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I once read about a study which compared the happiness levels of those who had children to those who were childless. The general levels of happiness were higher, apparently, among the childless. [...]

Germaine Greer once interviewed Luciano Pavarotti at his Italian villa. She was ushered through into the presence of the great man on the terrace where he was having breakfast. He looked up at [...]

A friend of mine once found herself seated beside a doctor on a flight. “And what do you do?” he asked expansively, after treating her to a half-hour discourse on his many achievements. “I’m a [...]

Never has so much excellent television drama been produced across the world – and binge-watching has become the not-so-secret addiction of millions. This has put pressure on local South African [...]

Authenticity matters a great deal to some writers. Take Gregg Hurwitz, for instance, author of the Orphan X sequence of thrillers. He’s really good on lethal hardware. Here’s a paragraph on the [...]

We all know (or we should) that no story can exist without conflict. But not everyone recognises why this is so. Discussing the elements of story recently, we were asked: “But how does that work [...]

Your goal for 2019 was to write more. Now’s your chance. We’ve just entered the last quarter of the year, and 2020 is beginning to peek over the horizon. We’d hate for you to [...]

I was recently given a Garmin watch which records, as well as your heartbeat and the number of steps you take every day, the patterns of your sleep. It gives you a full analysis within minutes of [...]

Writing for the big screen (and the little screen) is very different from writing for the page – but the skill sets overlap.  Two of the biggest of these overlaps are dialogue writing and scenes. [...]

Sharing the joy of writing This month, we’re celebrating you, our writing community, by giving you a week filled to the brim with free offerings. Festivities begin on 12 August, when we’ll offer [...]

Post-apocalyptic is the new normal, it sometimes seems. And the introduction of heady doses of sex into science and fantasy fiction – think Game of Thrones and The Handmaid’s Tale, among others – [...]

“I’m just so happy,” one of our mentoring participants told us recently. “I can’t tell you how happy I am. The writing’s flowing and … it just feels right.” We told her that we were happy to see [...]