Seven Stages of Receiving Critiques

I’m at the stage with my novel where I’m leaking chapters to a few trusted readers. Some are real-life friends and others are friends from my online forum. The forum has a rule that the only correct response to a critique is ‘thank you’. This is absolutely true. Another rule is that as writers we [...]

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Weighing and Balancing

I’m busy trying to select a high school for my ten-year-old and believe me, that is not a typo. German kids start secondary school at the ripe old age of ten. Not only that, they are streamed at ten according to their academic results into the three different types of high school: Gymnasium for those [...]

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Twenty Years

Twenty years ago today, Nelson Mandela walked free. I was twenty-one, and had lived my entire life under a repressive regime that legally sanctioned the artificial separation of blacks and whites, and the oppression of the former. It is hard to describe how we felt on 11 February 1990. Weight was lifted off our shoulders. [...]

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Beautiful Creatures

Can I just say how much I love 10-year-old girls? We had a bevy of them sleep over last night for L’s birthday and I’ve come away replete with their gorgeousness. I love how they are on the cusp of childhood and womanhood and the way they swing between the two unselfconsciously. One minute they’re [...]

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I Love You More than Cheese

Ten years ago yesterday, I became a parent for the first time. My tiny baby girl is now a big, beautiful ten-year-old person, who comes up to my nose and will be taller than me before she’s thirteen. I can’t believe how much I love her, and what a journey the last decade has been. [...]

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