Magazine Product Description

Afroreveal is a literary magazine for primary school children while Teen Breakz and Lipstickmouth are literary magazines for teens. They are each published monthly and FREE so you only have to pay for postage and packaging.

Subscribe to an e-copy and never worry about paying for postage and packaging.
A subscription to (Afroreveal, Teen Breakz & Lipstickmouth) magazines brings children and young adults’ artistic and creative work straight to your door, PC, iPad, iPhone, android etc every month.

They are a great read for everyone, a great source of inspiration for teachers and schools plus a great way to keep youngsters hooked on reading, learning and making things.

Each issue contains feature articles, essays, short stories, poems, book reviews, comics, compelling graphics and photographs, art works, useful information and much more from artistic, bright emerging talents and fine authors plus fun puzzles and quizzes, fascinating and educational features, fun craft projects and much more.

Take out a subscription to Afroreveal, Teen Breakz & Lipstickmouth  now.   Keep them mentally stimulated and proactive by encouraging to create original work like the ones featured in our magazines which could be submitted to us for publication. 

Email: ogn.okafor@gmail.com or info@obygracepublishing.com

London Creative Challenge 2014 Competition

Competition

We run a yearly competition called the "London Creative Challenge" aimed at children and young adults 5 to 19 years old.  This competition challenges children and young adults to be very creative and innovative.  It seeks to extend access to key skills to children from all backgrounds, supporting the skills that will benefit them throughout their academic and professional careers.  It also gives them the opportunity to develop, build upon and enhance various skills required to participate in this competition. 

Some of the benefits of this competition are:

* Intellectual Benefits - develop creative problem solving and creative thinking skills, complex thinking skills, time management skills, critical and analytical skills

* Physical Benefits - develop fine motor skills & hand to eye coordination

* Emotional and Social Benefits - creative and self expression

The first competition "London Creative Challenge 2014"

Entry groups: 

Category A: (05 to 11 years) and Category B: (12 to 16 years)

Submissions: 

Maximum of 2 short stories, 2 poems, 2 plays and 3 comic strips per entry

Starts date: 

01 August 2014

Submission dates: 

Poems, Comic strips (01 Sept 2014); Short stories, Plays (07 Sept 2014)

Submit to: 

ogn.okafor@gmail.com
Prize: 

First 5 Winners: Submission published in our Ist edition Magazine + Gold Certificate

Second 5 Winners: Submission published in our 2nd edition Magazine + Silver Certificate

Third 5 Winners: Submission published in our 3rd edition Magazine + Bronze Certificate

Rest of  submission: Submission published on our Blog + Participation Certificate

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How to help your child become a better creative writer and illustrator

* Read to or with your child and when they are ready - encourage them to read to you, an older sibling, grand-parent or relative. Encourage them to read widely - stories, plays, poems, comic strips.  This will expose them to different writing styles and genres, new words plus help improve their grammar useage.

* Provide them a quiet place, writing and drawing materials to work with. Encourage more productivity, as this will help enhance their skills and make them very good at what they do, by putting work on the fridge, framing them and displaying on the wall or living room cabinet. Post it here on our blog where family and friends can view it. Even better, publish it on our magazine and share the digital copy with family and friends.

* Encourage them to practice daily for at least a minimum of 20 minutes. Let them choose when they're ready to work for more than 20 minutes - this helps foster their creative enthusiasm. Help them by providing them with prompts e.g Words they can write around, pictures (e.g of children playing in the park or family eating dinner) they can use as a creative prompt to start a story, write about  their day or even extend the story-line of one of their favourite TV programme.

* Encourage them to always think and note down points about their project (story, poem, comic strip) before creating them. Some questions they can ask themselves are: "who (are my characters), what (is the story about/problems characters are having/the main event of the story), where (is the story taking place), when (did the story happen), why (are the characters having this problem), and how (will they resolve this problem)"


* Review your child's work. Be kind, praise them for their effort pointing out all the things they did well. Discuss the story with your child - let them share their ideas, the different characters, why the character is doing what they're doing, the sketches etc. Point out two or three main areas of improvement.  Be sensitive to their feeling, do not be too critical neither should you point out all the hundred things they did wrong - stick with two or three areas of improvement and gently suggesting how they could improve it.  Do not impose your own ideas on them.

* Play word games with them as this will help them build their vocabulary, e.g: 
Scattergories is a creative-thinking game produced by Hasbro for 12 yr olds and up. There is both a card and a board game. Click here for a demo on how to play the game.

Pictionary is a fun vocabulary building, creative thinking, problem solving game which also helps improve time management skills as players have a limited amount of time to help their team mates guess the correct word by drawing or sketching clues to the word they see on the card.

Mad Libs is a template word game where one player prompts another for a list of words (adjectives, verbs, and nouns) to substitute or fill in blanks in a story, before reading the – often comical or nonsensical – story created aloud. Click here for a fun free online and printable version. You can also download Madlibs app.  

Taboo by Hasbro is a fun game that not only increases vocabulary but also encourages creative thinking and problem solving skills.  The aim of the game is to give your team carefully worded clues without using the obvious clues (which are strictly taboo or you'll get the buzzer and lose the point) to enable them guess words fast.

Magnetic Poetry Kids Kit by Dave Kapell is a fun vocabulary building game for kids 5 and up. It also encourages creative thinking process as they think of poem or story ideas, improves grammar and problem solving skills as they think of words to use next, encourages creativity and self expression. The kid kit contains up to 320 magnetic word tiles that range in difficulty from very easy to challenging which kids can use to make up as many original poems a  they please.

Cranium is a great and fun board game for teens and adults. It has a variety of activities that utilises the whole brain. Work your way around the board completing exciting tasks. Roll the dice and land on a colour corresponding to a card; create the item on the card from Cranium clay or sketch a picture for your team to guess, answer a fact question or crack the puzzle. 

Lea Valley Primary Art Exhbition

On the 15th of July 2014, Lea Valley Primary School in North London proudly opened their doors to guest to view beautiful art works created by their children.  Unfortunately, I could not take as much pictures of the art works exhibited as I would have loved to because they were selling like hot cakes at £5.00 per art work. So, before I could get to some, they had been taken and sold by eager guests.

It was a very successful events. Afroreveal congratulates Lea Valley Primary on a wonderful and successful Art Exhibition and to the wonderful talented children of Lea Valley Primary school - we say a very big 'Well done!'

Below are some of the art work exhibited at the event that I was able to take pictures of - hope you like them.

 

 

Live Webinar: Writing the classic picture book

Live Webinar

Writing the Classic Picture Book

Session Date: Thursday, July 24, 2014 
Starting Time: 1:00 pm Eastern 

Duration: 90 minutes

Price: $89.99 

Register Now

What you'll learn:
Why great pacing makes a huge difference for editors and agents
How to harness your love and bring out the heart of your story
How to pay attention to prosody, pacing, poetry, and performance to make a difference in your picture book project
How to enhance the interaction between art and words
How to apply the rules (and exceptions) for doing more with your own text
How to incorporate performance and "magic" into your work
Ways to move your story to the top of submission piles

INSTRUCTOR:
Jodell Sadler has authored many articles and tutorials with Writer's Digest on Writing Picture Books: Picture Book Pacing, Editing, and Avoiding Burnout Tutorials before launching her literary agency in 2011: Sadler Children's Literary. Having earned her MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Hamline University in 2009, she hosts a variety of online writing workshops, serves as the BOOK LOOK columnist for the SCBWI-Illinois.org The Prairie Wind newsletter, and is available to speak at conferences and events as a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI). For more information on picture books, visit http://www.PictureBookLunch.com, and more information on Sadler Children's Literary, please visit http://www.childrenschildrensliterary.com.

ABOUT THE WEBINAR
Looking to understand picture books? The pacing, the 32-page form, the way art and words interplay, and writing slim is more challenging than many realize. If you are an author or illustrator, this webinar will help you write picture books that stand out. Empower every word, enjoy your editing process, hone in on key tools and strategies that help you do more with less, while making your work more marketable.

See how exceptional word choices, creating repetitive word strings and behaviors enhance the reader experience and bring out the theme and heart of your story. Learn how to move yourself and your story into a performance that readers will love.

Literary Agent, Jodell Sadler, from Sadler Children's Literary shares her tips on preparing your manuscript for publication.

Each registration comes with access to the archived version of the program and the materials for one year. You do not have to attend the live event to get a recording of the presentation. In all WD webinars, no question goes unanswered. Attendees have the ability to chat with the instructor during the live event and ask questions. You will receive a copy of the webinar presentation in an e-mail that goes out one week after the live event. The answers to questions not covered in the live presentation will be included in this e-mail as well.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
Writers and illustrators who are interested in writing picture books
Writers who want to publish their picture book
Writers who want to learn what they can do during the editing process
Writers who are looking for tips on how increase their books performance
Writers looking for great ways to write to the heart of their story