#WriteTips: The 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize Winners.

Cat Hellisen 

- Don't be afraid to push yourself beyond your comfort zone when it comes to writing.

- Write for yourself; edit for your readers.

- Work the way that works for you, not the way Random Experts tell you is the One True Way.

- It's okay to not be a writer and have a real life.

 

Alex Latimer

- Take a writing course or find someone to mentor you. It’ll save you a lot of time.

Mark Winkler

-  Plan. You’d be crazy to set out on a marathon without knowledge of the route, or how long it’s going to be. You simply can’t sit down and try to channel your inner Hemingway without the vaguest notion of where you’re heading.

- Then, write with your writing glasses on (these could glitter-rimmed, or a pilot’s goggles, a spy’s Ray-Bans, or a psychopath’s binoculars). Write from beginning to end without concern for typos, loose ends, ugly sentences, laughable dialogue, or word count. If you get stuck, it’s only because you took a wrong decision somewhere. Backtrack until you find it, refer to your plan, fix it, and then fix your writing.

- When you think you’re done, rewrite the whole thing – three, five, a dozen times.

- Once you feel you have a reasonably coherent manuscript in your hands, walk away from it. The longer the piece, the longer you should let it rest – it’s the only way to develop any semblance of objectivity.

- When you return to it, put on your editing glasses (sensible, horn-rimmed, thick-lensed). Tighten screws, polish surfaces, iron out lumps, and bin anything that doesn’t build on what you’re trying to achieve.

- Once you get to work with an editor, remember that they’re only trying to make your work better. Listen, debate, discuss – and learn to roll over when necessary.

'...America almost feels to me like a genre in itself.' An Interview with Frank Owen.

Rivalry is rife in writing. Famous battles have included Ernest Hemingway vs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gabriel Garcia Marquez vs. Mario Vargas Llosa and Charlotte Brontë vs. Jane Austen. So were interested to find out how two great writers, Diane Awerbuck and Alex Latimer succeeded in writing South, such a fine novel, without so much as a punch or broken nib. Here's the first part of our interview of the two-headed writer - Frank Owen.

How did the decision to write a novel together come about?

ALEX: Writing my first novel was really difficult – mostly because it was such an isolating experience. I spent a year in my own head. I wanted to find a way of making the process of writing my second novel more fun and more interactive and so when I met Diane through my book launch, this co-writing idea came up. We co-wrote a short story for FunDza as a trial run, to see if it could work – and then we began on South.

So who the fuck is Frank Owen? Tell us as if he were a character in a novel.

ALEX: Frank Owen used to work at the Post Office. He’s almost sixty now. He used to see lots of people everyday. He saw them licking stamps and sending their virus-laden saliva across the country, mostly to distant loved ones. It got him thinking about viruses in America and he began researching how long contagions could live between a stamp and an envelope. That was the kernel that sparked South. Frank’s biggest secret is that he was born in Canada.

Frank Owen's prose style is cohesive, although your individual writing styles are quite different. Talk a bit about the process of writing together please?

ALEX: The key for us is to understand our roles. I’m the plot guy and Diane is the style and voice guy. Of course there’s always cross-over, but it’s helpful to know who’s in charge of what. I’d occasionally tell Diane that some action in the book absolutely needed to happen and when she wanted to know why, I couldn’t say exactly. There’s a lot of trust involved.

South is set in an intriguing alternate history to America. The North and South remain divided, with the North separating itself from the South, much like the USA separates itself from Mexico. What inspired the setting?

ALEX: South, and the follow-up novel – North, deal with the idea of segregation in society. With segregation being the first step toward depersonalising brutality. As South Africans born during Apartheid we’re obviously not unfamiliar with the realities of that. Setting the story in America sheds a different light on the topic. An interesting light, I hope.

Both historical and fantasy novels require intense levels of research as world building plays an integral part in the suspension of a reader's disbelief. You've created a mash-up with South: part cowboy flick, part apocalypse fable, and then given yourself the added task of writing an alternate history for a country that isn't your home. No easy task.  Let's talk about research: how much? what kind? where? how?

ALEX: Diane and I spoke about this a lot. There was a sense of fraudulence about writing a book set in a place neither of us had spent any meaningful time in. But weirdly, when we started writing South, America didn’t feel like a foreign setting. As a white South African, I grew up on a relentless diet of American culture through film, literature and marketing  – so much so that America almost feels to me like a genre in itself. I probably know America better than I know South Africa in some senses. So with that intense cultural colonisation, a bit of Google Earth (Street View is amazing) and some intense internetting – the whole thing came together.

And then you sell it internationally. Are you afraid of your American audience?

ALEX: Not afraid. Intrigued by what their response will be. The world of South is deliberately different from real America.

Did you watch cowboy movies as a child? If yes, what were your favourites?

ALEX: I came late to cowboy movies – but I certainly watched a few classics while writing South - Once Upon a Time in the West, The Searchers. But I also discovered Reel Injun, a documentary about how Native Americans were and still are portrayed in cowboy films – and the devastating effects of that portrayal. It’s the other side of the cowboy story. If cowboy films are North, then Reel Injun is South.

Serious question. South African writers are looking for readers in other markets, choosing to write stories that have little connection to South Africa or the current South African narrative. If we're being totally honest, we're talking white South Africans. Do you think there is no home market for white writers anymore?

ALEX: I’m not sure there’s been much of a market in South Africa for a while. When I first started meeting local writers I asked each of them the same question, “Why do you do it?” Because I know it’s not about the money – there’s hardly any. And there’s not a whole heap of fame going around either. My basic conclusion was that most local writers suffer from a compulsion to write. Setting the odd novel overseas in order to support their habit is not a sin and it’s not unpatriotic. It’s simply a means for writers to keep writing.

If I was a literary tourist and you were my guide, where would you direct me to find the best writing in South Africa right now?

ALEX: Claire Robertson, Kgebetli Moele, Ivan Vladislavic

On Alex's Bedside Table

The Shining and White Fang. And Ramona the Pest which I've been reading to my daughter.

Alex Latimer writes and illustrates children’s picture books, which have been published and translated around the world. His third book, Lion vs Rabbit won the Hampshire Picture Book Award and was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal. In 2013 he published his debut novel, The Space Race. Lauren Beukes called it ‘witty with twisted charm and a whole lot of action.’ Last year, Alex wrote the prize-winning short story ‘A Fierce Symmetry’ for the continent-wide competition run by Short Story Day Africa in 2016. Find him at http://www.alexlatimer.co.za.

See Frank Owen at Kalk Bay Books on the 11th of August or at The Book Lounge on 17th August for the launch of South. Claire Robertson will be in conversation with Frank. If you want come along only because you're a fan of Claire Robertson, that's okay too.

Interview by Rachel Zadok a.k.a @rachelzadok

"I write fiction of the fantastical." An Interview with Cat Hellisen.

Cat Hellisen won the 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize with her story, "The Worme Bridge". Her latest novel, Beastkeeper, a fairy tale for the loveless, has received high praise in the mainstream media and on the blogosphere, and has just been released in paperback. 

Rachel: Congratulations on winning the 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize. Mary Watson, Billy Kahora and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, our judging panel, were unanimous in selecting “The Worme Bridge” as the winner.

All three are well-respected literary-writers who have shortlisted or won The Caine Prize for African Writing. You yourself received a letter from last year’s Caine Prize chair commending your story, "Mouse Teeth", published in Terra Incognita. It was also praised in  a review of the anthology in the L.A. Review of Books. You’re basically getting big kudos from the so-called “literary" community. Do you think the barriers between genre fiction and literary fiction are breaking down? Should these categories even exist or are they harming literature, and by literature I mean all writing, irrespective of category?

CAT:  Thank you!  As you know, when you're a writer you cling to these moments where people say nice things about your art because a lot of the time it can feel like screaming into the void, so hearing that the decision was unanimous gave me extra incentive to put down the gin & arsenic bespoke cocktail (I call it Writer's Tears, and it tastes like suffering through bad acting)  and pick up the old fountain pen and parchment. (Actually, it made me open up a new document on my laptop but writers are professional liars for a reason.)

On to the "literary" debate. I come from a solid genre background, both as a reader and a writer. And sometimes writers like me feel that other writers, and some readers, assume that genre is lesser, stupider and whatever other ers you care to think of. It's reductive and insular, and cuts readers off from a wealth of amazing fiction lurking on those SFF and Horror shelves in their local bookstore, and it denies writers a potential audience.

I write stories of the fantastical. That's my jam, baby. It's what makes me happy. If people decide my work has literary value, that's all well and good, but in the end, I write stories. I make shit up. That's what I do. I like weird things, I like the bones and blood of fantasy - dragons and vampires and ghosts and elves and other worlds and journeys to the stars. I'm never going to stop writing about those things in order to chase down the readers and writers who will only take me seriously if I write about the things they deem "proper writing."

And that's good. Writers writing what makes them happy allows for the artificial and manufactured boundaries of "literary" and fantasy to be blurred. Our first stories were about gods and monsters and heroes. We will always go back to them.

Tiah: So is it really that much of a stretch to say, "I'm a writer of literary speculative fiction"?  What is keeping you from owning it? Imposter syndrome? A stance on what makes fiction literary? 

CAT: Eh. Not imposter syndrome at all. I know what I write. I know what I love. My work is neither mainstream genre, nor LitSpec (or whatever made-up name we'll use today.) On both sides of the Fantasy/Literary divide there are readers who believe (or want to believe) that all fantasy is Elves and Farm Boy Heroes and Evil Dragons and Dark Lords, and certainly, if you come to my work looking for those things you will find them, just perhaps not in the way you want or expect. That's what I mean by saying I'm neither one nor the other.

If you go look at what is happening in the small SpecFic presses like Small Beer or Chizine or Apex, you'll get a much better idea of where I might fit in one day. My favourite books tend to come from these smaller presses, mainly because the current trend in Fantasy at the big presses seems to be strongly Grimdark and epic-heavy and seven-million-in-a-series books, and I'm just not overly interested. I'm far more invested in the stories that fall between cracks because they're the wrong shape—writers like Kathe Koja, Beth Bernobich, Karen Lord, Kelly Link, Greer Gilman, Kari Sperring, Claude Lalumiere... and so on. Sadly, you don't see much of their work in South African book stores.

When forced to pigeonhole myself, I tell people I write fiction of the fantastical.

Tiah: "Serein"  the original story you wrote for Water didn't meet SSDA's submission's guidelines for length, so you sold it Shimmer. You then penned "The Worme Bridge" which took the coveted $1000 (R10 000) prize. What was it like trying to write a second entry after you'd already invested so much energy into "Serein"? Did you consider quitting after it fell short of our entry rules? Or are you one of those people with a multitude of stories whirling around in your head?

CAT: "Serein" came about because I find the non-endings of the stories of vanishing people, people who go missing intentionally, so delightfully and horrifyingly fascinating. After I was done, and realised that it was too short for SSDA, I sent it off to Shimmer because that's what you do - never stop submitting stories. I needed something new for SSDA but I wasn't too stressed because water is a pretty open-ended theme and I think it's clear from my fiction that I am obsessed with people who live in the liminal zones of human community. And water is a perfect metaphor for that—it's even in the clichéd phrase, "a fish out of water". Which is essentially what "The Worme Bridge" is about. Once I started playing with that and I had the voice of the character in my head, the initial draft came out very quickly.

Read "The Worme Bridge" on Books Live this Friday.  

Detail from the cover of Beastkeeper, paperback edition.

Tiah: You have two self-published novels, Charm and House of Sands and Secrets, the sequel to When the Sea is Rising Red. Later, you serialised Charm on your blog and are now in the process of doing the same with House of Sands and Secrets. What have you taken away from both self-publishing and serialising your work?

CAT: Mostly that if you think it's hard for your book to be noticed in a book store, imagine how much worse it is outside the book store, huddled in the cold with all the other self-published books, and where everyone assumes your work is self-published because you're illiterate and stupid.

Having said that, I believe there are genres where self-pub work does very well—especially erotica and romance, but for SFF, I think the general view of readers is "Well, it must be a load of rubbish if a real publisher didn't want it." Which rather sadly doesn't take into account how narrow mainstream SFF publishing is, and how hard it is to find a place for more niche work.

Serialising is weird. I do it because I can. The books are already finished and edited, and I don't have to deal with the horror of writing and posting without knowing how the story works or ends. I do it as a gift to those readers who have supported me. If you go into it thinking, "Ooh I bet this is how I get noticed by a Big NY editor and get a 12 book deal!" then you're heading down Disappointment Alley into Pointless Rage cul-de-sac.

Tiah: Last year, you challenged yourself to write one story a month. How did that experiment go? What have you taken away from the challenge?

CAT: Oh, well, yes. Hmm.

On one hand, I most definitely failed as I think I ran out of steam somewhere in August last year. On the other, I wrote short fiction, and some of it was even good, and a smaller percentage of that got published by really great magazines or anthologies. I used WATER as one of my monthly prompts and that got me two short stories in one month, both of which sold to excellent venues. So overall we're going with Massive Win on that challenge.

Tiah: You illustrated SSDA's anthology of children's writing, Rapunzel is Dead. Since then, you have dedicated more time to your art ­ – from taking part in InkTober to painting. Have you toyed with the idea of combining your talents? A graphic novel, perhaps?

CAT: I have actually sat down before to start scripting a graphic novel before I realised how much work that would be and how far from ready my artistic talents are. A few doodles here and there are not going to cut it when it comes to an entire graphic novel.

I have one particular novel that I would love to produce as a mixed media art piece—a novel with illustrations, paintings, links to songs, chapters done as sequential art. That would be glorious. But I also have no idea where to begin on a project like that. And of course, the usual fear of being utterly awful.

Rachel: Tell us what’s happening on the ground in your writing community, i.e. Cape Town’s SpecFic scene.

CAT:  "Your community" makes it sound like I run it....  I do. I have a throne made out of the skulls of fallen literary writers. Roving packs of SpecFic writers under my command go out to book launches at The Book Lounge, and when our prey is drunk (The Kimberley is a great hunting ground) and vulnerable we lure them into our unmarked van with promises of good reviews, then we eat them alive.

Wait, none of that is true. I promise.

There are loads of writers in Cape Town and Joburg writing speculative fiction of all stripes. The SpecFic community tends to be quite close because we often end up feeling a bit "us against the world" in the South African writing scene, where many publishers close doors to genre and YA fiction. Which is why it's wonderful that anthologies like Short Story Day Africa have embraced us and invited us in. When so often it can feel as though the Welcome Mat is yanked up the moment SA publishing hears the words "fantasy" or "science fiction", making it clear to us that we are welcome is actually a far bigger thing to our community than you may realise.

SA genre writers often go to overseas markets to find their publishing niche, so we work together to beta-read rough work, give editorial feedback, and let others know of new markets or open anthologies. Because of the tendency to head overseas, quite often their names don't get bandied about on the local scene, unfortunately: writers like Nerine Dorman, who has been a stalwart of the Cape Town genre scene, even creating a speculative fiction writer's group that meets once a month (Adamastor Writer's Guild) is one. There are a host of writers slowly making names for themselves: Dave de Burgh, Angela Meadon, and Abigail Godsell spring to mind, but the SpecFic community is vast and writers like Diane Awerbuck, Alex Latimer, and yourself [Rachel Zadok] are also part of it, as far as I see it.

SpecFic is a very wide parasol and we're happy to share our shade with those happy to play on our beach.

We make the best sandcastles though, sorry.

On Cat's Bedside Table

I've been reading a lot of Sherlock fanfic. Especially really filthy ones with Moriarty and Sherlock.  Having said that, I've just started Iain S. Thomas's Intentional Dissonance and it's pretty nifty. Sadly lacking in Sherlock but one can't have everything.

Photo credits Nerine and Thomas Dorman.

Cat Hellisen is a South African-born writer of fantasy for adults and children. Her work includes the novel When the Sea is Rising Red and short stories in Apex, F & SF, Something Wicked, and Tor.com. Her latest novel is a fairy tale for the loveless, Beastkeeper.

'I love the idea of writing as imaginary architecture.' An Interview with Mary Watson.

Mary Watson won The Caine Prize in 2006 for her story "Jungfrau". Her novel, The Cutting Room was published to great acclaim in 2013, and she has been named as one of the Hay Festival's Africa39 writers. She recently joined the board of Short Story Day Africa, and, along with Billy Kahora and Abubakar Abdul Ibrahim, is judging this year's prize. Tiah spoke to her about her work, and what she will be looking for in yours.

Tiah:  You are a writer and hold a PhD in film stories. How do the two arts interrelate in your work?

Mary: In The Cutting Room, I deliberately played with ideas around film editing (particularly disjointedness in editing which is what my PhD was sort of about) and the form of the book. I am also all about stories – reading, writing and thinking about how stories work are some of my favourite things, and I enjoy exploring this interest in stories through both literature and film. That aside, when writing I think the connection between the two is mostly unconscious. It could emerge in the visual imagination of the story. I know that my interest in film has affected how I think about and plot the story – it’s a lot more methodical than the “into the mist” kind of writing I did before. Though I do still wander into the mist sometimes.

Tiah:  Spaces – the recreation and embodiment of – plays a roll in your work. Please tell us more.

Mary: I am fascinated by how places are imagined in literature. I love the idea of writing as imaginary architecture, where a writer can recreate whole worlds, but shaped by the characters and themes of the book.

Tiah:  What is current project is draining ink from your pen?

Mary: My work in progress is a contemporary fantasy. And I worry that it’s bad voodoo to talk while it’s still being formed.

Tiah:  What cliché of African writing frustrates you the most?

Mary: I think that a lot of contemporary African writing is good at working away from cliché. While it’s not necessarily a cliché, I think that that there is sometimes of kind of earnestness that is infused in our writing. I think we can be a bit more playful with our stories.

Tiah:  You are one of SSDA's 2015 judges. What do you look for in a winning story?

Mary: The first thing that stands out for me is the writer’s mastery of the words that they’re using. The writing may be subtle and ordinary or sparse and minimalist or lyrical  but the main thing is that they must be well controlled.  I like a good sense of rhythm to the story. I also think that everything has to be well motivated – is your character just staring out of the window doing nothing, then doing the washing up and then brushing his hair or is every action carefully motivated and there for a good reason.

On Mary's Bedside Table

I’ve just finished The Accident Season by Moira Fowley Doyle which is just brilliant. 

Mary Watson (born 1975 in Cape Town) is a South African author who won the Caine Prize in 2006 for her short story “Jungfrau”. Watson is the author of Moss, a collection of short stories published in 2004. Watson completed her masters degree in creative writing under André Brink at the University of Cape Town. “Jungfrau” originated as part of this 2001 masters thesis. After receiving a second masters degree at the University of Bristol in 2003, she returned to Cape Town to teach film studies while pursuing a PhD. Mary has lived in Galway, Ireland, since 2008.