about
'We tell ourselves stories in order to live' Joan Didion
Writing from memory is both a joy and a source of great frustration.
Like all writers I am drawn to tell a story, in this case, it is my own story. I can’t say why this is the project that intrigues me, this idea of ‘living autobiography’ as Deborah Levy calls it. Why do I want to examine the past, hold it up to the scrutiny of language? What truth (and lies) do these stories reflect? That these memories are unreliable I have no doubt, but how to honour their fallibility while creating art in the most honest way possible?
Every writer has a voice and an individual writing fingerprint. There are themes that I return to often: being African and a woman, being adopted, growing up in apartheid in South Africa, being an immigrant artist and the relationship between Johannesburg, where I was born and Glasgow, my own adopted city.
I trust that there is something unique enough in my own experience to turn into a piece of writing that others would like to read.
current projects
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‘Her Blue Eye, Mine' - A memoir exploring being adopted and growing up in apartheid South Africa
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'States of Emergency' - Collection of pieces set in South Africa, 1985-1990
workshops (details on blog)
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The Writer's Kitchen - Writing about food and memory with a local chef
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Memories into Memoir - Collaborative writing workshops in the Autumn to encourage writing from memory
awards
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2019 Fish Memoir Prize, shortlisted
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2015 Scottish Book Trust Next Chapter Award shortlist
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2007 Scottish Arts Council New Writer’s Award
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2006 Penguin Decibel Fiction Prize shortlist for ‘Meatloaf’
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1999 First prize East Dunbartonshire Poetry Competition ‘Travel notes, going North'
