Update: Since I wrote this post, I’ve had even more depressing news about the publishing industry in South Africa and so I’ve updated the figures to reflect this. A public service announcement for newbie authors of English fiction (in South Africa mostly) This is a very long bookish sort of post, so if you’re notContinue reading "Stars in their eyes"

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a fan of people. Well, ‘people’ as in ‘groups of’. It’s a nuanced thing. One person, two people, three people great. Four people, five people, six people, good? As long as we know each other extremely well or there are distractions. Seven people, ten people, fifteen people, thirtyContinue reading "Confessions of a misanthrope"

Live in an Elon Musk world or live in a Mary Oliver world? Which would you choose? A few weeks ago, in the midst of my lowest low feelings around the rise of American fascism and the slow return to the Dark Ages, I was expressing to some friends how badly my days kept starting.Continue reading "A fork in the road"

Saying hello to a brave new world I never wanted Last week, Mel forwarded me a New York Times piece by Steven Kurutz, called ‘The Gen X Career Meltdown’, with the subhead: ‘Just when they should be at their peak, experienced workers in creative fields find that their skills are all but obsolete.’ That basicallyContinue reading "The Great Pivot"

I’ve been doing a lot of reading for my next book. One of my characters is a late-1800s English woman who finds herself in a frontier town. Let’s call her I—, in the good old Victorian fashion of blanking names that were to be keep secret (and decent) by omission. I—’s chapters are written fromContinue reading "Some field notes about synchronicity and storytelling"