Gaborone Bed Book Launch!!!

Thursday 23rd of September, we launched The Bed Book of Short Stories at Mmabolao,The House of Beds, in Gaborone.


Our MC for the evening was Botswana's most celebrated poet- TJ Dema.




That's me (above) selling books, which we did quite a bit of that night. (yeah!)


Aamina Khan (right front) manager of Mmabolao and Deborah Morgan (right back) director of Mmabolao, listening attentively. They were both great!

Zimbabwean writer Novuyo Rosa Tshuma came all the way from Johannesburg where she is studying, to read us an excerpt from her story "In Bed with Ikeji". This is her third bed launch attendance. Five stars for the lovely Novuyo!!

Below is Malawian Luso Mnthali (right) with a friend. She lives in Cape Town and we were lucky to have her in Gaborone. She read from her story "A Requiem for Daniel".


Dr. Leloba Molema from the University of Botswana (below) was our guest speaker and she did a fantastic job!


Our very own uber-talented Gothataone Moeng read from her story"Lie Still Heart: Scenes from a Girlhood Devoured".


Some of the guests among the beds.


We had a FANTASTIC time!
Thanks everyone!!

My New Love

I came to writing because of my love of books, I wanted to be more a part of them. My love of books leads to my other affliction- my love of owning books. I want to have all of them. I am greedy beyond measure. Because of this, bookshelves are always a problem. Thankfully I found a new carpenter and he has made me the best new bookshelves. I'm so enamoured with these shelves I can barely look away from them. The best part about them is that they have so much space! Space for more books- yeah!

Lazy Writing

This is actually my column from The Voice two weeks ago but for some reason it didn't go up online so I thought I'd put it here.
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I was recently at a poetry reading. People who know me know I love good performance poetry. I cry at good performance poetry. I’m moved, I babble on about it for days. It sits in my mind, bits of it taking up permanent residence. At bad poetry performances I look engaged but am, in fact, either ticking off things I need to do the next day or preparing a mental grocery list. My tolerance level seems to have lowered as of late, though, and on this night in question I didn’t even pretend to be engaged. I was bored -but more than that I was furious.

I’m sick to death of lazy writers or all sorts, poets are just more on my mind as I write this but prose writers should consider themselves warned. For poets, if you have “African queen” or African princess” in your poem I’m talking to you. Yesterday I watched a little girl on My African Dream reciting a poem about how she was “an African child” and I thought shame on you lazy adult poets teaching this young girl that stating the obvious accounts as poetry nowadays. That lazy, clichéd writing is okay- it is not.

The words in a poem should be fresh- and please note, this does not mean pulling out your Roget’s and finding as many rhyming, seven letter words as you can and then stringing them in a line and spitting them out in an angry voice while standing in front of the audience very proud of yourself, the audience clapping only because they’re being polite. No one understands anything because what the poet just recited was unintelligible, to the poet as well as anyone forced to be the recipient of it. That’s not poetry- no matter what pretty clothes you put on it.

I will admit I’m not a poet, but I am a word user. I know that writers must respect words if they are to be any good. If you want to stand before us and tell us your mother is an Africa queen, please don’t call yourself a poet. Don’t disrespect poets so blatantly by doing that. A poet struggles and fights with words to find the exact image she wants to create. She will not use old, saggy, overused phrases just to get to the end. She will not use flashy words that leave everyone lost. She wants to carry the listener or the reader to a place that she has created and then she says “Look”.

Good poetry is fresh. The words crackle in the air and hush all thoughts that try to invade its stage. When silence comes and the words are finished the images and their echoes reverberate through the ether tickling at the audience members’ minds forcing them to think. Nobody thinks when the African queen takes centre stage, believe me.

Please folks, I beg of you, if we are to make any progress, let’s respect the words. Let’s work at our art. Laziness has no place in writing.

A Bed Launch for Botswana!!

I have been absent from my blog because my blog is not behaving. I can only write. I can't do anything that needs a pop up window, like add the invite for this launch. When I press the button I get a blank page. If anyone knows how to sort this out I'd be thankful for any help. I have a feeling it is a problem in my computer and will see the compute guy on the weekend.

In the meanwhile I want to invite you to another launch for The Bed Book of Short Stories that I helped compile. What has been so lovely about this book is that the contributors have taken it on to launch the book wherever they are. First there was the main launch at the Franschoek Literary Festival in South Africa. Then our contributor from Namibia organised a launch in Windhoek. Then there was the Joburg launch which I was blessed to be able to attend. There was a launch in Cape Town a few weeks ago where everyone wore pajamas. Tonight there is a launch in Centurion organised by the vivacious Rita Britz. And then next Thursday is ours in Gaborone.

The contributors present will include Gothataone Moeng, Luso Mnthali and myself. The MC for the evening is our TJ Dema and the guest speaker is Dr. Leloba Molema from the University of Botswana English Department. Please if you're in Gabs we would love for you to pop by!

When? Thursday 23 September
Where? Mmabolao, Westgate Mall Gaborone
Time? 5:30 - 8 pm

Books will be on sale!!

SEE YOU THERE!!!!

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut

An odd coincidence occurred. I finished In a Strange Room in the early hours of yesterday staying up far too late reading because I could not put it down and then yesterday that very book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. My hope is it will go on to win it in October.

I love Damon Galgut's writing but In a Strange Room is something quite special. It is about travelling. It's divided into three sections: The Follower, The Lover and The Guardian. I listened to Galgut speak about the book at the Cape Town Book Fair this year. He was interviewed by Ben Williams of SA Books. Ben asked him if the book was fiction or memoir since the traveller in the book is called Damon. Galgut admitted that he took these trips and he had these experiences but still it is classified as a novel. It is up to the reader to see what to make of it.

In the same interview, he spoke about the reasons behind sometimes writing in first person, sometimes third, even drifting into second. It happens seamlessly in the book, it seems correct and right. He explained that it is how we think when we think about memories. Sometimes we are there, we are in first person. Sometimes we watch the characters play out the scene, third person. He wanted to be true to the memories. I find this fascinating.


Galgut's writing is simple and his unflinching pursuit of the truth in each sentence laser accurate. He writes with no fluff. He is not here to impress anyone. He knows his purpose and I feel it is an internal push driven by an intellect that will not rest on platitudes. He wants to know what it means, what this all means, the core truth in this living in the relationships between people.

The Damon in the book feels compelled to travel, but it is not a jolly, holiday by the sea kind of travelling. It is something else for him. Of late I have wanted to travel alone. I think as a married woman with a family I've become very insulated from the world, always safe in my group. And so I travel alone, though I don't particularly like it, I do it because it forces me to feel things with no cushion around me. I like to force myself into awkward scary situations where I will feel lost so as to feel vulnerable. I think in that place things are often clearer since the fear magnifies the senses. When I read the passage below I was gobsmacked by its resonance. There are many of these in the book.

The truth is he is not a traveller by nature, it is a state that has been forced on him by circumstances. he spends most of his time on the move in acute anxiety, which makes everything heightened and vivid. Life becomes a series of tiny threatening details, he feels no connection with anything around him, he's constantly afraid of dying. As a result he is hardly ever happy in the place where he is, something in him is already moving forward to the next place, and yet he is also never going towards something, but always away, away. This is a defect in his nature that travel has turned into a condition.

I read a lot of books. Some stick ,some fly away, and others change me. This one changed me.

The Distraction of Fresh Tomatoes

My blog is being sadly neglected and I apologise. As part of my apology I am giving you this lovely photo of the tomatoes I just now hunted from our garden. It is like hunting a bit, and one of my favourite things about gardening. Searching in the spicy green leaves to find the little red jewels. Then picking and assessing what you got.

So why have I been so thoroughly neglectful of my lovely little blog?

1. It is the beginning of summer.
This needs no explanation.

2. I am stuck in up to my elbows with my latest work in progress.
I have four months to wallow in my fiction. The first project for that time is a new novel which is a prequel to a novel I've been fighting with for about four years. I gave it to an editor friend of mine who gave me some sterling ideas about how to get it in shape. It was a thriller but my friend thought my cop and his friend seemed destined for a series and suggested I re-work the book into a detective novel. I've done a detective series before, my Kate Gomolemo series that includes The Fatal Payout and Murder for Profit, so this was something I was familiar with and decided to give it a go. BUT then something happened. I read a book, recently published, that is very similar to this book I'd been struggling with for four years and if I changed it to a detective novel it would be even more similar. So I decided to have my cop and his friend meet in a book before that one- which is the book I'm currently working on- and then after I finish this one I will go back to the first one which is now really the second one. Understand?

3. I've been reading lots of fabulous books.
These I intend to blog about soon.

4. I signed two contracts for two new books and I sent one of my wallflower novels out to a few agents.
One contract is for the third book in my Detective Kate Gomolemo series which will be published by Vivlia Publishers in South Africa. The second book is also to be published by Vivlia and is a children's historical mystery (is there such a genre? ). I also sent out queries to some agents in America for my novel Claudia Lanchaster's Adventures in Love, a young adult romance. I have had one response so far and they asked to see the entire novel, so cross fingers!

So those are really the main reasons I'm neglecting my blog. But I will try to be better. In the meantime enjoy the tomatoes because I'm intending to eat a fair share of them for lunch and they will soon be finished.

Growing Up in Africa

I happened upon this blog thanks to Deborah Ahenkorah from the Baobab Prize.

It is a series from Africans around the continent about their childhood. Africa as seen through non-African eyes is often all about sadness- starvation, poverty, disease. But that's not Africa, or at least that is just a slice of Africa. Africa is about family. It's about friends and culture and rich languages. Food and school. It's about kids not getting their parents and then growing up and suddenly understanding. It's about values and standards. It's about love and sadness. It's multidimensional and fascinating.

I love love love this blog! It is just what we need. Do yourself a favour and pass by.

And the Winner is...

The winner of a signed copy of my latest romance novella, Can He Be The One?, is Catarina!!

So Catarina, drop me an email at lakubuitsile@gmail.com and send me your postal address so I can send you your book.

Congratulations!! And thanks to everyone who left a comment.

Does Mother Tongue Affect The Way We View Our World?

There is a fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine about how our mother tongue impacts not on how we understand the world necessarily but on what we are obligated to pay attention to and therefore how those details impact on how we view the world.

An example is given of languages such as most European languages that give objects either a masculine or feminine classification. When speaking of these objects they must pay attention to if the objects are masculine or feminine. This seems to affect their perceptions of those objects. This classification is different in different languages. For example a bridge is masculine in Spanish and feminine in German. When study participants were asked to grade various objects, Spanish speakers found bridges to be strong and sturdy while Germans graded them on their elegance.

What I found very interesting was the way we position things in space. I might say it is to my left, or behind me when I say where an object is for example. An Aboriginal tribe in Australia the Guugu Yimithirr, do not have words such as that. Instead everything is related to the cardinal directions. No matter where they are, they are aware of the cardinal directions, from a very young age. They might say the book is on the southwest corner of the bookshelf. For most English speakers such directions would be almost impossible to follow.

The article explains how this way of orientating oneself has an impact on how you see the world. If you are from a language that uses geographical directions, two identical rooms in a hotel which are on opposite sides of a hallway would not be identical at all, unlike for an English speaker.

I thought when I read this about how often seasoned writers advise newbies to write their story, don't copy others since we all have our own unique perspective and maybe this article is another piece of evidence about why this is so important.

Win a Copy of my Latest Book!!

My second romance, Can He Be The One?, is now officially out! I got my author's copies today and would like to give one to you my dear readers.

If you'd like to be in the running to win a signed copy just leave a comment below. In a week, I'll put your names in a cup and pick a winner.

In the meanwhile Sapphire Press has a new blog! Stop over to learn about their other titles and to read the blurb about Can He Be The One?- leave a comment to let them know you've been around!

I'm Being Terrorised by my Dining Room Table

I've always blamed my lack of adult behaviour on my patchy upbringing. When I get scared by skincare products or don't know the reason why all plates on a table must match, I blame it on my parents. They were busy with their own dramas and teaching me about how to fold a cloth napkin just wasn't high on the list. To make things worse, I'm not a girly-girl, I never was. I only knew bras and panties were supposed to match each other when I learned it on a recent Oprah show. The same goes for the way my family is run. The mother is apparently the leader in all things domestic, but if your leader has no guidebook you're likely going to go astray, it's almost assured.

Families have all sorts of secrets, ones they don't even know they have, and mine is no exception. We just hobble along not knowing we're doing things wrong, that is unless a stranger enters your home. Once the stranger is let in, the scowling look, the disdain in his eyes tells it all. You have violated a sacred domestic law. Anyone would know it- why don't you?

A stranger has entered our home. He is out of our league. We don't know people like him, we never have. And he seems to have a standard that we are not living up to no matter how hard we try. I feel terrorised in my own home. But it's too late. He's been invited, everything has been paid. There is no turning back.

Regular readers of my blog will know I recently built an office and moved into it. This left a gaping hole in our house. Apparently that hole in other homes is called a dining room. After a bit of research I realised what we needed was a dining table to take up all of the space in this new dining room. I innocently went out and bought one.

And now it's here.
I think it's obvious this dining room table has no business in our home, in a home headed by ME. Evidence can clearly be seen in this photograph.

Exhibit A: The chaotic, over full bookcases in the background.
Exhibit B: The shiny, pristine gloss of the unscratched table top.
Exhibit C: The carelessly flung computer cable in the foreground of the photo
Exhibit D: The cat hair-less olive cushions on the dining room chairs

The evidence is clear. This table does not belong in this house. It is a stranger. But it stays. It imposes its ways on us. We seem unable to withstand its demands.

As you can see I bought a vase- no more empty mayonnaise jars for flowers brought in from the garden. The Table will not have such behaviour. I've bought a tin of Mr Min- and I use it. My god- I'm even considering buying coasters and table mats!

Be warned by what has happened to my family. Offices are all well and good- but beware the gaping hole that remains behind. It may force you to do things out of character, it may have you inviting terrorists into your own home and, believe me, that can never come to anything good.

Ouma's Autumn

I found this little book at the Cape Town Book Fair almost by accident. I had a spare few minutes and decided to take a quick tour of the stands, something I don't usually have time for. I spotted some lovely photos and stepped up to the stand to get more information about them. The woman showed me the photos, they were actually cards one of which had the photo below:

I thought the photos were so lovely I bought two cards. Then the woman told me that the photos actually came from a book and she handed me Ouma's Autumn by Patricia Schonstein Pinnock (African Sun Press).

South Africa because of its cruel past has many sad stories. The Group Areas Act has produced some of the saddest. Imagine finding a piece of land, and through hard work, you manage to put up a house. Slowly you meet your neighbours and you all begin your families. Your kids grow up together. Your neighbourhood creates a history intricately woven into the history of your own family. This is your home. And then legislation decides, based solely on the colour of your skin, that that land, that area, that neighbourhood is no longer for you. You're given a moment to collect your things and you're thrown far away to places where only strangers live to buildings with no history at all.

Ouma's Autumn is the story of a little girl and her grandmother (her ouma) and their life in Harfield Village in Cape Town before the Group Areas Act tears them all apart. The story is told in first person from the little girl's point of view, somehow this makes it all more heartbreaking. Like a child would, the truth is told simply, just as seen, with no embellishments.

An example is when her grandfather returns from fighting in WWII. The soldiers had been promised "land and honour" by General Smuts but upon her grandfather's return, after he "left that part of a man which makes him believe life is something good" on the war fields of Europe, the General's promise was forgotten.

"And at home there was no honour waiting for him. General Smuts gave the boys who returned a wheelbarrow and a shovel and only the injured got a pension. Sam (her grandfather) asked for the piece of land he had been promised but he only got to understand that he'd been short-changed."

They lived in Hartfield, the girl and her Ouma, on a "...small road called Pembroke, so small you must watch for it..." The girl was left at home with the old woman while everyone else went off to school or work.
"Every morning I sat on the stoep with my Ouma watching life in the road. We knew all the families in the area and everything that happened."

Because of their daily seat, they were one of the first to spot the new danger. "Then one day Group Areas came to the neighbourhood... and my dreams began to fall apart."

This is a lovely little book, a book that teaches what is now history, in a simple, personal, matter of fact way that will take up a firm place in your mind, not easily nudged to the side. It has beautiful photos taken by Donald Pinnock. I tried to find the book on the internet and the only copy I found is $47.75, it is ranked at Albris as a collectible, I can believe that in a way. Scary I nearly passed this lovely book by.

Cape Town Book Fair and the Joburg Bed Launch

I am back, well most of me. A friend of mine believes that when we travel we leave bits of ourselves behind that come home at their own pace. Because of this, we take a while to be fully home. I imagine a bit of me still wandering around Cape Town Convention Centre or sitting in Fiona Snycker's sunny Johannesburg garden. They will straggle home, I hope, but in the meantime the parts of me back in Botswana are trying their best to get to work.

I'm beginning to feel as if my trip to the Cape Town Book Fair is a bit of a literary pilgrimage. I get filled up with writerly talks and talking, with books and publishing, with friends old and new. I fill my tank to power me through the next year.

I intend to write a few columns about the Book Fair but thought I'd point out some of the highlights:

Bonty at her stall

1. This year there was a fantastic collection of stalls for small publishers from around the continent funded by a German NGO. My friend Bonty Botumile (Thari E Ntsho Publishers) was among the publishers who had a mini stall within the African Collective stall. I also met two publishers I only knew from the internet, Jane Morris and her husband Brian from amaBooks in Zimbabwe and Bibi Bakare-Yusuf from Cassava Republic Press. All were part of this very important initiative to get African publishers ( and writers) working together.

Author of Trinity on Air, Fiona Snyckers at a panel discussion on Chic Lit and Women's Fiction

2.Great panels and other talks and workshops as usual. Listened to Wole Soyinka (and got my book signed) and Damon Galgut (and got my book signed). I'm a big fan of Sarah Lotz as people who read my blog know. I loved her book Exhibit A and I bought her new one Tooth and Nailed (got it signed and in the queue she pointed out that she had included me in her acknowledgments- I was severely chuffed about that). I got the opportunity to read my children's book Lorato and her Wire Car at the Vivlia stand on Monday. A group of children from a nearby school were my audience.

3. I met the folks publishing the romance books I've been writing, Kwela, and their staff Nelleke, Lindsay, and Wendy. I got a copy of my latest, Can He Be the One?, and it looks lovely!

4. I met with Michelle Cooper at Tafelberg and got things sorted for my young adult book, Aunt Lulu which will hopefully be out next year May.

5. I met up with one of my El Gouna co-horts Seni Seneviratne. We spent some time together on Saturday and then went to a poetry reading at Frieda's Cafe later that night. She read her lovely hedgehog poem and that made me quite happy.

Contributors to The Bed Book of Short Stories: (back) Isabella Morris, Nia Magoulianiti-McGregor, Jayne Bauling, Arja Salafranca, me (front) Rita Britz and Novuyo Rose Tshuma
(Photo courtesy of Isabella Morris)

From Cape Town I was off to Johannesburg for the launch of The Bed Book of Short Stories that I helped compile and in which I also have a story. I was graciously hosted by the lovely Snyckers family. The launch was at a beautiful bookstore in Melville called Love Books.

Seven of the contributors showed up (as well as quite a few other people) and we had a grand time. We each read excerpts from our stories and talked a bit about how we approached the theme of bed. At the end of the evening all books in stock were sold out!
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Interested in winning a FREE, signed, Bed Book of Short Stories as well as a few other fantastic books from Southern Africa??
Pop over to author Judy Croome's blog for some great book giveaways!

The Pathology of White Privilege

Please go and watch this video of Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections of Race from a Privileged Son. It is very important. It's long but stick with it.

I grew up in America, poor and white. I now live in Southern Africa, still white but not so poor anymore. Though I could be thrown in the pile of "white liberal" I've always felt slightly uncomfortable. Of course there is guilt and then anger at why I must carry guilt when I got no benefits from racial oppression, my family was poor for generations. But is that true? Of course not. I benefit everyday from my white skin - even just in the fact that mentally I see no blocks ahead of me. I wouldn't be able to think like that if I was black.

I know- both in USA and here in Botswana- I have inherent advantage because of my skin colour. When it is made blatant, I shout about it, I have done it here on this blog. Wise makes so many very important points in this video, but one that I really only now truly understood is that I don't have to carry all white people on my back as people of colour do. My whiteness does not come with a package of racist stereotypes that will be applied to me the second I do anything wrong ("Well she IS white anyway, what would you expect?"). Not like people of colour. That alone makes my journey easier, even without purposefully built racist blocks in my road. This applies for all white people. We ALL benefit from our whiteness. Full stop.

In the video, Wise speaks of the pathology of being white, how it harms white Americans especially but I think something similar can be applied to Southern Africa, a place heavily affected by the politics of race. He explains how when the Europeans first went to America, both blacks and poor whites were indentured labourers. They began to collude against the rich white land owners and rebellions broke out. This was when the concept of whiteness was first established. The rich whites threw the crumbs of whiteness to the poor whites to divide them from the blacks. The rebellion was quelled. Now not only did the poor whites think they were more akin to the rich whites, which of course they weren't as their situation was much nearer to the poor blacks, they were willing to fight to defend their whiteness. They fought in the civil war to maintain slavery- not for themselves- but for the rich whites. Racism was used to destabilise the poor so there could be no rebellion. It worked out dandy for the rich whites- and still does, and does nothing to destabilise the status quo for the rich whites.

This white privileged position allows the whites the privilege of not caring what others think. People of colour must always know what white people are thinking if they are to survive. Whites don't have that burden. But, as Wise points out, that arrogance of disinterest is a pathology that has and will continue to harm the white people themselves. This is happening in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in white suburban schools, in the drug laden anxiety filled minds of white Americans.

Most white people (in America and in Southern Africa) feel no need to change their position of privilege, they don't want to pay a debt they did not make. Wise argues that that is not a smart position to take as the problem must be solved, and the debt must be paid, either now or later, and later he says it will be more difficult. He says it must be solved now- "not because we are guilty- but because we are here".

Watch the video and tell me what you think.

"Answers to the Worst Writerly Questions" Game

There are some standard questions writers get asked which all writers hate. Today we're going to play a game where you get to answer those questions the way you REALLY wanted to.

First, what is the question you hate most?
and
What is your best answer?

I'll start.
Question: Why did you become a writer?
Answer: Because I have masochistic tendencies and I don't mind being perpetually broke.

Who's next?

Batswana Writers Speak out on National Issues

This morning with tea I was reading this week's Botswana Gazette and I was very happy. Of course Unity Dow and Andrew Sesinyi are many things, not just novelists, but they are novelists and are speaking out on two very important issues facing Botswana right now: the new liquor legislation and the declaration of assets by elected officials.

Our president, President Ian Khama, pushed through drastic tax increases on alcohol in an attempt to deal with the alcohol problem in the country. He has a personal hatred of alcohol that unfortunately he wants to impose on the country. In an interview in the Gazette Andrew Sesinyi points out that the not well thought out legislation has done nothing to curb alcoholism except put more economic pressure on already struggling families. He points out that the way to attack alcoholism is through rehabilitation and addiction programmes such as Alcoholics Anonymous. He criticises Khama's simplistic attack on the problem as a paternalistic, "bana ga ba utlwe"(the children are naughty) method, a position the President takes on many issues. A position that fails with adults who find it, rightly so, insulting.

In Unity Dow's new column, "A View from Left Field", in The Gazette, she tackles the sticky issue of the declaration of assets by elected officials. She says that Batswana by nature are a modest people. A cattle farmer with thousands of head of cattle will speak about going to check his small calf instead of boasting about his massive herd. She thinks this may lie behind politicians reluctance to pass this important piece of legislation. But as she points out 1) it will curtail abuse of office and conflict of interest when it comes to the politicians business interests and 2) No one forced these people to run for office; if they want a public life they must make their assets public, if they don't- then don't run for office.

In another country far away, another writer has stepped up to the political plate. Wole Soyinka has started his own political party. One wonders, would the world be a better place if writers ran it? Hmmm....

Cape Town Book Fair Excitement

I've booked everything for the Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF) which is happening from the 31st July until 2nd August. This will be my third time there. I fund myself. I have no talk lined up. No stall to attend to. I go there because it is always beneficial to me. The money spent is never regretted. I see it as an essential business trip.

So what do I do there? First, I attend as many interesting talks as I can. I love hearing writers talk. I like to know about their process. Not to copy it, because I know my path is my own, but more from the aspect of a reader, actually-their thoughts behind their book, how they got from idea to book. I also like industry talks: talks about ebooks or book cover design or anything book or publishing related.

I like to meet up with friends. This year I have all types of people I want to see. Cape Town friends, internet friends, even some Botswana friends. My friend Bontekanye Botumile has a stall there for her self-published children's books and I'm excited to see what she does with the stall to market herself and her books.

This year I'll be meeting up with some of my publishers. It's amazing in a way that last year at the Book Fair is where I met my first publisher in South Africa and this year I will see her again, but I'm happy to say I will also be meeting up with my two new South African publishers as well. For us in Botswana, South Africa is the next biggest market after ours. It's sort of a stepping stone to overseas markets such at Europe and America. Until I wrote this paragraph I hadn't realise that in one year I'd made such progress in South Africa. Four books with the publisher I met at last year's CTBF, two with the second publisher and one with the third. That's good work for a year.

I'll hopefully get a few columns out of the Book Fair too, so that will be handy.

Many writers here think I'm wasting my time and money by going to CTBF, but I don't think so. Face to face connections matter. Learning new things about the industry matters. Being around writers matters. Making new contacts is essential. I see the book fair as a vital business expense.

The Real Face of War

Though I have not seen the movie Restrepo I found this article at AlterNet very interesting. In it, Nick Turse speaks about the fallacy behind the movie which follows an American battalion in the remote areas of Afghanistan. The movie has apparently garnered accolades for showing the "real face of war".

Turse wonders how it can be the real face of war when the people most affected, the Afghan citizens, are not interviewed. Turse describes the Americans as "combat tourists" because, despite the fact that many come from low income American families where joining the army appeared to be their only choice, they, unlike the Afghans, have choices. The Afghan citizens have no choice. The Americans have brought war to their doorstep on a daily basis, relentless and without mercy.

Turse writes:
In the opening scenes, shot from an armored vehicle (before an improvised explosive device halts a U.S. Army convoy), we catch sight of Afghan families in a village. When the camera pans across the Korengal Valley, we see simple homes on the hillsides. When men from Battle Company head to a house they targeted for an air strike and see dead locals and wounded children, when we see grainy footage of a farm family or watch a young lieutenant, a foreigner in a foreign land, intimidating and interrogating an even younger goat herder (whose hands he deems to be too clean to really belong to a goat herder) -- here is the real war. And here are the people Junger and Hetherington should have embedded with if they wanted to learn -- and wanted to teach us -- what American war is really all about.

Why Do People Still Love Detective Books?

On the weekend PD James spoke at the Words Literary Festival in Devon UK about why she thinks readers continue to go back to detective novels and find something to interest them. According to her, it is about certainty. In the changing world we live in, James feels that morality has yet to catch up with technology. "It’s a world in which it’s difficult to feel entirely at home. That’s why people feel relief in going back to the detective stories of the 1930s, going back to Miss Marple’s St Mary Mead, where there’s a more assured morality, where people knew where they were,”she said.

I love detective fiction but for me it's always about the puzzle and the way that the characters behave in order to solve it or to avoid it being solved.

What about you? Do you read detective fiction? If so, why? Do you go back to the tried and tested, as PD James suggests, so that you can find a certain moral playing field? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Operation Complete

I've paid the builder and he is officially finished. Thought you'd all like to see the office. Still haven't moved in yet. It needs a clean and a few little details finished (blue glass in those little windows in the door, etc) but I intend to move in very soon, maybe on the weekend. Yeeeeeee!!!!!