Up the Gear to Wild Wonderful!

So I've been already getting very excited about going to London for the Caine activities. Travel plans are getting sorted. I've booked tickets for Mr K. The 11th of July, the day of the Caine Awards Ceremony, is also our 20th wedding anniversary, so I wanted us to be together. I already missed Valentine's Day when I went to London for the LSE talk in February, so I couldn't miss our anniversary too, especially such an important one.

So like I said, I was getting crazy excited about London and I completely forgot that I had applied for the Farafina Trust workshop in Lago Nigeria. And then I remembered all of a sudden because I got an email yesterday that I was among the 20 writers (out of 400) chosen to attend! How crazy is that! And luckily it doesn't clash with London. The workshop is from the 22nd June until the 2nd of July. I'll go straight from Lagos to London since the Caine things start 5 July. I come back to Botswana on the 15 July. Lots of travelling and wonderful literary things to feed my brain. I can't believe how lucky I am.

The Farafina Trust is a nonprofit organisation that promotes reading and writing and the literary arts. The workshop is run by Orange Prize winner Chimamanda Adichie. This year other teachers include Malaysian writer Tash Aw, American Faith Adiele and Kenyan Caine Prize winner and founder of Kwani! Binyavanga Wainaina, a real all-star cast. I'm so excited and I'm sure this workshop is going to help me to push my writing up a notch or two.

Botswana Civil Service Strike June 1st

Yes the strike is still on. Essential services workers (including nurses, doctors) were ordered to go back to work, they didn't and they've been fired, about 1500 of them. Schools re-opened yesterday and temporary teachers have been brought in, from where I don't know since now none of my children are in school, one is at university one waiting to hear about university. Also the government is taking a "no work- no pay" attitude so the striking civil servants received no pay this month. This is having a ripple effect through the entire country since most civil servants support many other people on their pay cheque. Businesses are suffering as well.

The unions dropped their demands from a 16% wage increase to 3% with the condition that workers be paid during the strike and essential workers that have been fired be re-hired. The government said no.

Meanwhile President Khama has sent his cabinet members out to the kgotlas around the country to try and get the government's position regarding the strike to the people. In most instances the ministers have met with near empty kgotlas or have been heckled. In Mahalapye yesterday Vice President Merafhe attempted to speak and people got up and left.

Today in Mogoditshane a similar thing happened. The workers then marched from there to Gaborone to the Civic Centre. As I write this (it is almost 7 pm) there are rumours that the workers are considering marching to State House. They've built a bonfire at the Princess Marina Circle, it's very cold tonight.

Despite propaganda being issued from the government the strike is weakening, it is getting stronger and because of the President's obstinacy and refusal to discuss the issue with the unions ( a position contrary to the Setswana culture of consultation) many are calling for him to resign. Opposition parties are capitalising on the situation. And still the government digs its heels in.

Pre-order Signed, Hopelessly in Love

My book, Signed, Hopelessly in Love (Tafelberg) will be out mid-July but you can pre-order at Amazon. Click here at UK Amazon or here at Amazon Japan or here at Loot where you can be notified when the book is ready. Loot has a lovely little write-up about the book too- "A wonderfully original and humorous story".

If you pre-order, let me know so I can set up a little shrine in your honour. Kidding.

Well kind of...:)

TJ Dema Interviews Me

Botswana's well known poet TJ Dema interviewed me on her blog about my recent shortlisting for the Caine Prize, my thoughts on writing in Botswana, and a few other things. You can read the entire interview at her blog, here is a small excerpt:

TJ: The short story that has been shortlisted for the Caine prize was published in South Africa by the independent publisher Modjaji what does that say, if anything, about publishers/publishing in Botswana? In other words why aren't local publishers crawling all over each other to publish a multi-award winning writer such as yourself?

LK: No – no one is crawling anywhere near me. When I was shortlisted I got emails of congratulations from only two of my book publishers (I currently have books published with five publishers, two are in Botswana) both are South African trade publishers. I don’t think publishers here give a hoot about any literary prizes because most of them are not book and writer lovers. It may sound bitter, but that’s how it appears.


TJ: What does it take for a (an African) writer to be noticed by a panel of international judges?

LK: I really don’t know. To be honest contests are subjective. I think you need to get the basics down and then it is really up to what that group of judges likes. I can give a perfect example. My story The Christmas Wedding which won the two prizes in the AngloPlatinum Short Story Contest was recently seriously bashed by a quite prominent South African editor. It’s just the parameters of this game. It’s subjective and you’ll never please everyone.

Thanks again TJ!

We're Here at the Right Time

There is a lot of doom and gloom in the publishing world now a days. The book is dead. "Real" writers can't make money, people are only buying books by celebrities. People don't read anymore. Bookstores are coming to an end. Writers are becoming obsolete.

I don't buy it. I also wonder who's spreading these rumours.

If anything, people are reading more than ever. In my house at any given moment you will find at least two out of the four people reading. Often it's online but it is still reading. Words that must be written by someone, a writer. Books are not dead, they may be changing form but they are certainly not dead. And as for writers, as far as I'm concerned this may be the best time in history to be a writer.

I spent Saturday doing research about ebooks and I became more and more hopeful. Unless you are a rock star writer, the traditional model of publishing has eroded to such an extent that it really does not look good for most of us. If you want your book to have any sort of success you need to know how to market , you need to know the business. Your publisher will require you to be an active part of the marketing team. On top of that, if the book doesn't sell to their expectations you'll be dropped. The traditional model is harsh and getting harsher. But the upside is that the traditional model of publishing is on it's way out. The power is shifting away from agents and big publishing houses and towards writers and smaller independent publishers. People are changing roles. Writers need to be marketers. Agents are becoming publishers. Booksellers are becoming publishers. Writers are also becoming publishers.

On Saturday, I read this article at Kristine Kathryn Rusch blog. Things are changing and they're changing fast. One thing I found hopeful is that you don't have to choose either or. You don't have to run from your traditional publishers and only self publish. Although I'm in the process of self publishing a collection of my short stories, I won't stop doing business with traditional publishers. It will depend on the book. I'm currently working on a book I hope to sell to a publisher that only publishes and distribute ebooks. I could self publish but in this instance, with this book I think this is a better way to go. The choices available to writers are myriad and the power is in our hands. It really is a great time to be a writer. We have all sorts of control over our careers, and we have endless choices of how we want to do things.

I'm going to embrace the change. I'm not fighting it any more. What about you?

Defining Ourselves

Being a full time writer, plodding away in my office in Mahalapye, I have no colleagues unless you consider Sgt Catman and Senor Ramon, my two cats, as people; I don't, they do. So when I need a break and want a bit of conversation, I go to Facebook where most of my friends are fellow writers. The last few weeks I've been having various discussions about the definitions we have for ourselves. It's easy for agents and publishers if we writers come to them in tidy boxes labelled accordingly but unfortunately many of us don't want to be confined within those four walls.

One contentious issue is the box called "African Writer". Because it often comes with a lot of accompanying baggage that includes said writer being able to discuss and have solutions for the continent's ills, many African writers prefer to climb out of that box. It also comes with the nasty business of your books being thrown into that dreaded African section. The stories you're "allowed" to write are often prescribed, as well. It's not a nice box to be in so people sometimes tread carefully around it. I don't mind the "African Writer" box but that could be because I have the leisure of choosing it rather than it being imposed on me.

Other confining boxes are "romance writer" or "sci-fi writer". And perhaps the most difficult to dodge "woman writer".

The problem with boxes is that they reduce a three dimensional writer to a one sentence tag line. The tag line sets down the rules before you walk into the room. It can even operate without you in many case since the box is often pre-furnished, you just step in and play the role.

These boxes are what sometimes cause writers to write under pseudonyms. I was asked when I had my first romance novella published if I'd like to have a pseudonym since the publisher knew I wrote a lot of other things too. I said no. I've likely made decisions which if I had an agent I might have been advised not to do, but part of why I said no to the romance pseudonym was that I hate boxes, I always have.

Why must I be this OR that? Why can't I be both? Why can't I write literary short stories, romance novellas and funny kids books? Why once I have a published romance I can't be taken seriously as a literary writer? I even dodge the description "author" as I find it is decorated with thin pretentious fringes I don't want rubbing on me.

I stick to "writer". It is my description of me. If push comes to shove I might say "Motswana writer" because my passport proclaims that as a fact. But after that most boxes I try my best to walk past. I think we all should be given the liberty to define ourselves.

Sad Days in Botswana

As I write this the civil service strike continues in the country. This means there is little to no education taking place. Hospitals are barely staffed and most clinics are closed. Government offices are nonfunctional. It has now become an indefinite strike.

Sadly our president has failed completely as a leader. Instead of leading his people according to Setswana culture, a culture based on consultation and compromise, on negotiation and respect he has chosen to dig in his heels. He is doing his best to create dangerous divisions between Batswana in the hope that he will find support among the poor and the unemployed, the very ones most affected by this strike. It is a path that could backfire on all of us.

Our national television station (BTV) has become a complete sham. In the initial days of the strike they produced propaganda reports posing as news stories saying all was fine. For them students were in the classrooms being taught and clinics and hospitals were fully operational. On the ground we could all see with our own eyes that this was a lie.

Since then President Khama has been shown on the BTV news/propaganda report speaking at the kgotla telling the gathering that he will not talk with the Unions and he doesn't care if the strike goes on for months or years. He went on to insult the strikers in Setswana, an insult that enraged many people and has pushed many people sitting on the fence regarding this issue firmly on the Unions' side.

Last night on BTV Minister of Education and Skills Development Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi went on the BTV news/propaganda report and told the nation that a letter had been found on the ground at one of the secondary schools (Lobsec) urging students to revolt against the government. She blamed this letter on the Unions. To me it sounded like a lame justification for the government to take sterner action against the strikers. I fear for the worse.

So far we've had no violence. Still, everyone is sitting on the edge of their chairs. We snatch up private papers in an attempt to find out what is really happening. We discuss each development on Facebook. All of us are upset. All of us are nervous for what might happen next.

My Thoughts on My Caine Short Listing

Last Thursday I received the news that my story "In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata" from The Bed Book of Short Stories published by Modjaji Books has been short listed for this year's Caine Prize. See the list HERE and read the stories.

When I first started writing seriously about seven years ago I remember not knowing anything about The Caine Prize. I suppose that's the case for most people who are not writers. I remember my friend and fellow writer, Wame Molefhe, explaining it all to me. She knew the importance of the Prize and I soon did as well. From then on we followed the Caine like others follow The Bold and the Beautiful. Each year we'd pour over the short list, reading the stories, discussing our favourites to win, and then be either happy or disappointed when the winner was finally announced. I'd meet Caine winners like Brian Chikwava and Henrietta Rose-Innes and be in awe of their talent. The Caine Prize was the goal held out there faraway in the distance and always at the back of my mind at least and I suspect Wame's as well was - "Some day I want to be there.".

And so last Thursday after a slightly disappointing day, having first been told two of my books had gone into second printing and I would be getting some royalties and then being told it was a computer mistake and feeling very down, I checked my email one last time before going into the house to cook lunch. And there it was. An email telling me I'd been short listed for the prize I'd always dreamed about.

So how do I feel? I'm writing this Monday afternoon after a frantic morning of congratulations from all sides after the official announcement. I feel a bit like a rock star. I know it will fade but for now I'm trying to just sit right in the middle of a big pile of happiness. I'm trying to remind myself how much I yearned for this very moment. I don't want to do what I usually do, tick it off as done and move on to number two. I don't want to think about the 11th of July (the awards day) and worry myself sick. I want to sit right here. Let time stop in my mind. Let me say for once without any reservation, without a single look behind my shoulder- I did this. I did this and it is an important thing.

This writing thing is such a crap shoot, keeping you always wondering if you're ever going to make it. Today you're fantastic, tomorrow you're a reject. But today, today I know I am a writer. I am a writer and I've done good.

The Cover of my New Book- Signed, Hopelessly in Love

Here is the cover of my soon to be published young adult book, Signed, Hopelessly in Love to be published by Tafelberg in South Africa. What do you think?

The book was initially called Aunt Lulu, the name it had when it was shortlisted for the last Sanlam Prize, and it had a different cover but the sales people found that it wasn't very popular so we changed the title and the cover. I like this cover MUCH better.

Below is the blurb I wrote, though it will still be edited a bit by Tafelberg, just to give you an idea what the book is about.



For Amo her future couldn’t have looked brighter. She’s on track to becoming a famous journalist for CNN, is best friends with the (future) first Motswana woman to go into space and , if everything goes according to plan, she’ll marry the fabulously handsome head boy, John Gababonwe… though he doesn’t know about it just yet.


Everything was right on track, that is, until she’s asked to run the agony aunt column, Aunt Lulu, for her school newspaper. Amo takes it as an insult. She’s a serious journalist! She’s written hard hitting pieces like-“Do Prefects get More Meat?” and “Is Writing Notes Harmful?”. One day she’ll be known all over the world for uncovering dangerous stories with her finely tuned investigative skills. She can’t be Aunt Lulu! It’s not journalism, it’s fluff -and Amo is definitely not about fluff.


But then an anonymous letter arrives from “Hopelessly in Love” and Amo is sure she knows who the fabulously handsome writer is and she is even more certain he is writing about HER! Suddenly everything looks different and, on second thought, Amo decides that this Aunt Lulu gig might not turn out so bad after all.


Never was she more wrong.

I'm Starting an Ebook

Lately I've felt a lot of frustration and vulnerability regarding some of my published books. Readers want them but they're not in stores and are unavailable online. When royalties are owed, the publisher can't take my phone calls. I have no control over anything. I'm at the mercy of the publisher. This is fine if the publisher is on your side, as many of my publishers are, but this is a nightmare when they are not. I can assure you it is not a situation anyone wants to be in.

Because of this I've decided to take a chance and self-publish an ebook of some of my short stories set in Botswana. Initially I was going to make a mixed collection of stories set here as well as elsewhere or even include some creative non-fiction, but a friend of mine who knows more about marketing ebooks than I do said I need to target my market more tightly so I'm sticking to my Botswana stories.

I'm doing it a slightly more expensive way. I'm hiring an ebook publisher in South Africa to put the book together in a few different formats. I know I could do this myself but I'm not sure it would be done as professionally as I would like. I'm also using the same person to design the book cover as they have professional book cover designers. I've also hired a professional editor to go through the manuscript.

But I will be doing all of the marketing myself, and that I'm sure will be a big, steep learning curve.

I'm not giving up publishing with traditional publishers, I just feel I want somewhere where I have more control over things, even if it is with only one book. Besides it really is time all writers get more active in the transformation of the industry or else we'll get left behind. This is my first step into the new publishing world. Let's hope it goes well!

Giving those Characters Depth

I love starting a new book and that's what I'm doing just now. I'm starting a new romance provisionally titled That Kiss in Egypt. But don't get the wrong idea about the goings on during my writers residency in Egypt last year- there was no kissing- the entire story is one that originated in my mind. But I am using my time there and my recent trip to London to assist with my setting. My main characters meet in El Gouna but live in London, I even have my main lady, Kendra, working at The Royal Opera House which was just opposite my hotel in London.

When I start a book I always start with character bibles and my plot map. I want to get my characters solidly in my mind before I start writing or it will lead to lengthy rewrites when they decide to become vegetarians half way through the book or they suddenly pull out their 10 year old son. I want to know these people before we spend the next months together.

Sometimes writing down who they are is not enough. This morning before I started writing I was thinking about my characters. I realised I knew my man, Asra, but Kendra was not clear. I couldn't see her. If she passed me on the street I might not even know her.

This is when I need to go searching. I look in magazines, sometimes on line to try and find Kendra. Sometimes she can't be found in one whole. Sometimes you need to see her bits and pieces in a few photos. And that's what happened to me this morning. So this is what I got, here is my Kendra. Now we can get on with things.

Don't Fight Piracy, Sort out Your Distribution

I read an interesting article about why spending money to stop ebook piracy is useless and a waste of resources. According to the article people who download books, movies or music illegally usually wouldn't do it if the supplier made the getting of such things easier.

"Common reasons are: convenience (in a file format of your choice to use on a device of your choice), speed (why wait for it to become available here if you can already get it elsewhere? It feels unfair, and more important: the consumer doesn’t want to wait) or availability (see the Harry Potter example, as mentioned on FutureBook two weeks ago)."

The author of the article,Timo Boezeman, makes the case that many of the real pirates out there were never going to buy the product legally anyway, so why waste your time on them.

So the answer to the bulk of piracy problems may be better service. Apparently at the London Book Fair some publisher tried to make a case that royalties on ebooks could not go up because publishers need to spend extra money to stop piracy.

What do you think about this?

Happy Easter Everyone!!

Enjoy your holiday, use the time wisely (interpreted NO WORK) -I may be reminding myself. This is the Easter cake I made for the Giant Teenagers, a bit wonky Easter Bunny-Man but he'll do the job!
Happy Easter Everyone! Keep safe.

Botswana's Civil Servants' Strike

Since Monday the civil service in Botswana, numbering over 90,000 employees, have been on strike. Despite raging inflation in the country, for three years civil servants have had no wage adjustment. Enough was enough. The unions asked for a 16% increase and our President, in a misguided move in a country founded on consultation, chose not to meet with them. He went on to criticise the government employees for asking for a wage increase during hard economic times. One wonders why during those same hard economic times he chose to refurbish the statehouse at extravagant expense and establish his pet project, the spy unit, DIS. Priorities I suppose is the only answer. Paying civil servants a respectable salary just is not on our President's list of priorities. The unions had no option but to call for a 10 day strike, from April 18-29.

So this week there has been little to no teaching, hospitals and clinics are operating on a skeletal staff, and even Botswana Television had to go without the nightly weather report because the meteorology folks had downed tools.

We're lucky to have a thriving private press for people who can still afford to buy the newspapers, because if you were left with the government media you would be under the impression that all was rosy in our country, that the strike was having no effect at all. Botswana Television (BTV) ran "news" stories that revealed yet again that the television station is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the ruling party. In the BTV world, the strike was barely happening. It was almost laughable if it wasn't for the fact that tax money is used to run the station.

The cost of living in Botswana is escalating on a daily basis. I feel for the civil servants who see that their pay check can buy less and less. At the same time the government is raising fees on such things as passports and introducing levies on things such as alcohol and tobacco, levies that economists have cautioned are money that can be misused by government, primarily the executive, as it is not controlled by Parliament.

A cautious, foreboding wind blows across Botswana. We look across our border at a sitting president who cares nothing about the suffering of his people, who will not listen to reason, who has destroyed his country's economy because of his arrogance, who controls state media with an iron fist and we Batswana feel sad for the poor Zimbabweans. We should look carefully at the state of our neighbour's house for it may describe the future of our own.

Read-a-thon Non-Sponsors: Botswana's Safari Companies

As the vice chair of the Writers Association of Botswana (WABO) I've been sitting on the Reading Association of Botswana (RAB)'s organising committee for the upcoming 7th Pan-African Reading Conference to take place from the 11-14th July this year at the University of Botswana. One task I was given was to organise a Read-a-Thon for students in Botswana to get them involved in the conference and to get them reading.

At the Cape Town Book Fair I listened to a woman speak about a reading contest in Ghana where the final prize was a trip to Disney World. Imagine! So I thought at the very least I could get the safari operators and tour businesses up north in the Okavango Delta to sponsor a trip for our winners.

If you don't know, Botswana has a low capacity tourism policy, this means that exclusive, high priced resorts are built so that fewer people can visit the Okavango Delta. What this means for citizens is the vast majority of them will never be able to afford to see the premier tourist attraction in their own country. A sad but true reality. So a trip like this for the most prolific readers would have been incredible.

At the end of last year I sent out emails to about 25 tourism companies including the biggest- Wilderness Safaris. I did follow-up calls and follow-up emails and not a single one offered anything. Not a room, not a flight in, not a tour. Just goes to show what they think about the country from which they earn their very hefty livelihood and the residents that live here. Was I angry about this? Damn right. Am I still? Same answer.

I was so discouraged by this, in fact, it took me quite some time to get my head back in the game afterwards. I decided fine; I would stick to the people I know, the people I understand.

I approached booksellers and newspapers. Businesses barely holding onto their ever dwindling profit margin but yet they stepped right up to the plate without hesitation.

The Voice Newspaper offered the advertising space to put the entry form for four insertions. Modjaji Books (South Africa), Pentagon Publishers and Botswana Book Project donated books. And there are still other publishers I'm sure are going to donate as well. Five Stars and a standing ovation for these companies that really care about the future of our kids!!

Instead of a trip to the Delta, the kids will get books and cash and a trip to Gaborone to receive their prizes at the Conference where 700 international delegates will be there to witness.

700 delegates that might have wanted to visit the Okavango Delta with a tour company that cared about reading, books, and the education of the children of this country. What a missed opportunity!

To be a Genius....

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
Albert Einstein

Thought we might need this one today. I know I do. :)

D.I.Y. Publishing

My South African writing friend Judy Croome is doing it for herself! She is self publishing her book Dancing in the Shadows as an ebook and she made her own book trailer. This is her first attempt at making a video and I for one think it is fabulous!It really gives me inspiration to try and do an ebook of my own, one of my New Year's resolutions that seems to be slipping from my grasp.

Take a look at it here.



Good luck with the book Judy! If this haunting trailer is anything to go by it is going to be great!

Writing Contest Rules

Anyone who has followed my career knows I love writing contests. I love them because they get my name out there. Wins in a world of rejection validates a writer, lets you know that you are doing something right. I've won prizes in all sorts of contests. I've won cash, the biggest prize so far has been R25,000 for one story. I once won a laptop, I even won a diamond necklace, all for my writing. So contests have been good to me and very important to my career. I'm grateful for each and every one.

What's the point of running writing contests for the organisers? They want to set standards by evaluating the writing and saying - "this is the best". What is good writing changes. A short story that might have won a writing contest 50 years ago wouldn't fare so well in a contest today because tastes of readers and writers change. Contests mark out the boundaries of those changes by choosing winners and saying this is the standard we are working for now.

This is why I find certain rules for contests odd. Just now I read on the website for the Golden Baobab Prize, a contest I have won twice, that past winners can no longer enter. This is also the case for our local Bessie Head Literature Award. If you've won in a certain category you cannot enter for five years. In a small country like Botswana with a handful of writers it seems a ludicrous rule that flies in the face of the purpose of a writing contest if indeed it is to award writing excellence.

The Golden Baobab Prize states as its vision: "to identify the African literary giants of the next generation and produce classic African stories that will be appreciated for years to come". Okay, that's a lofty, commendable objective but how do you do that when with each passing year you skim off the cream and throw it in the dustbin? The pool of writers becomes smaller and of poorer quality with each passing year. Your giants shrink.

The first year of this prize I won the junior category and was shortlisted for the senior category, the second year (last year) I won the senior category and was shortlisted in the junior category. It means now with the change in rules, I can no longer enter.

People can think I'm selfish and want to monopolise the prize, but that would be the wrong take on my position. In actual fact, I feel the opposite. If indeed we want the best African children's literature to originate from the Golden Baobab Prize, then everyone must be allowed to enter. I want to be beaten, then we know that the winners are truly the giants.

I was once told that a certain writer was "beyond the Caine Prize". If the Caine Prize is the measure for the best African short story writers, then if all short story writers cannot be considered then it is not a true measure, we are now lowering expectations, calling something excellent but only within a qualified ring.

I have no problem with prizes meant to develop writers. I do not try to enter contests meant for unpublished writers, for example. If the Golden Baobab Prize wants to be a prize to develop up and coming African children's writers, then let it be said, that too is a lofty vision. But if it wants to set the standard for excellence in children's writing on the continent, then I believe the organisers are doing the Prize a disservice.

So What's Up with Me?

Thought I'd do a quick round-up of what's been happening with me.

1. Aunt Lulu is quickly making her way to publication. I've had the edits from the editor and have seen the cover. Getting quite excited since it is my first time working with Tafelberg quite a large, well established South African publisher. I really like Aunt Lulu, I hadn't read it for awhile until I went over the edits. It is for teens and I think (hope) they'll find it quite funny. It's about a girl, Amogelang, who dreams of becoming a world famous journalist one day, who gets roped in by the editor of her school newspaper to write the agony aunt column, Aunt Lulu. Here's an excerpt:

“So,” Lorato continued, ignoring me completely, “I really need a responsible person doing the column, someone who knows the importance of discretion. Someone I can trust. Someone who can keep secrets. Someone who can empathise with these people and help them find solutions to their problems. And, of course, I thought of my most trusted reporter – you.”

All I heard was “most trusted reporter”. I couldn’t believe it! It matters a lot when someone you respect says something like that.

I’ll admit, looking back, I was then at her mercy. My head swelled up and that could have caused some sort of brain misfiring. That’s what I think, anyway. Even though I could smell danger in the air and thought running the Aunt Lulu column was really a demotion compared to the hard-hitting articles I had been doing, I could do nothing but say yes. My mouth, all by itself said, “I’d love to do the Aunt Lulu column, Lorato.”

And that was it. Looking back, that “yes” when I really meant “no” was where everything took a wrong turn. It was when my life began to unravel and it is what brought me to the place I am now – contemplating an early exit from school and a trip to Kurdistan. Years from now, when I have a shaved head and live on a barren, wind-pummelled mountain, eating dirt and stones to sustain myself and spending the bulk of my day sitting cross-legged humming OMMMMMM, I will look back at the manipulative way Lorato pulled me from a firm “NO” to a wishy-washy, slippery-sliding “yes”, and blame it all on that one wrong decision.

2. Mr Not Quite Good Enough, my third romance with Sapphire Press, is also getting itself ready to go out into the world. The date for publication is this August. I've had the edits and seen the beautiful cover. I got the idea for the book from the South African talk show host Noleen. She had some famous South African singletons on her show talking about dating and relationships. One of the men ask one of the famous actresses if she would date a petrol attendant. She tried her best to convince him that she would but no one believed her. I decided to write a book about a successful woman making that jump for love and dating the petrol attendant she has a connection with instead of the long line of rich, successful men she doesn't really care about.

3. Sapphire is getting a lot of buzz in the media. I was interviewed recently for this article.

4. Fellow writer, Uche Umez, has asked writers what the hardest part of the job is for them. Here is my answer. What's yours? What's the most difficult part of writing for you?

Excellent Customer Service from Transworld Publishers

I love owning books and I love Kate Atkinson. So imagine my disappointment when I finally purchase (in London) the two Kate Atkinson novels I've not read and when I get back to Botswana one of them falls apart.



So I dash off an email to Transworld Publishers, with photos, to show that their book has fallen apart. In a day I got an email back apologising for the problem. I was told I would get a replacement and could also pick an additional book. I chose Kate Atkinson's collection of short stories, Not the End of the World.

And in a few weeks look what has arrived!


Transworld Publishers gets five stars in my book for excellent customer service!!!