Cape Town Libraries, in conjunction with the Book Lounge and the Fugard Theatre, are involved in an event calledWriting My Citywhich is to encourage Capetonians to write stories and poetry about the city they live in.
Cape Town is home to a multiplicity of voices, however some voices are missing. This initiative is aimed at finding those voices and giving them the opportunity to tell their stories to a wider world. In this way, more local community stories can be told and shared.
The aims of the project are wider than just the stories though. This is an opportunity to celebrate and deepen the understanding of who and what makes Cape Town the city it is. By improving understanding, we hope to build better social cohesion. It is also an opportunity to highlight the importance of libraries in the community and widen access to writing and publishing for people who would not otherwise see their work in print.
The winning submissions are to be compiled into a book for publication during the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September.
Having responded to a call for facilitators, I shall be leading a series of writing workshops at one of our local libraries over the coming weeks. My aim is to bring the stories of ten local women (who I’ve not met yet) to life. The first session’s next week. I’ll keep you posted!
Everyone fled for the old, deserted places; to the caves, the ruins and the ancient abandoned settlements. The cities had long gone; collapsed in on themselves. All modern infrastructure wiped out.
No-one understood why, but there was no longer anyone to ask or to explain. The politicians, the scientists and the specialists had long retreated into their state-of-the-art doomsday bunkers. Much good would it have done them. All technology had fried when the black hole came into view.
The inevitable came, although it took months. Quite a number of us survived. There had been long enough to prepare. But then the time came. The skies grew dark. There were flashing lights, the rushing of wind, a strange hollow feeling that seemed to gnaw on the soul.
When it was all over, we awoke to a bright new dawn. We opened our eyes, felt our limbs, went outside and looked at each other. Then we noticed. Everything was reversed like in a mirror. Our hearts were beating on the other side of our chests. It took a little getting used to.
We carried on, improvised. Crops grew. The water in our wells was sweet. Everyone felt good, younger by the day. We were more vigorous, more robust, we were quicker and stronger. And then we realised. We were actually getting younger, day by day. And the process was speeding up. What would become of us as we hastened to youth, to childhood and earlier?
This article gave me a little prod of encouragement when it comes to marketing. I’m clearly not putting enough energy into my efforts and I need to re-double this for my forthcoming novel ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.
Teresa, The Haunted Wordsmith, is holding a ‘White Elephant’ party throughout December and since Teresa very kindly gifted a beautiful time-turner to me yesterday, I’m continuing with three gifts of my own.
The first gift goes to Sadje of Keep it Alive and I’m giving her a display cabinet in which to keep all her well-deserved blogger awards:
Now, I actually got two of these in a Black Friday sale, so the second gift of a display cabinet goes to Salted Caramel for exactly the same reason. She also gets a second silly gift of a bowl of salted caramel flavour popcorn because I know she likes it and you can’t have too much of a good thing!
And finally, my third gift goes to The Dark Netizen and I have chosen to give a him a lightsaber as I’m excited to know what he’ll do with it!
I’m delighted to say that Sadje, of Keep it Alive, has nominated me for the
Sunshine Bloggers Award!
Thank you, Sadje for the nomination, it’s an honour!
Okay, here are my answers to Sadje’s questions:
What made you start blogging? I set up Luna’s on line about 6 years ago purely as somewhere to store my short stories. I was also experimenting with WordPress as I had started my ‘ghost blogging’ career.
It wasn’t until early this year when I started working from home full-time that I got up and running with it and started interacting with other writers and bloggers. I am so glad I did; the support and encouragement is amazing.
Do your friends and family support you in this? I have a lot of encouragement for my writing. Maybe they actually believe I’ll be a best selling author one day so want to be nice to me! And a special mention for Cliff, my husband who’s really supportive unless it’s suppertime (a bit like Luna, my cat).
Which is your favorite time of the day? I write best in the late afternoon, so it’s then.
What would be your dream vacation? Visiting the gorillas in Rwanda. I’d need to have some strong-armed bearers to carry me and to bring the G+Ts.
What genre of movies you like best? It depends on my mood. I have very eclectic taste (although I don’t like rom-coms or splatter movies much).
What are your strengths and weaknesses? I’ll own up to a couple which work both ways: I get too involved with my characters. I talk to them, often out loud. Also, I’m a dreadful grammar pendant.
Are you an emotional person? Don’t you have to be if you write fiction?
What motivates you in life and writing? Imagination and an enquiring mind.
What sort of friend are you to your pals? I’m there in mind and spirit, always.
Have you written poetry as well? Some, but it’s not really my forte.
Now imagine: I’m standing at the podium in full evening dress – gold lame, glitzy earrings, killer heels – (I did say imagine) and I am holding the 11 envelopes. Here’s the speech…
These are some of the most inspirational, inventive and supportive writers I’ve met in ‘blog–land’ so far. This is my thank you to them! Check them out. I’ve put in some links to their sites and to their work.
Kent Wayne, the Dirty Sci-Fi Budda for being the first person to like my first post – check out his Echo series: I really enjoyed Vol.1 and I have Vol.2 is ready to read.Thanks for all the re-tweets!
JI (Jenn) Rogers, agreat inspiration – all those Six Word Challenges, wow, she’s right, they are addictive! Check out her book The Korpes File, vol 1 – a cracking read – vol 2 will be out soon; can’t wait to find out what happens next.
Ellie Scottfor being awesome and witty and from Yorkshire (where I grew up). Ellie writes lot of lovely little engaging pieces not only on her website, but on Twitter and on Instagram (clever!). She’s on Medium too – head over and give her a clap.
I’ve started reading her ‘Merry Bloody Christmas: A Short Story Collection’ – one story a day in the run up to Christmas, although it’s tempting to pig out on a whole week’s-worth in one go!
Debra of Nana’s Whimsical World for her ever-so-wittily described crafty projects, her wonderful stories about Foster and Panda (you have to read these!) and general awesomeness – this woman installed her own toilet!
Adam West, The Writer of Age with whom I’ve probably had the longest email exchange ever when trying to download his free offer on Amazon (they like to make it tricky for you if you live in deepest, darkest Africa). However, ‘The Vague Ship: A Tale of Ambiguity’ was well worth the effort!
Freja Travels – a travel blog by Mickey & Yunni, so beautifully illustrated with photos. I followed them every step of the way through Madagascar. And Yunni is reading my work-in-progress novel from this blog (so I’d better hurry up and finish it).
Muted Mouthful – Tiara has truly found her feet in her blog! Awesome stuff. I really don’t know why she doubts herself. And she lives in New York, which I find very cool!
Jason H Abbott, The Aetheral Engineer – wonderful witty flash fiction. He’s on Twitter and Instagram too – thanks for being there.
Keith Sandvidge -– dark and witty tales. Great support over in ‘twitterland’. Don’t tell anyone, but I think he’s reading my first novel…I wonder how it’s going.
He also writes on Medium – pop over and give him a clap.
…and there are others, newer to my circle – and since Sadje also very kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award as well, I’ll give them their shout out there – stay tuned!
And I’m not going to ask anyone any questions, I merely offer the invitation to grab the ‘Sunshine Blogger’ banner, tell us more about yourself and pay it forward if you’d like.
When I saw this drawing by artist, Suzanne Starr, on my LinkedIn feed, I was so intrigued by the figures in the picture that I had to write their story. I contacted Suzanne to ask her permission, and now we have a collaboration across continents. Awesome!
‘Who are they, Ashley?’ Charlie pointed up at the picture on his bedroom wall. ‘Are they family too?’
Ashley glanced at the picture which was hanging next to the school room door. She’d never really noticed it before, but then she’d hardly ever been in the austere blue-painted room (formerly the nanny’s room) in which her young cousin was staying until it was time for him to start at his new school in England.
‘I don’t rightly know, Charlie.’ Ashley carefully took the picture down from the wall and came to sit beside him on the bed. They looked at it together. It was a small pencil drawing of five children of varying ages, or maybe four children and their mother, tightly grouped together with their arms wrapped around each other. They were wearing outdoor clothes which looked rather old-fashioned, thought Ashley. The drawing looked old too, faded, the paper discoloured along the one edge of the wooden frame.
‘Look at their expressions; they’re so lifelike.’ said Ashley.’
‘They look sad,’ said Charlie.
‘Maybe it’s because they’re posing,’ said Ashley. ‘Like the in the old photographs on the piano downstairs.’
‘The little boy at the front, what’s he holding?
Ashley peered at the picture. ‘I think it’s a spinning top. You know, you push the handle up and down,’ she demonstrated a pumping action, ‘and it spins. I’m sure we’ve still got ours somewhere. I’ll see if Hodge knows where it is.’
‘But I wonder why he looks so cross.’
‘Perhaps it’s because he’s had to stand still for so long and maybe he’d rather go and play,’ she ruffled Charlie’s golden hair. ‘You’d be scowling too.’ Ashley laughed.
Charlie pouted and then giggled as Ashley chucked him under the chin.
Ashley returned the picture to its place on the wall. ‘Come on, Charlie, it’s time for lunch. We can ask Hodge about the spinning top.’
***
Ashley was curled up in the drawing room with her notebook at her side. She’d intended to finish her latest fairy story, but her mind kept drifting back to the drawing. Maybe there was a story there, ‘The people who lived in the picture’. She smiled to herself and glanced at her watch; Charlie was supposed to be studying to prepare him for the start of school, but he wouldn’t mind if she just popped in to borrow the picture. As instructed, she wouldn’t disturb him.
Charlie’s door was closed. ‘Charlie? Can I come in?” Ashley knocked politely and waited. ‘Charlie? Are you there?
There was no reply. Ashley put her ear to the door. Perhaps he’d dozed off. She wouldn’t be surprised; the books with which he’d arrived looked deathly dull to her. As she put her hand on the doorknob, she heard a huge crash, as if something had fallen on the floor.
‘Charlie?’ She turned the doorknob and pushed the door, but it wouldn’t open. ‘Charlie! Let me in!’ She shoved the door hard and it yielded. She looked around. Charlie was crouching on the floor in the corner of the room. A brightly painted metal spinning top rolled across the room towards her.
Ashley picked the toy up and turned to Charlie. ‘Hodge found it then,’ she said. ‘What on earth were you doing with it?’
Charlie shook his head and pointed to the picture. Ashley crossed the room and looked; the little boy’s hands were empty. He was leaning forward, arms outstretched, as if he’d just dropped (thrown?) something. Ashley looked at Charlie in disbelief.
Ashley held out her hand to Charlie. They fled from the room.
They found Hodge peeling potatoes in the kitchen. Breathlessly Charlie tried to explain what had happened.
‘Slow down, slow down!’ She wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Now, Miss Ashley, you’ve not been scaring young Master Charlie with your fairy stories, have you?’
Hodge reached out and put her arm around Charlie’s shoulder. ‘All right, luvvy, let’s go and have a look.’
Charlie hung back as Hodge marched into his bedroom followed by Ashley. The picture lay face down on the floor and the schoolroom door was open. Hodge bent down and picked it up. Suddenly the schoolroom door was snatched shut. Hodge looked up. ‘Master Charlie?’
‘I’m here,’ said Charlie stepping into the room. Behind him they heard footsteps running along the landing.
Hodge turned the picture over. It was a drawing of an empty room.
luna's on line 