Kemi Ogunniyi, author of
Foreign Otondo: Your NYSC Survival Guide, recently published her first children’s book,
Tales of Mr. Tortoise. She talks to
Connect Nigeria about her journey.
1. Tell us a bit about your professional background
I’m a communications and business consultant. I specialise in helping small or medium enterprises develop their business from strategy to branding. The communications aspect of it allows me to fully indulge in my first love, which has a lot to do with editorial work and writing. Initially I trained to be a broadcast journalist and towed that path for some time but I prefer the written word so I went with that instead.
2. What inspired you to write Tales of Mr. Tortoise?
I had been working with my friend, Tosin Jegede, on her 1Child1Book charity programme, and we had been talking about ways to make more books of African origin available to Nigerian children, especially the children the programme works with. So I decided to write one. I was waiting for a story inspiration from the creative muse that hovers around my head sometimes, but then I thought about the folk stories my mum told me and my siblings back in the day when we were children. I later found that a lot of Nigerian children these days don’t even know about our darling Mr Tortoise and his escapades. So I wanted to keep that memory alive. That was why I chose to go with Tales of Mr Tortoise.
3. Are there any lessons learnt as a child that have stayed with you till now?
Oh yes! Many. Our parents used these folk tales to teach us lessons. There is always a moral to any African folk story you hear. For example, the stories from animal kingdom (featuring Mr Tortoise) taught us about the consequences of greed, lies and theft.
4. How did you raise funds to produce this book?
I thought hard about what to do, and then decided it would be great to raise funds by having a small music concert. The idea was that we would be asking people to give towards the funds for the book for 1Child1Book, but in the process, they’d also come to enjoy free good music and artistic performances.
I’m very much into music and I sing sometimes in an urban/contemporary band in London. So I made some phone calls to my friends and band mates and most of them were up for it. I also spoke to some musicians and artists in my home church in Bristol and they too signed up to be a part. It was very exciting, because they were all going to do it for me, for the charity, without charging for their services! We had the concert on April the 6th just after Easter. People gave, no matter how little. One of the highlights was auctioning beads made by an eight-year-old friend of mine in London. I had told her about 1Child1Book and the funds I was trying to raise, so she offered to donate the beautiful hand beads she made – the proceeds from the beads sale went towards the book fund.
Then there were some that wanted to give, but couldn’t make it down to the concert. So we created an online giving page.
Altogether we were able to raise enough funds for illustrations/drawing (since it’s a children’s book), graphic design and printing of 300 colour copies. Tosin Jegede now takes Tales of Mr Tortoise with her (along with other storybooks) to the public school children 1Child1Book works with in Lagos state.
5. What do you consider to be the best career decision you have ever made?
I think my best career decision so far was to follow my path of interest. Life is too short to waste your years doing what you don’t enjoy. Society has a way of trying to fold you into a particular box that suits their expectations of you. Growing up, like most of my Nigerian mates, I was expected to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or some kind of career people thought sounded prestigious. Nobody wanted to hear my answer of ‘writer’ or ‘journalist’ whenever I was asked as a child what I wanted to be. I towed the science path till I was about fifteen or sixteen. Then I decided I had had enough! That’s a long story for another day. But looking back, I am happy I decided to follow my area of expertise. Being stuck in sciences for me was like asking a fish to live on land.
It’s not easy to follow your interests because it may not always be financially rewarding at the beginning, and it may be depressing when you begin to look at your friends following conventional career paths and comparing yourself to them. But I have found that instead of comparing, sticking to the right thing long enough and working hard eventually produces amazing successes.
6. What kinds of gifts do you like to receive?
Haha! Any gift from the heart does it for me. I prefer having a person’s time rather than their gift though.
7. What would you like as your epitaph?
Goodness! That’s chilling to think about. But I would like it to have sentences that show that I have lived a life of purpose and directly affected other lives positively. I hope it adds that I changed the world in some way, however little.
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This article was first published on 1st August 2013 and updated on August 13th, 2013 at 5:00 pm
jehonwa
Joy Ehonwa is an editor and a writer who is passionate about relationships and personal development. She runs Pinpoint Creatives, a proofreading, editing, transcription and ghostwriting service.
Email: pinpointcreatives [at] yahoo.com
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Kemi Ogunniyi, author of Foreign Otondo: Your NYSC Survival Guide, recently published her first children’s book, Tales of Mr. Tortoise. She talks to Connect Nigeria about her journey.
1. Tell us a bit about your professional background
I’m a communications and business consultant. I specialise in helping small or medium enterprises develop their business from strategy to branding. The communications aspect of it allows me to fully indulge in my first love, which has a lot to do with editorial work and writing. Initially I trained to be a broadcast journalist and towed that path for some time but I prefer the written word so I went with that instead.
2. What inspired you to write Tales of Mr. Tortoise?
I had been working with my friend, Tosin Jegede, on her 1Child1Book charity programme, and we had been talking about ways to make more books of African origin available to Nigerian children, especially the children the programme works with. So I decided to write one. I was waiting for a story inspiration from the creative muse that hovers around my head sometimes, but then I thought about the folk stories my mum told me and my siblings back in the day when we were children. I later found that a lot of Nigerian children these days don’t even know about our darling Mr Tortoise and his escapades. So I wanted to keep that memory alive. That was why I chose to go with Tales of Mr Tortoise.
3. Are there any lessons learnt as a child that have stayed with you till now?
Oh yes! Many. Our parents used these folk tales to teach us lessons. There is always a moral to any African folk story you hear. For example, the stories from animal kingdom (featuring Mr Tortoise) taught us about the consequences of greed, lies and theft.
4. How did you raise funds to produce this book?
I thought hard about what to do, and then decided it would be great to raise funds by having a small music concert. The idea was that we would be asking people to give towards the funds for the book for 1Child1Book, but in the process, they’d also come to enjoy free good music and artistic performances.
I’m very much into music and I sing sometimes in an urban/contemporary band in London. So I made some phone calls to my friends and band mates and most of them were up for it. I also spoke to some musicians and artists in my home church in Bristol and they too signed up to be a part. It was very exciting, because they were all going to do it for me, for the charity, without charging for their services! We had the concert on April the 6th just after Easter. People gave, no matter how little. One of the highlights was auctioning beads made by an eight-year-old friend of mine in London. I had told her about 1Child1Book and the funds I was trying to raise, so she offered to donate the beautiful hand beads she made – the proceeds from the beads sale went towards the book fund.
Then there were some that wanted to give, but couldn’t make it down to the concert. So we created an online giving page.
Altogether we were able to raise enough funds for illustrations/drawing (since it’s a children’s book), graphic design and printing of 300 colour copies. Tosin Jegede now takes Tales of Mr Tortoise with her (along with other storybooks) to the public school children 1Child1Book works with in Lagos state.
5. What do you consider to be the best career decision you have ever made?
I think my best career decision so far was to follow my path of interest. Life is too short to waste your years doing what you don’t enjoy. Society has a way of trying to fold you into a particular box that suits their expectations of you. Growing up, like most of my Nigerian mates, I was expected to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or some kind of career people thought sounded prestigious. Nobody wanted to hear my answer of ‘writer’ or ‘journalist’ whenever I was asked as a child what I wanted to be. I towed the science path till I was about fifteen or sixteen. Then I decided I had had enough! That’s a long story for another day. But looking back, I am happy I decided to follow my area of expertise. Being stuck in sciences for me was like asking a fish to live on land.
It’s not easy to follow your interests because it may not always be financially rewarding at the beginning, and it may be depressing when you begin to look at your friends following conventional career paths and comparing yourself to them. But I have found that instead of comparing, sticking to the right thing long enough and working hard eventually produces amazing successes.
6. What kinds of gifts do you like to receive?
Haha! Any gift from the heart does it for me. I prefer having a person’s time rather than their gift though.
7. What would you like as your epitaph?
Goodness! That’s chilling to think about. But I would like it to have sentences that show that I have lived a life of purpose and directly affected other lives positively. I hope it adds that I changed the world in some way, however little.
