25 Jan 2023

When I was in primary school — this was in the early 80s — we had a ‘library’ which had then just been renamed to ‘the media centre’.  Why?  Because over and above books, we now also had other forms of information-carrying devices.  Such as televisions weighing 70 kilos on squeaky-wheel trolleys, which, in turn,…

20 Jan 2019

I was at a book fair late 2018, a beautiful spring-bordering-on-summer day.  I put up my banner, I made my table all nice and pretty, put up an umbrella for shade, put some scatter cushions down for comfortable seating, arranged my books – The original paperback for Discovering Leigh – in what I hoped was…

The Pleasure of Writing Wrongly.
9 Dec 2018

English is not my first language. While I have completely anglicised, my mother tongue is Afrikaans.  Out of my three serious relationships, my first two were with Afrikaans girls.  I only changed my home language to English once I moved in with Andrea. Having said that, I could speak conversational English from when I was…

15 Nov 2018

Every creative knows ‘The fear of the blank page’.  Whether you’re a writer, a painter, a sketch artist, a composer—or anyone of the countless creatives—you will know how intimidating a blank canvas can be. I know this fear very well – when there is something bubbling up and expelling it is non-negotiable.  But how, exactly? …

The Case For The Alpha Male
28 Oct 2018

Disclaimer: the blog which follows is an exploration of fictional characters and is not to be seen or interpreted as a psychological analysis of anything in real life. If the shoe fits, though… To begin, I would like to introduce the idea of “opposites”.  The opposite of “north pole” is “south pole”, but let’s face…