inspiration. God bless you.

2010, here we come.

Happy New Year to all.

NNOROM OKEZIE AZUONYE


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