Storymoja Hay Festival 2013: Day One On Wednesday there was a hive of activity down at the National Museum of Kenya, where the festival takes over for four days. Unassuming from the dusty highway outside, the museum is actually set within lush grounds, home to calling birds, blossom and, famously, a two million year-old fossilised elephant. Large white tents bobbed around the garden's narrow paths, seemingly floating, like giant wizards' hats, as members of the team set up camp and the raindrops started to fall. I found a copy of the Daily Nation, a Kenyan newspaper, outside my hotel room door on Thursday morning. In a rush to the festival site I didn't read it - something I regretted as I arrived at Nigerian author Teju Cole's writing workshop. He was taking a class of 30 people through Small Fates, or #smallfates, the condensed, tweet-length retellings of bizarre and grim local newspaper stories. I sat down next to a rather the worse for wear buffalo head in the back room of the museum and listened as Cole explained the difficulty of finding new ways to express death. He has written more than 1000 small fates. "You have to give access to all the silly stuff in your brain," he told the class, some of whom were moved to both laughter and tears by the stories. Arrested for theft in Mecca, the Nigerian immigrant Ibrahim is now learning to use his left hand. Cole read aloud, then explained: "The pleasure in that one..." An audience member finished his sentence: "Is what is missing." Where there are writers, there are tips about writing. So far, the ever-present pen and paper seems to be the most popular. During a long chat backstage with a young fan, children's novelist Jenny Valentine suggested a notebook on the bedside table. American poet and eye-surgeon Dr Neil Hall, however, had a different view: "My inner voice speaks most strongly when I am in the shower," he revealed during a poetry masterclass. Once I broke a laptop by leaving it nearby to take notes. Dr Auma Obama is comfortable with the fact that she is "The Sister Of" a rather more famous Obama. But Dr Obama had done inspiring things for a long time before her brother became the President of the United States. During her talk at Storymoja, Dr Obama discussed a number of them: using sport to inspire social change, working with disadvantaged youth in Kenya and trying to generate "gender equity" rather than the more common gender equality. Equity, Dr Obama said, "means wanting to have the same opportunities, and then having the choice to decide what one wants to do." "That was the story of my life," she told a small but attentive crowd, "I grew up with boys, I have six brothers. I have always fought to have the opportunity, fought to not be discriminated against, fought to not to be seen as a girl. Directing her attention to the teenage girls in the crowd, Dr Obama commented: "We step back and let the boys go forward." But these young women must have missed the memo: fascinated with Dr Obama, who was elegantly dressed in a taupe jumpsuit and heels, they couldn't stop coming forward to take photos. One tentatively put her hand up: "Can we have your autograph?" Dr Obama shyly obliged.