about

'We tell ourselves stories in order to live'  Joan Didion

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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, often it  is aspects of 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.

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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 South Africa, being an immigrant artist, and the relationship between Johannesburg, where I was born and Glasgow, my adopted city.

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current projects

 

  • ‘Her Blue Eye, Mine' -  A memoir exploring being adopted and growing up in apartheid South Africa

  • ​'States of Emergency' - Collection of  pieces set in South Africa, 1985-1990

  • MFA University of Glasgow - '1820' an exploration  of Scottish migration to the Eastern Cape

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workshops (details on blog)

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  • The Writer's Kitchen - Writing about food and memory

  • Memories into Memoir - Collaborative writing workshops in the Autumn to encourage writing from memory

 

awards

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  • 2019                      Fish Memoir Prize, shortlisted

  • 2015                      Scottish Book Trust Next Chapter Award shortlist​

  • 2007                      Scottish Arts Council New Writer’s Award

  • 2006                      Penguin Decibel Fiction Prize shortlist for ‘Meatloaf’

  • 1999                      First prize East Dunbartonshire Poetry Competition ‘Travel notes, going North'