Andrew Verster, the best teacher I had Andrew Verster died on Sunday 16th February 2020. In 1964, After graduating from Camberwell School of Art and Reading University, he taught me painting at the Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape Town. He was a wonderful teacher – one whom I will never forget because of his kindness and the attention […]
The River’s Story
We all own the River. That’s what we believe. The world of nature is ours and we can do what we like with it. The River belongs to us. We can use it – we can waste it – we can worship it. Not one of these ways of looking at the River tells us what it means to be […]
Profane and Sacred – the 5th Book Festival at Lourdes
On Saturday the 30th of November, I will be taking part in the Lourdes Salon du Livre. It looks very interesting and they will be discussing self-publishing by independent authors like me! Do come and, if you can’t get to the book fair, please do read this post. I’ve cribbed an author interview from The New Statesman. I enjoy reading […]
The Charroux Prize for Poetry or Prose
I entered the Charroux prize for a short memoir and had enormous fun writing two short memoirs and a poem for this competition. The prize, however, went to Moira Ashley for her delightful story Encounter. The third prize to Debi Lewis for Soundtrack of the First Marriage . I was surprised and pleased to be long-listed for the poetry section. […]
Words, the power of words and the work of wordsmiths
“For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea Words and editing I’m engaged in a major rewrite of my children’s book The Drought Witch. It’s an exciting task expanding a children’s picture book into a novel for 9 to13-year-olds but the interesting work is in the editing and […]