Just One of Those Days

Being a writer is tough, especially nowadays. It's an odd occupation because you never quite know if you understand it, if you're getting anything right. There's always this mental pull and push between art and making a living. You want to write what and how you want, but you really can't unless you never want to be published. Even once published you don't really know if you've had success. You get reviews and royalty statements but do they really mean anything? Do they answer the questions in your head in any satisfactory way? Do they give you any real feedback about what took place? Do they assure you that it will all happen again?

If you're a plumber, for example, you go to plumbing school and you learn how to fit a toilet. And once you've become an expert at fitting a toilet you can be content in knowing that you can fit a toilet. With writing, today I write an exceptional story, the best I've ever written. It gets published. Everyone loves it. But that doesn't mean that now I know how to produce an exceptional story every day for now on. The next day after the exceptional story day, I'm mostly back to where a started. Maybe a few steps ahead, but only a few. Each story, each book, has its own unique path, one you will discover only if you're lucky. Many wrong paths have been cut through the bush to get to the end. Believe me. I've taken wrong paths.

On top of not knowing what you're really doing, just having this vague idea about how things work, we get to be writers in a time where the publishing industry is in flux and chaos. So not only do I not know what I'm doing, the publishers don't seem to know what they think I should be doing either. Odd books are shooting out of nowhere changing the landscape like a tornado ploughed through (i.e. Fifty Shades of Grey). Today I feel like we're all walking around blindfolded bumping into things, occasionally the things are soft and nice, occasionally they're not, but there's no reason to any of it.

Now if you can't count on publishers, then everyone says do it on your own, so you set out to self-publish. Two thousand people download your books but you've hardly made enough to buy a bag of groceries. You're bone tired trying to let people know about your books, to generate that much needed "hype". Your muse has run away, her wardrobe empty, and she left no number. She won't talk to you until you come back from where you've gone, unencumbered. You really cannot be a salesperson and a writer too. She won't allow it. She says I must choose.

But ...I wished for winter to be over, and it's warmer and maybe there really will be summer this year. And I think we're all okay. And I'm lucky in a million ways. So I'm hoping something will budge and let me see the light again. I'm digging deep looking for the faith.

I'm hoping and hoping it really is just one of those days and tomorrow won't be.

Botswana Gets First Ever Olympic Medal!!

Last night the 800 metre men's final at the 2012 Olympics was magical. As the Kenyan, David Rudisha broke the world record for the 800 metres with a time of 40.91 seconds with relative ease, few noticed that history was being made right behind him. 18 year old Motswana, Nijel Amos, took the silver medal in a world junior record time of 1:41.73 and was written into the history books as the first Motswana ever to take home a medal from the Olympics.

At the start of the Olympics, when our four member team set out for London, Batswana were fairly confident that this would be our year to finally get a medal. 400 metre star Amantle Montsho was almost certain to bring home a medal. She'd done wonders in India at the Commonwealth games and stood as the fastest woman at that distance. In her heats and even in the semi-finals she looked confidant and right on track. But sadly she missed out in the finals, a hair's breath behind the bronze winner. The country began to accept that maybe we would go home empty handed.

But then there was Nijel. In his heat he looked good. In the semi-finals I got a bit worried he looked like he was really pushing himself to the limit. And then there was last night's final. He ran such a mature confident race, holding back until he was needed and then giving everything. It really was a wonderful thing to behold.

Congratulations to Nijel Amos!!! Fantastic job!

Read an Excerpt of Anything For Money!

I'm over at my buddy Vanessa Gebbie's blog where she's put up an excerpt of the third book in my Kate Gomolemo Mysteries series, Anything for Money. Stop by and leave a comment. Let me know what you think!
Thanks again, Vanessa!

Murder for Profit- No 1 at Amazon for Books about Botswana!!

I'm trying not to be a crazy nutcase following the stats on my books at Amazon BUT I did come across this by accident- Murder for Profit is number one at Amazon today for books about Botswana. And Anything for Money and Claws of a Killer are in the top 20.

I'm really quite proud of this because I did it myself, it is so empowering. Often as an author you feel like you're at everyone's mercy. I try to make recommendations about how I think things might be done but it is up to the publisher to decide if they want to do it or not. In this case, I get to try everything I think might work and it seems like something is.

Enjoy your weekend. I'm off to see rhinos and elephants- see you in a week or so!!

How I Became A Published Author or How Not to Dress for Your First Book Launch

I'm a guest over at my old stomping grounds, Blood Red Pencil. I'm talking about how I got my first book published, it was, like most things I do, unconventional.


My first published book was The Fatal Payout, the first book in my Kate Gomolemo Mysteries series. The entire process, from writing to getting published, was a textbook case of “How-not-to-be-a-Writer”. (continued)

Stop by and leave a comment to let me know you were there.

Anything for Money and Claws of a Killer- FREE Downloads!!!

From today (14th) until the 18th, both Anything for Money and Claws of a Killer, the third and fourth Kate Gomolemo Mysteries will be FREE for download at Amazon.

Have no fear, if you haven't got a Kindle, you can download free software to read Kindle books on your laptop HERE.

To download click below:
Amazon USA
Amazon UK



To download click below:
Amazon UK
Amazon USA

And please, if you can, after reading leave a comment over at Amazon to let me know what you thought.
Thanks!!!!!

Authors - Keep Your Electronic Rights

It is no longer okay for authors to sit back and allow publishers complete control over their books. As this excellent article by Penelope Trunk proves while the publishing business is changing at warp speed, publishers themselves are stuck in the past. Can you allow your career to be directed by someone who doesn't understand how books are currently being sold?

I have contracts with traditional publishers for 17 books. For about half, I was sensible enough to keep my electronic rights. For now on I am going to do my best to never sell electronic rights unless they give me a deal I cannot refuse. Let them use their outdated methods with the print books, but I cannot sit by and watch my ebooks sold in a way that makes no sense. For all authors, ebooks are your future. If print books will survive at all, they are going to be sold online. So if your publisher has no internet marketing savvy your books will not sell. You will have to do all of the work and if you have to do all of the work, then why share the money?

Read this article by Penelope Trunk, it's important.
So I sold my book to a mainstream publisher and they sucked. I am going to go into extreme detail about how much they sucked, so I’m not going to tell you the name of the publisher because I got a lot of money from them. I’m just going to tell you that the mainstream publisher is huge, and if you have any respect left for print publishing, you respect this publisher. But you will not at the end of this post. (continued)

Whatzup????

Things have been crazy and my poor neglected blog and blogging friends have suffered. What have I been doing???

1. Lots of house maintenance and a new pool (!!!)
Yes, the old out of ground pool was on its last legs and the manufacturer had changed the way the pools operates, so it was going to mean that we'd have to buy almost a completely new pool. My fish soul could not fathom a life without a pool, so we cleared our bank accounts and built this beautiful thing. We stare at it as if we're in love, especially at night when the lights are on. It is indeed a thing of beauty. As you can see it is right outside my office so a bit of a distraction for working, but I'll survive.

2. Trying to learn how to sell my self published books at Amazon
As you know I've self published three of my Kate Gomolemo mysteries at Amazon through Kindle Direct Publishing. I am on a seriously steep learning curve. I'm trying to find ways to promote the books. So far I've been visiting some awesome blogs. Have joined the Alliance for Independent Authors, which has a lot of resources. But it really does take a lot of time but I'm trying to think of it as a long term project. So far people have downloaded 814 books (I published on 18 May) but most of those were during the time that Murder for Profit was free. I've made $5.57 (USD) and 1.35 British pounds in royalties so far. Not so great but I'm optimistic. I've decided to use one day a week to market my books. Right now it's tending to spill over a bit, but I'm trying to keep it to one day.

3. Finishing a romance novella
I've recently finished my fifth romance novella. It is still a rough draft and in its "cooking phase". It involves dog school and boxing, as romance often do, and it is right up my street.

4. University is closed for the winter break
This means Giant Teenagers are home, actually only one right now, but still that equals more mess and cooking and eating.

So these are my excuses for neglecting my poor blog and my poor blogging friends. Sorry. I will try to improve. And here is a flower from my garden for a present. :)

The Story of Lorato and Stanley

I thought I might re-post this column here in light of the government considering the ending of free ARVs in Botswana. This was first published in New Internationalist.
_________________

Lorato came over today with her new baby, Stanley. I’ve hardly seen her since her wedding. We used to work together and we became quite close. She’s younger than me and I often thought of her as a daughter. But as people do, we’ve drifted apart. She’s now a chicken farmer up north and I’m a writer and our busy lives have dwindled down to SMSs on holidays.

She was in Mahalapye with her new baby, Stanley. Such a middle-aged man sort of name for a tiny baby. I supposed it matched his calm demeanour, fat stomach and the contemplative look he gave me.

“Is he okay then?” I ask Lorato.

“So far.”

Some years ago Lorato dated a policeman. She loved him at first but then problems arose. She found he’d been cheating on her. Worst still, she found that the woman he’d been cheating on her with was HIV positive. She confronted him, he denied it. She went for a test. She was positive.

The evening she told me, I felt like I’d been hit with a brick. I wanted to find a way to make this man pay for what he’d done to my friend. Her brother had died from AIDS four years previously, just before the government made ARVs free to all who needed them. She knew about AIDS. She’d been careful. This man did this to her.

But time passed and she met a new man and life went on. She got married. They wanted children and now here was Stanley, the wise little man-baby.

Lorato has been lucky so far and has avoided ARVs. She changed how she ate, eating more vegetables and fruits and drinking lots of water. “The biggest thing is I avoid stress,” she said. “I know stress, it will kill me.”

She told me how during the preparations for her wedding, a strife ridden affair in the best cases, but with her mother, who I know too well, it was a nightmare. Her CD4 count had gone down to 247. The ARV programme in Botswana advises HIV positive people to start taking ARVs when their CD4 count goes below 250. But Lorato refused. She knew it was the stress of the wedding. She just needed to get through it and she’d be fine. And she was right. Her CD4 count is at 412 now, even after giving birth. She’ll take ARVs when she needs them, but wants to put it off for as long as possible.

She took ARVs during pregnancy, though. Botswana’s Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme is one of the most successful in the world. 95% of HIV positive mothers in the country are in the programme. Less than 3% of these mothers’ babies are born with HIV. She started taking the ARVs during the 29th week of pregnancy, three pills, two times per day. Once labour started she took the pills every three hours until Stanley was born.

“He was tested at six weeks, he’s okay,” she assures me. I look down at Stanley who seems to want to tell me something important, wagging his fists at me. “One more test at a year and half and we’ll know he’s safe and clear.”

He looks healthy and Lorato says he’s never been sick. The nurses advised her that it’s okay to breastfeed, but she’s taking no chances. She’s bottle feeding. “They told me it’s okay, but I don’t think so. Anything could go wrong.”

I hold Stanley who nods off reluctantly. “You know this is not all bad,” Lorato says. “There’s a good side to this HIV. I’m careful now; I pay attention to things… for him and for me. I don’t let stress get me down anymore. I manage it. I have to.”

There is so much doom and gloom around HIV. The scourge. There was a time in the 1990’s when it felt like the entire country was in mourning. Every weekend was for funerals. If you didn’t see someone for awhile, you didn’t ask. If a woman was pregnant and then never spoke about a baby, you didn’t either. During that time was when Lorato’s brother died. Sick and sick and then dead, at 22.

I look at Stanley and at Lorato and think about what a difference just a few years has made in Botswana and I’m very thankful.

WIN a copy of one of my Kate Gomolemo Mysteries!!

I'm a guest over at my friend Judy Croome's blog today. I'm writing about my recipe for being a writer in Botswana, how to write a book under our harsh conditions- and I'm not talking about the weather!

Stop by and you could win yourself one of two copies of one of my ebooks on offer.

Thanks again Judy!!

I'm Over at Wendy Noble's Place!!!

My good friend Wendy Noble has kindly hosted me at her blog as part of my effort to market my new Kate Gomolemo Mysteries now available as ebooks. I met Wendy when I just started writing about eight years ago over at Writers Weekly, a forum where I learned a lot about this writing business from people like her.

Here's a bit of my guest post about being a writer in Botswana:

Imagine if you will, a country with no trade publishers. A country the size of France with only three or four (if you stretch the definition) proper bookstores in the entire country, all located in the capital. A country with a population of 1.8 million where buying books is not a priority and when you ask, “Do you own a Kindle?” the most likely response would be silence and a face that defines the word confusion.

(To read the rest go HERE)

Thanks again, Wendy!!

Happy Short Story Day!!

Today is Short Story Day Africa (and I think Internationally too). I've been busy with various things trying to be part of the day.

1. I donated a story to the website
My story, The Colours of Love, which is in my collection In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata and Other Stories can be read at the Short Story Day Africa website.

2. I'm running a workshop
I'm running a workshop for junior secondary school children in my village at Parwe Junior Secondary School. The students will be writing stories around the theme "young in the city" for the writing competition HERE. The workshop will be this Friday at 10 AM.

3. I'm participating in YA Short Story Chain Gang
In celebration of the day, writers have grouped themselves into chain gangs. Each writer writes for an hour and then passes the story onto the next one (Rules HERE) . In the end, we hope, we have an exciting story. I'm in the YA group. Our story can be read and voted on HERE.

4. The Farafina Class of 2011, of which I'm a part, is Celebrating SSDay-Africa
Members of the group (people who attended last year's Farafina Workshop in Lagos) have written 100 word flash fiction and we've posted them at our blog- HERE.

5. I'm judging the SS Day- Africa Writing Competition for Under 12s
Kids are meant to write a story about an inanimate object. I'm looking forward to reading them! Learn more about the competition HERE

Also, Hope Road Publishing, in celebration of Short Story Day Africa, has posted another story from my collection, Funny Rich Man, read it HERE.

Hope you're celebrating Short Story Day wherever you are. Read, write, listen...enjoy!! Why not share your favourite stories?

Poem: A Fear of Drowning

A Fear of Drowning
By Lauri Kubuitsile

I skim on the surface
Like a boat, not a submarine.
I was never a submarine.
As you added more and more water,
I kept skimming.
I dip a toe in and feel it cool and enticing
But I won’t jump in;
I can’t.
You knew this.
I told you in words
Even if my actions lied.
I can’t get in.
I’m not made right.
I don’t have gills,
Or even a snorkel.
But I like water.
I watch you there
Your head bobbing on the surface
Diving deep
Time and again.
I’m jealous.
Of course I’m jealous.
But I know what I’m made of.
Paper.
Paper can’t stand up to water
Never could.
Don’t make me.
Don’t pull me in.
Keep your distance.
Let me skim here on the surface.
It’s enough for me.

Love in the Shadows- Get the Ebook at Barnes and Noble!

The ebook for Love in the Shadows is now available at Barnes and Noble! Get it here.

Songbird Kedi Taukobong is living her dream. Enormously successful as an Afro-pop musician, she travels the continent performing to adoring crowds. However, fame comes at a price – a sinister stalker is watching her, intent on making her his. Kedi’s management team is determined to hire the best private investigator in the business, her ex, Sefhemo Phaladi.

Face to face for the first time since they split, Kedi and Sefhemo can’t deny the attraction still sizzling between them. But the stalker is getting too close. He has to be in Kedi’s inner circle. Can she really trust Sefhemo, especially after he betrayed her nine years ago?

Also available at Kobo- here.

Get Murder for Profit for FREE!!

The second book in my Kate Gomolemo Mystery Series is on promotion at Amazon. If you have a Kindle, you can get Murder for Profit for FREE.

Click HERE!!

Short Story Day Africa

(from their press release)

On Wednesday 20 June revel in a celebration of fiction’s short- yet-perfectly-crafted form, the short story.

Last year on June 21st, the shortest day of the year, we invited you to participate in Short Story Day South, a southern-African celebration of short fiction.

This year on June 20th, Short Story Day goes global with the launch of International Short Story Day and Short Story Day Africa.

Short Story Day Africa aims to highlight the outstanding short fiction Africa has to offer. We encourage every one of all ages and all genders to do something in honour of the short story. This could be absolutely anything, from running a creative workshop or class, a competition, making a short film or film adaptation of a short story, organizing a spoken word night, a reading, an author appearance, a literary salon, or simply picking up a short story and enjoying it, for maybe the first or the hundredth time.

Whatever it is you're doing, we want to hear about it! Send us details of your event to info@shortstorydayafrica.org, a link to your website (if applicable), and any images you have, and we'll put it on the brand new Short Story Day Africa website, where you can also find short stories to read and enjoy, short story recommendations, competitions, giveaways and more.

Follow us on Twitter @shortstoryAFR or Facebook Short Story Day Africa

What’s it all about?
The concept, celebrating the short story on the shortest day of the year, is borrowed from the pilot project, National Short Story Day (www.nationalshortstoryday.co.uk), which launched in the UK in October 2010 and concluded on 21 December (their shortest day). The project grew organically using social networking tools (Facebook and Twitter) and was a great success. Short Story Day South followed on 21 June 2011, culminating in a series of events around the country, including the popular Chain Gang Challenge.

This year, the organizers of National Short Story Day and Short Story Day South, decided to collaborate to create an international celebration. International Short Story Day was born, with Short Story Day Africa focusing on African writing and writers.

Who can take part?
Readers and writers of all ages, teachers, students...YOU!

Competitions and Giveaways
As part of the International Short Story Day celebrations, The Book Lounge (South Africa) and Comma Press (United Kingdom) challenge you to a chain story competition. At 8.30am GMT* on Wednesday 20th June, the first literary legends will sit down around the globe and start writing. An hour later, the keyboard will be wrested from his/her hands and passed on.

As each segment of the story unravels, we’ll upload it to the Short Story Day Africa website. Readers will be able to watch the stories unfold online and, at 2.30pm GMT, when the last writer adds the final full stop, the polls will open and readers can begin voting for their favourite story. Prizes sponsored by Comma Press.

* 9.30am UK and 10.30am SA

This year also sees the return of the popular Fiction Flash and, during the week running up to Short Story Day, we will be giving away books and prizes. See the Short Story Day Africa website for details.

YA and KIDS
This year, the Short Story Africa has a new team member. Tiah Beautement will be spearheading an all new Short Story Day Africa children’s programme. See the website for details of kids’ workshops, competitions and giveaways.

Submissions
In the week surrounding short story day (18 – 24 June) we will publish short stories from some of Africa’s most talented. Previously published writers wish to take advantage of this opportunity for greater exposure of their work, should see the website for submission guidelines.

Who is behind Short Story Day Africa?

Rachel Zadok is the author of Gem Squash Tokoloshe (shortlisted for The Whitbread First Novel Award 2005 and The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2005). Her long-awaited second novel, The Gathering Station, is due out April 2013. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and her daughter.


Isla Haddow-Flood is a writer, editor and marketing specialist who works specifically on cultural fields in Africa. She currently works for the Africa Centre (www.africacentre.net), advising on and implementing marketing strategies across their 10 projects. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and son.

Colleen Higgs is a writer and a publisher. She launched Modjaji Books (http://modjaji.book.co.za/), an independent press for southern African women writers, in 2007. She has two published collections of poems, Halfborn Woman (2004) and Lava Lamp Poems (2011). In 2012, her first collection of short stories, Looking for Trouble was published. She lives in Cape Town with her daughter.

Tiah Marie Beautement is the author of the novel Moons Don’t Go to Venus. Shorter works have appeared in various publications, including two anthologies: The Edge of Things and Wisdom Has a Voice. She lives on the Garden Route with her husband, two children, Orwell the dog and five chickens all named Eva.
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Let's Get Involved!!!
I've jumped on the bandwagon and have my short story, The Colours of Love, up at their site. Stop by and give it a read. Let me know what you think.

Kate Gomolemo Mysteries are Now Available as Ebooks!!

My Kate Gomolemo Mysteries have only been available as paper books- that is until today! Three of the four books in the series are now available as ebooks at Amazon!

Murder for Profit (Book Number 2)


Something is not right in Mogobane. With a note scribbled in a child’s hand, Detective Kate Gomolemo is drawn into the dangerous, brutal and horrific world of muti killing.

Four children and their grandmother are burnt to death in their mud hut at the lands. The local police constable writes it off as an accidental fire, but within a few hours of her being in the village, Kate realises that can’t be right. She soon realises that the people in Mogobane are not always who they appear to be- from the local business man, to the dark traditional doctor, she even begins to suspect the police constable.

Despite the danger in the air, Kate sets out to find the killers. She will not rest until the murderers of the five innocent victims are put behind bars, but will she have to pay the ultimate price for her stubborn search for justice.

BUY it HERE.

Anything For Money (Book Number 3)


Detective Kate Gomolemo is not sure what to make of Helen Segole’s wild allegations. She’s claiming government ministers and high-ranking civil servants are behind the cold-blooded murder of her father, but Kate wonders if Helen is not confused by the grief she’s feeling.
Against her better judgement, Kate agrees to do some investigations and suddenly she’s swept into a high-rolling, dangerous game of power, greed and corruption. The people behind it will stop at nothing to get what they want. How many people will have to die before Kate finds Goitsemang Segole’s killers? How far can greed push a person?

BUY it HERE.

Claws of a Killer (Book Number 3)


Everything is going great for Detective Kate Gomolemo. The second love of her life, John Mogami, has stopped pushing her to set a date for their wedding. Her son and his wife are both nearby in Gaborone and they have big news- she's going to be a grandmother! Things are going well until a young University of Botswana student is found dead. Raped, with three odd claw marks down her body.

Botswana is not the home to serial killers, Kate is sure of that. But her certainty is shaken as the bodies pile up. And to make matters worse, her new partner, the annoying Ntoko, realises the killer is working to a schedule. Every fourteen days he must kill.

As the days pass, the pressure builds. Will Kate be able to stop him before this monster kills again? She'll risk everything to catch him and in the end she almost does.

BUY it HERE.

What's Gwaning?

My blog has gone all silent, and I apologise for that. You may wonder what is taking up all of my time.

First, I am doing maintenance on my house, or rather I've hired people to do maintenance on my house. This is eating into my time. Running up and down buying things. Making sure they don't paint the cat blue (they seem to be very keen on painting everything they can blue. I'm keeping the cat nearby just in case). So that's time eater number one.

Second, after living nearly alone for the last year or so, everyone is suddenly home on university holiday. Though I have my nice little office ( the most wonderful gift for a writer) I still must socialise with my family.

Third, I've been having teeth things going on. A tooth pulled out and then a temporary tooth put in and then that one taken out and everything made very sore and then another temporary put in and now waiting for the final thingy to get sorted. The process has made me cranky and lazy.

And lastly, I'm busy learning how to self publish at Amazon's Kindle Direct Programme. I am publishing the last three novellas in my Kate Gomolemo Mystery Series: Murder for Profit, Anything for Money and Claws of a Killer. Two of them have been published in paper but I wisely kept the ebook rights. (I didn't do that for the first one in the series though- The Fatal Payout). I hired someone from Gaborone to do the book covers, Alastair Haggar (editor@kgogomodumo.com) . I wanted them simple with a common theme. I've posted only one of them above. Let me know what you think.

My plan is to publish them all at once, hopefully in the next couple weeks.

Botswana and its Beauty Contests- NI Column 2

(This is my second column in New Internationalist. They don't put everything online and since many of us don't have access to the print magazine I thought you'd like to read my column here)

When I first moved to Mahalapye in 1989, most Saturday nights, especially at the end of the month when everyone got paid, you would find a beauty contest at our community hall. It might be Miss Mahalapye or Miss Madiba (our local senior secondary school) or even something commemorating an event, Miss Independence Day or Miss Mahalapye Agriculture Show. It didn’t matter. These contests consisted of local young women putting on their best dresses, getting their hair done, and then parading around on stage to music at eardrum splitting levels. The height and weight of the contestants was not important. The clincher was always the smile. If you had a good smile, you had a good chance. Judges were picked from local VIPs, people like ward chiefs, a councillor’s wife, or teachers. The winner won a blanket or an iron. After the formalities of the beauty contest were over, the night turned into what everyone had pitched up for – a disco.

But all of this changed in 1999. For the first time in history, Botswana sent a young woman, 20 year old Mpule Kwelegobe, to the international Miss Universe contest. She got to the finalist stage and then was asked the question that sealed the deal-“Should Miss Universe step down if she should become pregnant during her reign?”

This was just about the best question to ask a young Motswana woman from a country that views all births, no matter inside or outside of marriage, as a blessing, and where it is estimated more than half of households are female headed.

Her answer? “I think it should not in anyway interrupt her duties, she should celebrate her femininity. Having children is a celebration of womanhood for all females, including beauty queens.”

And with that Botswana erupted into cheers of joy when Mpule was crowned Miss Universe 1999, and beauty contests in Botswana were given an adrenaline kick they haven’t yet recovered from.
Where they used to be casual affairs organised the afternoon before the event, they now became serious with marketing budgets and big prizes. Miss Botswana winners nowadays win a car and a flat in Gaborone. The standards of who is beautiful have changed too. Tall and thin is in, and though a smile is important, sadly, it isn’t going to win you a Mercedes Benz unless you have the other requirements.

In 2006, I was asked to be a beauty contest judge. We were living in the tiny village of Lecheng where my husband was the headmaster of the secondary school and as his wife I was a prime target for the position of beauty contest judge. It was for “Miss Lecheng 40th Anniversary of Independence”. It was a post-Mpule beauty contest so I expected the regular kind of thing, but as soon as the contestants walked on the stage I knew something else was going on, at least I hoped so. The age range of the women was about 18 to 60. The weight and height range was just as varied.

I realised then these were the women from Ditshephe, a local traditional dance troupe. I’d seen them dance many times before and I had my favourite in the group, Thatayaone. She was about 30, with large breasts and an equally large bum, who, when not dancing, you might not even notice in her doek and letaise, but once she began, you saw no one else. As her feet stamped across the dusty ground as if possessed, the entire time she smiled and she was transformed.

I hadn’t noticed her at first, not in the fancy dresses, mostly satin in colours not seen outside of weddings. It was only when she put on her traditional dance uniform and she came stamping across the floor, her wide smile in place, that I knew my judging was done. She would be my winner, and across the form I gave her ten, ten, ten. We were back to those early days when the smile was the clincher. I was sure of it.

Sadly, in the end, my co-judges clung to the more western standards of beauty, ala Mpule, and my woman came second despite my best effort. Apparently, a smile just wasn’t good enough anymore that was all part of the past now.

Review of Signed, Hopelessly in Love at SA Books

SA Partridge, one of the authors shortlisted with me for the MER Prize in South Africa, has reviewed Signed, Hopelessly in Love. She describes it as "a little book that gets around". An excerpt:

Signed, Hopelessly in Love by Lauri Kubuitsile is a little book that gets around. It was short listed for the Sanlam Youth Prize in 2009 and was recently short listed for the M.E.R Prize for youth fiction. The story follows fifteen year old Amo Sethunya, or just Amo for short, who lives with her grandmother in Botswana.

Read the rest of the review HERE.