The Life Righting Collective is running a series of workshops to raise funds and to offer writers new platforms to thrive. Please join me for the first workshop in the series:

Dos and Don’ts of Self-Publishing

Saturday, 26 October 2024, 10AM-1PM

… discussing the daunting journey from manuscript to self-published book that will look and feel like a professionally published title.

“The Writer’s Way is a brand new writing series of exciting workshops and talks designed to offer aspiring and experienced writers from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to enhance their skills. The online and in-person workshops will feature diverse guest facilitators—accomplished writers and industry professionals—covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry, screenwriting, editing and more.”

Click here for details:

Life Righting Collective

She would have been sixteen today – my precious leap year kitten, the youngest of The Cats, my Furry Family. I cannot grasp the ‘would’ in this sentence, keep stumbling over words that have crept into my vocabulary and taken away so much: ‘attack’, ‘broken’, ‘puncture’, ‘let go’. Glinka, aka Birdie Cat, aka Kleinkat, who inspired the feisty little cat in André’s Philida and features in the acknowledgements of the Booker-longlisted novel, died on 18 January 2024, two days after she was attacked by a feral cat. A team of vets fought for her life, but we could not save her. The brave, beautiful Glinka.

Whenever Glinka saw Mozart, she greeted him with a nose kiss and her chirping meow. That is how I imagine she greeted him when he left us and joined her in Cat Heaven on 21 February 2024. I still misspell the word ‘tumour’, refuse to accept its cruel reality. Mozart hadn’t been well for quite a while, but it was difficult to diagnose the cause, and once we knew for sure, we could only make him comfortable. My Mom was there when he was born in Austria in the Mozart Year of 2006, and she was here when he died in my arms, with her and my brother Krystian holding us. Mr Mozart, as he was also known, the oldest of The Cats, was the wisest Furry One I’ve ever known. His resilience and fierce independence were a source of great inspiration to me and many others who knew him. He was blind for half of his life, but it never made a difference to how he wanted to live, free and wild, no matter what.

Friends console me by saying that I gave them a good life, but I keep thinking: no, it was the other way around. They gave me a good life by honouring me with their purrs and trust and choosing to share their incredible lives with me for so many, many years. I cannot express how deeply I feel their loss. I loved them with all my heart.

Ever since Mozart, Salieri and Glinka came to live here, I have always called our home Threecatfontein, or Driekatfontein, and this it will remain, even if it is just Salieri and me now, and two purring furry ghosts.

RAFFLE ALERT!

You can win a Karavan Press book hamper – among many other fantastic prizes – and support CLAWS (Clanwilliam Animal Welfare Society), an initiative that does miraculous good for animals in the Clanwilliam area.

R50 per entry.

For more details see this video: CLAWS Raffle

I wrote about CLAWS here: The furry magic of CLAWS

Thank you!

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

My birthday week begins. Best present: Mom and my love got their booster shots and both feel fine.

Present to myself: writing. My beautiful friend Joanne and I decided to meet once a week for a morning of writing and just sit together in a room and do nothing but write and then have a simple lunch together and chat. Last week, I felt like the words were flying off my fingertips. This week they were flying on steroids. It is an amazing feeling to write again – to write the book which has been burning in me for over five years. Finally, it’s happening.

Monday is also household duties day, so I did a lot of that and then went for a swim, and in the late afternoon attended the first of five lectures by Karen Jennings at the UCT Summer School. It was wonderful to see Karen again and to listen to her was pure enlightening joy. I mostly had a great time during my university days, so I return to a lecture room with many good memories. Karen’s topic is fascinating: HOW SOCIAL INSECTS HAVE SCUTTLED ACROSS THE THRESHOLD BETWEEN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE THROUGH THE AGES. I can’t wait for the next four lectures.

It was lovely to see a young woman walk up to Karen after the lecture and ask her to sign a copy of An Island for her. She said that Karen has become her favourite writer and she is reading everything that Karen has written. I know how she feels – to discover writers through one of their books and then seek out everything else they have written is one of my favourite occupations.

In the evening, my love and I met up with two dear friends who are visiting from Europe and we exchanged stories while watching a spectacular sunset outside their cottage and delighting in delicious food and drink. It was the best end to a really good day.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Even the hippos are getting COVID-19 now. The fourth wave is crushing over us in South Africa and all I can think of are the friends we’d lost during the early waves when we had no vaccines to prevent the worst consequences of an infection, and I cannot understand how many people are still resisting this – now available and easily accessible – protection measure.

A real oysterhood weekend at home, mostly in couple solitude apart from a Sunday lunch with three COVID-19-recovered and fully vaccinated friends. My love has been under a lot of professional pressure recently and he really needed the rest and the calm joy of being with lovely people who care. We were both excited about serving a meal and wine to people who are passionate about the food and drink industry and very successful at what they do. What is most inspiring about them is that they do not stop at their own success, always sharing with and caring about those less fortunate than them. And our wonderful guests brought fresh oysters for us to enjoy and happily cooked up a storm in our kitchen to serve a beautiful sauce with the meat my love braaied for us. He also served some truly special wine from his cellar. I contributed salads and crème brûlée for dessert. Joint efforts, jointly enjoyed. It was an amazing afternoon.

I did do a little bit of work this weekend, but mostly I relaxed, read, watched TV and even indulged in a bath. Much needed down time after the intensity of the last few weeks.

On Saturday, it was my brother’s name day and we met on Skype with Mom for a celebratory breakfast that included a pastéis de nata from The Hoghouse on my side of the screen. It was also a dear Friend’s birthday and I hope to visit her early this week to celebrate the occasion. A small birthday parcel is waiting.

I think most of us are exhausted after the relentlessness of this tough year, and there are still three weeks of 2021 left to make the most of. I want to unwind and spend time with loved ones (in the safest possible manner). My love and I made great plans for Christmas. I can’t wait!

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD