Send Your Work Out! Now!

When I was speaking about the publishing climate in Botswana and Southern Africa at the LSE in February, one of the questions I got from the audience was - what about people who just want to write for themselves and not submit anywhere? It seemed such an odd question to me that I struggled and in the end one of the people in the audience answered it for me.

I suppose writing for yourself has its purpose. I suppose it helps you to work things out, to figure out how you feel about things. But for me, to be a writer, to call yourself a writer, you must have readers. Perhaps my working class background dictates that work must equal pay. (It also means that pay must equal hard work, which is part of the reason I never seem to do things the easy way; but that is another blog post)

I know other writers might not agree with me, but I just think writers must submit. There is always the fear of rejection, but still you must submit. My cure to rejection angst is to have many things out there in Submissionland, so that one rejection doesn't sting too hard. As I write this I have:
1. Query for a book sent to two different publishers in India
2. A short story sent to a magazine in UK
3. A column sent to a magazine in UK
4. A romance novel sent to a publisher in USA
5. An adult novel sent to a publisher in UK
6. A young adult book sent to a contest in South Africa
7. A detective novella sent to a publisher in Nigeria
8. A short story sent to a publisher for an anthology in South Africa

Of course some of these I have more angst about than others. If a rejection arrives, I will feel sore for a bit without a doubt. But I know that's part of the game.

Submit! The worst that can happen is they say no. That's the worst, and it's not so terrible. Really. With a list like mine, I get lots of NOs, so I'm speaking from experience. I've been keeping a submission journal since 2005. One day I should work out my average, like a batter's average, of how many acceptances I get as opposed to rejections. It might be quite depressing. But it doesn't matter, eventually I do get some acceptances, and so will you.

Good luck!

And the Winner is......!!!!

This morning I put all of the names from the comments on the post below and on my Facebook page with links to my blog posts (in the notes) and I picked the winner of the free book.

The winner of the FREE, SIGNED copy of Mr Not Quite Good Enough is ...One Stoned Crow!!!
Congratulations!! I'll send it off to you straight away.

And thank you everyone who entered! Keep your eyes open because as soon as my author copies arrive of Signed, Hopelessly in Love I'll be giving a signed copy away.

The Virtual Author

I just read this article about virtual book clubs. Using video calling from Skype an author can hook up with a group of readers kilometres away. I think this is fabulous, especially for me living in Mahalapye Botswana. Our Skype connection right now is a bit slow for video anything, but everything to do with the internet is improving in Botswana and I hope soon such a thing could be a possibility for me.

I'm just now taking my first foray into a virtual book tour for my new YA book Signed Hopelessly in Love. My publisher, Tafelberg, in South Africa had never done such a thing before but decided to try it out with me. I'll only be visiting a few blogs, five in total. I'd be more than happy for any advice other authors who have done blog book tours might have for me. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll let you know when the schedule is in place.

Another Kind of Story

10 Feb, 2011: The Texas Movement (TM) made of freedom fighters has advanced on the east coast. They have demanded President Obama’s resignation. They claim he has violated their human rights these include bankrupting the country with foreign wars, racial profiling at borders and in airports, a judicial system stacked against people of colour. Other factions of the Movement feel their civil liberties are being violated by not allowing prayer in school, others want polygamy to be decriminalised, and yet others think Obama’s new health care system is communist. Though the group is small, less than two thousand, and fractured along ideological lines, they are committed and armed.

24 Feb, 2011: The TM has made gains throughout the western United States. They are in control of all areas west of the Mississippi. For the first time, Obama has sent in land troops after weeks of heavy bombing. The President still stubbornly clings to power despite the wishes of his people. The international community condemns him for brutal attacks on his own people.

3 March, 2011: Obama supporters around the country tape messages of themselves trying to explain what is really happening in their country and post them on YouTube. The international community dismisses them as Obama propaganda.

4 March, 2011: TM leader, Sarah Palin, asks for assistance from the international community. “Will you sit by while this brutal dictator slaughters his own people?” The Coalition of the Greedy (COGs) a collection of the most powerful and morally corrupt states steps up to help. Their leader, Dick Cheney ,tells the media in a briefing, “This is not about regime change. This is not about Texas oil. This is about saving the lives of innocent people.”

5 March, 2011: 500 bombs fall on strategic Obama strongholds throughout the eastern part of the country. COGs dismisses claims that innocent people were killed. The statement issued to the media said, “All causalities were Obama supporters and members of his armed, home based army.”

25 April, 2011: COGs and TM have made significant gains. Last night COGs jets flew over Washington DC. The White House was targeted and both the First Lady and Obama’s youngest daughter were killed. Both staunch supporters of Obama’s inhumane policies. Obama seems to be on the run. Rumours are he has been offered asylum in the United Kingdom and Japan. His oldest daughter, Malia Obama, spoke in support of her father on Al Jazeera. “He will not hand over the country to people who do not recognise the Constitution of the United States of America. He will fight until his last breath for the country he loves.”

13 June, 2011: The battle rages on. COGs has instituted more than 6000 bomb attacks. Rumours that Obama was hiding out in Hawaii led to overnight air strikes on the islands. Infrastructure on all islands was destroyed, more than 3500 people injured, 235 killed. Obama was not found.

15 July, 2011: COGs’ CEO Dick Cheney said, “We will not rest until there is regime change in the United States of America.”

22 August, 2011: Washington DC is surrounded and TM has taken control. Malia Obama, unofficial spokesperson for the Obama regime, is in custody and will be taken to appear before the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity. Obama is found in the bunker under the White House. It is yet to be ascertained who killed him, but he is dead.

11 November, 2011: All Texas oil wells are bought by COGs. The exact amount of the transaction remains undisclosed.

Why are Certain Writers Still Afraid of Ebooks?

I read this article titled "E-books Threaten Livelihoods of Aspiring Writers" and became quite annoyed. Booker winner Graham Swift is moaning about the fact that up and coming writers may not make enough money with ebooks so will leave writing altogether, leaving the world minus the stories these writers would have left behind.

I really wonder what world Mr Swift occupies because it has nothing to do with mine. Unless you're the top dog on the publishing mountain you probably don't make a livable wage now- anywhere in the world! And that's with paper books and the old system. Ebooks can ONLY be good for new writers. Their options have opened up. They can publish stories that would have been stopped by the gatekeepers of the past- traditional publishers and agents.

For African writers, ebooks are going to be the big equaliser. Right now our biggest problem is distribution. Our books just do not get off the continent and if they do they're relegated to the Africa section of the bookstore, the place no one ventures. With ebooks that will be a thing of the past.

Mr Swift needs to put his glasses on and take another look. In the past any story not deemed "marketable" never saw the light of day. If there was a time to worry about good stories not getting the chance to be told the time was then. The world of publishing is changing, and at least from my seat, for the better.

Win a Copy of Mr Not Quite Good Enough!!

My new romance published by Sapphire Press, Mr Not Quite Good Enough is now out!!
Here's the blurb:

Gorata Kwadiba has a plan. By the time she turns thirty in two years' time, she wants to have made her mark as a public relations officer, and to have married a successful man. Ozee certainly doesn't fit into her plans. However charismatic and handsome he is, Gorata can't get over the fact that he's a petrol attendant. She wants a man with drive and ambition. But Ozee is persistent and Gorata finally agrees to go on a date with him. It doesn't take long, though, for Gorata to realise that there's more to Ozee than his charm and good looks.

Do you want to win a free copy? Leave a comment below (deadline 30 August) and I'll put all of your names in a hat (well probably a bowl) and pick a winner.

Good Luck!!!

Embracing Self by Thandie Newton

"The cracks have started to show in our constructed world."

I'm Visiting Elaine's Blog!-"Lauri and The Caine"

Elaine Pillay kindly asked me to write about my experiences around my Caine Prize shortlisting. She's put up the post HERE.

And on other news, I suddenly realised I've been globetrotting for most of this year so am in a huge panic that I have written just about nothing. So I'm trying to keep my nose to the grindstone.

Good news- Signed, Hopelessly in Love , my YA book, is now out and can be bought at Book Depository HERE. I also have a new romance out with Sapphire/Kwela in South Africa called Mr Not Quite Good Enough. As I write this I'm waiting for the courier to arrive with my author copies. Read about it HERE.

Enjoy your weekend!!!

Strengthen Your Writing

(My blog is seriously taking a backseat to all of my other projects right now. So to keep you interested I'm re-posting one of my weekly columns I do for The Voice newspaper here in Botswana. Hope you enjoy!)

Everyone wants stronger more interesting writing. Today let’s look at some easy changes you can make that can begin to wake up a boring, tired story.

1. Get rid of adverbs and adjectives.
In English there are different parts of speech and each part has weight. Nouns and verbs are the heaviest, they have the most impact. This is because every sentence must have them. Adjective and adverbs have less weight. We use them to modify nouns (adjectives) and verbs (adverbs), but writing becomes stronger when we choose descriptive nouns and verbs and leave out the adjectives and adverbs. Here are two examples showing how adverbs and adjective can be removed to make the sentence stronger.

Her haunting, thoughtful eyes made him remember strongly his past love.
Her eyes haunted him, reminding him of his past love.

He was always hopeless and negative so people didn’t easily become his friends.
His hopelessness and negativity kept friends away.

This doesn’t mean you should rid your writing completely of adverbs and adjectives but make sure that you chose exciting, fresh modifiers or you use them in an interesting way. In the example below the unexpected use of brightly makes the sentence pop.
She watched them walk away through tear-filled eyes. “Enjoy yourselves,” she said brightly.

2. Get rid of qualifying modifiers.
A modifier like an adverb or an adjective is bad enough, but when you now add a word or group of words to qualify the modifier you’re weakening your writing even further. Look at the example below:

She was very unforgettable.
She was unforgettable.

That date is a bit noteworthy.
That date is noteworthy.

3. Be careful with the Be Verbs
We all know the be verbs, and there is no way a writer can toss all of them to the wind, but too heavy a reliance on these little verbs make your writing weak. Look at this example:

Elephants that are disturbed by people often become vicious.
Elephants disturbed by people often become vicious.

4. Use Active Voice
Active voice is when the subject of the sentence is the one performing the action. In a passive sentence, the subject of the sentence is being acted on and it makes for complicated and less energized writing. Look at the example:

The ball was thrown by Dineo. (passive)
Dineo threw the ball. (active)

5. Vary Sentence Length and Structure
If your entire story uses only compound sentences it will be very boring for the reader. And you shouldn’t think that using simple short sentences will mean your story is simple and uninteresting. Often it will mean the opposite. Look at this passage:

Mpho stopped at the lights and looked at the man in the car next to her. She knew him. She’d seen him many times before. When he turned, she quickly looked the other way. What was she afraid of? Herself. She knew herself too well. A man like that was the exact wrong sort for a woman like her. Not that it would stop her.

The passage is interesting because different types and lengths of sentences are used. And what happens when the writer uses the short, snappy sentences with the element of repetition? The suspense builds. If you have too many short sentences the reading becomes choppy, but the right amount helps to build tension and speeds things up.

6. Remove Clichés
I think most of us know common clichés, phrases such as: right as rain, everyday life, winds of change, bright and early. These are easy to spot and need to be removed and replaced with something more interesting. But other clichés can be found in lazy writing. I’ve been working through some edits for an upcoming book and the editor pointed out how many times I used almond eyes. This is a cliché too. A reader just passes over it, and because it is overused, it adds nothing to the excitement of your writing. Keep a keen eye out for those sorts of clichés too.

Blogging to Get Readers for your Books-Does it Work?

I read an article I found through Twitter on my iPhone and can't seem to find it again, in which the writer made a very good point. She said that most fiction writers are under the impression that by keeping a blog we are building up our "platform" and increasing the number of people that will buy our books. She said that in fact this was wrong. Most writers, myself included, write blogs about writing and our writing life. And for most of us our readers are other writers, not necessarily the people we would expect to buy our books. We're actually doing this entire thing wrong.

Most of my books are for kids and young adults and very few kids or young adults probably read this blog. So I can't continue to think that blogging will increase the readership of my books. This is not to say blogging has not helped me as a writer, it has. I've met an important community of writers from all over the world. I get quite a few people contacting me about various things because of my blog. I still see this blog as an important part of my online presence but I need to readjust my thoughts about it as a way to market my books.

I wonder what other people think. Do you think it is important to be very clear about your readership and build up a web presence that caters to those readers? In my case, should I work on a blog for teens in Southern Africa? Do you think blogging helps to sell your books? I'd be interested to hear.

A Successful National Read-a-Thon!!

Unfortunately I was away so could not attend the award ceremony on the 11 July for the National Read-a-Thon but the task was dutifully executed by the general secretary of WABO, Wame Molefhe. Despite the national strike that included teachers, we received lots of entries. What was wonderful too was that the winners came from all around the country not just Gaborone.

I was especially pleased to see primary school winners from Malaka, a village I came to love when we stayed in Lecheng. It's also the home village of my fictional character, Detective Kate Gomolemo.

The other wonderful thing was that all three of the students who won for secondary school (tied for first place) came from Diratsame CJSS in Moshupa, the same school that was represented at last year's Bessie Head Awards when three of their students attended with the school head and read their poetry during the open mike session. I think it is fantastic how the school is promoting the literary arts. Just goes to show how powerful an inspired teacher can be. Ten points for the administration and staff at Diratsame Junior Secondary School!

The winners were:

The secondary school winners were all from Diratsame Community Junior Secondary School and there was a three-way tie for first place, all having read 32 books.
Bone Ngope
Itseng Montle
Ontiretse Mosweu

For primary school, the winners were:
Kitso Okuketseng from Malaka Primary School-80 books
Ame Seitshiro from Malaka Primary School-71 books
Kgosi Monametsi from Raserura Primary School- 70 books

WABO has decided to make the Read-a-Thon an annual event and is in the process of writing a proposal for funding. We were really excited about the response and believe that getting our kids reading is an important endeavour.

NoVoilet Bulawayo Wins this year's Caine Prize!!

I know this news is late and I have been a terrible blogger but I am home and will try to make amends.

Yes, for those not in the loop, Zimbabwean writer, NoVoilet Bulawayo, was the winner this year. Of the people on the shortlist, she was the only one I knew before getting to London. We met through blogging and Facebook and were internet friends. I am very happy for her and I think of all of us on the shortlist she will be able to get the most from this prize. She currently teaches at Cornell and is just starting out on her writing journey. She has a unique, fresh voice, a brilliant mind and I'm very excited to see how she grows in her writing. I have a feeling she is destined for great things. Watch out world!

Where do I start in writing about my last few weeks. I'm still in pieces really, not quite myself. It will be weeks, likely months before I see what my time in Lagos and then London has done to me. But there a few facts that I can state for sure and certain.

1. Mr K and I had a fabulous, never-to-be-forgotten, 20th wedding anniversary, ending with a lovely dinner at Bodleian Library in Oxford. Who on this planet can say they celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary on top of (to the side of, next to, in the vicinity of) every book ever written in the English language? We can!!

2. I met so many wonderful people. Some will definitely be pivotal in my writing career. Some will inspire me to be a better writer, and others I know for sure will become life-long friends. Where everyone will fall is yet to be realised.

3. The Lauri Kubuitsile who left Botswana about a month ago is not the one who returned two days ago. Molecules have shifted. Thoughts have changed course. Eyes have been re-focused. I'm looking forward to what this new person will get up to. I feel a bit like I don't have enough of my life left to do all the new things I want to. I hope this is not the case.

For now, that's all I've got. I'll try my best to get my thoughts sorted and more specific during the next few days.

Lagos to London

I must apologise to my blog readers for not keeping you posted about all of the wonderful things going on. The problem is I'm busy being part of the wonderful things so have found if difficult to post.

Leaving Lagos and all of my new friends there was difficult. The Farafina event on Saturday night was amazing. I think I've never before met such a person as Chimamanda Adichie. She is brilliant and talented, this I think we all know, but much more than that she really cares that others follow her on the path she has laid. She said such wonderful things about all of us in the group that night when we came up for our awards. I was so touched by what she said about me. I know, even at this short distance, that the Farafina Trust Workshop will end up being one of the most important things to happen to me and my writing.

At the event I met another one of the One Worlders (the group of international writers who put together the short story collection One World) , Jude Dibia. He's lovely. Beautiful and calm and humble. I'd already had two incredible evenings with Molara Wood who came to our hotel in Lekki. Extra gifts to add to the bounty I've been receiving.

And now I write this in London, the second leg of this incredible trip. It was a stunning day weatherwise yesterday even through my overnight flight dead tired eyes. Today I will hopefully meet NoVoilet, an internet friend who is also on the Caine list. Mr K arrives this evening, likely dead tired after a long trip to London through Joburg and Dubai. And then all of the Caine things will begin.

If you're interested, here is the podcast of the BBC interview I did a few weeks ago. They're interviewing all of the Caine shortlistees. My bit on this one is just after the middle.
Okay off to get ready for day 2 in London.

Greetings from Lagos!!

I'm in Lagos Nigeria at the Farafina Trust Workshop. Though I'm a writer, I can't quite find the right words to use to describe how great this workshop is. Our teacher/goddess is Chimamanda Adichie. I've joined her cult. She is amazing in so many ways- beautiful, humble, generous, laser intelligent, fantastic teacher and very, very funny. I'm having a series of epiphanies about my writing that started with the reading of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao a couple weeks ago and being reinforced by what I'm learning here. I know the writer me that returns to Botswana in a few weeks will be different from the one that left six days ago (is it only six days?), I suspect the person me won't be the same either.

The other amazing part of this workshop is the talented, interesting participants. This morning for one of our writing exercises I wrote the small passage below:

She speaks of fingering and blow jobs and I think of differences. If I think back some weeks ago when I sat in my wintry office in Botswana and got the news I would be going to Lagos, to Nigeria, it seems a mental year ago. I try to remember what I thought Nigerians would be like. Religious- ala Prophet Joshua. Loud. Patriarchal. Conservative. And, oddly, in my mind everyone wore green like their flag and their football team. I wasn’t sure it would be easy for me to find friends here, people I’d have anything in common with. In any case, it was all about the writing, I told myself. I was going to Nigeria to learn how to write properly and that was all that mattered.

And the beautiful, sexy but somehow still innocent Buchi speaks about anal sex and nipple touching and I think about difference and actually, maybe more than that, similarities. Nigerians, I find, are very liberal, more than most Batswana, and free to speak about anything, and everything. In five days I’ve had conversations about sex and HIV/AIDS, the obsoleteness of the male species, discussions about politics and the adrenaline rush of being part of a mad mob. Crazy, free conversations like those I have at home with my husband and kids and friends. I expected to find strangeness here, but I was wrong, and the hope that has given me, may end up being the most valuable thing I take home.

Last Night's Lunar Eclipse of my Mind

Last night I braved the cold to watch the show put on by the cosmos. Excuse the photo, it was taken with my iPhone. I knew it wouldn't be any good, I just wanted a record that I was there.

For me the most interesting part was seeing the shadow of earth on the surface of the moon. I was, in a different life, a science teacher and I understand (at least in a certain part of my mind) that we live on one of the planets in our solar system. We have one sun and one moon. I understand how those bodies move around. But something shifted in me when I saw the shadow of the edge of our planet up there on the moon. Suddenly I understood where I was. The reflection of our planet so far away up there gave me insight into this home of ours. Suddenly the ground on which I stood meant the same thing as the planet called earth. Seems simple and straight forward but until last night I didn't really get that.

I wondered last night if maybe that is what we all need to get true insight about ourselves, to see our reflection on someone or something else. We may think we know a lot of things about ourselves, but maybe we only know them to a limited extent. Perhaps the true definition and understanding of ourselves cannot be found within us, it must be found somewhere out there.

In Setswana culture there is something called botho. Botho is a term used to describe a mature, polite Motswana. A person who shows respect to others, who is disciplined, well mannered and courteous . You gain botho through your interactions with others. Perhaps botho is a bit like the shadow of earth on the moon.

Coming from a family with mental illness, I've never quite trusted the inside of my head. Sometimes I think that may be why I write. I trust words on the page. So if I get the words out of my untrustworthy mind and on the trustworthy page I can see what they mean, what I mean. Maybe that's a bit of the shadow on the moon too.

Perhaps I'm rambling. Just my thoughts after last night. What did you think about the eclipse and our shadow way up there?

The Grass Suffers When The Elephants Fight

And so with one announcement from the unions, the strike is over. At the end of last week, things got scary with people in Gaborone breaking windows of shops and public buildings. The unions felt things were getting out of hand and called for the strike to end and for the civil servants to go back to work this past Monday. They got none of their demands.

In the meanwhile, workers lost almost two months pay. Essential workers who were striking were dismissed. They've been told they can re-apply for their jobs, but it is not clear if they will be re-hired at the same place they left or will be considered new workers.

The cost to the public of this strike is hard to know but likely huge.

And what about the fighters? President Khama wins. He has pushed the labour movement in this country back to the dark ages. A place where his rich friends in and outside of the country will be pleased to find it. If reports in the private media are to be believed, the IMF had been advising him not to give in to the unions' demands. No surprise there.

The union leaders? They still have their jobs, never lost a thebe of their salary. Hopefully they learned a lesson about hubris. They got excited by the support they had during the first ten days of the strike, and, without planning for the outcomes, extended it indefinitely, to their detriment. One can wonder which worker will put their faith in them again?

In the end, like always, the ones most unable to withstand the pain, must be the ones that bear it completely.

Who's in the Driver's Seat? Authors!

Yep, that's the truth. For us writers here in Botswana it may not seem that way, but worldwide publishers are accepting what they thought worked no longer does and that the sinking or the swimming of any given title is back in the hands of the author.

The author must organise their own readers, their own platform. And as Jane Friedman said in a recent interview, if you start doing that once the books is published it is too late. It will be seen as an insincere marketing tool and will fall flat. You need to build up relationships with your readers over a long period of time.

Publishers are scrambling now to see where they fit in the new publishing world. This excellent article asks what most of us have already asked ourselves:

And that’s why more authors are asking: If publishers don’t know what they’re doing and rely on the author to sell their own books, why should authors endure the long, frustrating, seemingly impossible job of finding a literary agent and selling your book to a commercial book publisher?

I'm not saying everyone should self publish, what I am saying is that we have all sorts of choices. The choices we make are not set in stone. You can publish one book with a traditional publisher, the next you can self-publish.

But don't be deceived into thinking every thing is now an easy walk in the park- it's not. No matter which path you choose, the success you get will be almost directly equal to the work you put in.

There are no rules and you are in the driver's seat. The only problem is that most writers are still stuck thinking they're sitting in the back seat being driven by their publisher to a destination only the publisher knows. It's time for a mental shift.

Cyber Friends

Today on Facebook someone spoke about a friend they'd met on the internet. The friend had been very encouraging and when this person had some news, he'd sent this friend an email only to get an email back from the friend's wife saying he'd died in a car accident a few days before. The man was shaken by this, by the death of his friend who he'd never actually met. It got me thinking about cyber friends.

I've had a few cyber friends who just vanished. When I first got internet and started being serious about my writing a met a man at Writers Weekly who became my friend. He was also just starting out as a writer and we started communicating. He was very helpful and I relied on him for advice on many things about writing. But then suddenly he disappeared. I never found out what happened to him, though I often think about it.

Some think cyber friendships can't be as important as flesh and blood ones, but I'm not sure about that. I have quite a few cyber friends who I care about. Some I've gone on to meet in person like Colleen Higgs, Tania Hershman, Vanessa Gebbie, Sue Guiney, Fiona Snyckers, and there are many others. Because of my isolation from other writers, the internet is where I find other writers to discuss this business with. Those discussions are very important to me.

I suppose there are people who show a completely false side of themselves on the internet. I've not had much experience with that, but I've heard the stories. Mostly I've met bright, interesting engaged people, the sort of people I would seek out in my flesh and blood life. My life is fuller thanks to my cyber friends, and I'm grateful for that.

What do you think? Are your cyber friends as important as your flesh and blood ones?

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.