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I am fascinated by memory because it is at once so precise and so vague. I am astonished that our brains hold within them the minutiae of events and incidents – sometimes by any measure [...]

Let’s fantasise for a moment. You’ve finished your book, you’ve secured an agent (you only had to write thirty-seven emails to do so), and they’ve managed to place your manuscript with a [...]

Something has shifted this year. We’re (many of us through necessity) spending less. We’re more aware of what’s important. That means focusing on the people we hold dear and on our creative [...]

“Meaning” is the thing that lies behind, or beneath, or beyond. The sighs of a lover are what we note. But the meaning of those sighs is what we interpret. The speed of our hero’s response to [...]

Those who are “given the job of telling stories,” according to Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, “should construct fictions that help seek the truth of the human condition”. I love her for this, [...]

Elmore Leonard famously said: Never start with the weather. “But does this mean I never, ever mention the weather at the beginning of my book?” one of our participants asked the other day. “What [...]

Let’s think about a series of very tiny – but, some say, enormously significant – decisions that every writer has to take when beginning a story, and that is, what names should they give their [...]

This is a counter-intuitive piece of writing advice.  After all, you want to get your writing out there, I know that. You do want to be read, even if only by family and friends. But I believe the [...]

We all know the old writing truism: never tell when you can show. But I’ve recently come to realise that many people misunderstand what it means to “show”. I’ve come across those who believe that [...]

I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship that springs into being whenever a reader picks up a book, opens it and begins the journey to which it is an invitation. Of course, this [...]

Today, 9 August, marks Women’s Day in South Africa, where half of our team is based and where (in normal times) many of our courses and workshops take place. It’s a day to celebrate women, [...]

Here’s a very short reflection on an absolutely essential attitude to writing. It can be encapsulated in a single, short dictum: The only question to worry about in your writing is, does it work? [...]