The 2026 buzz begins

Welcome to the new year

1. Join The Writers’ Masterclass for 2026

2. The Who’s Who of SA Crime Writers

3. What novelists do again and again

4. The grinding work of journalism

5. Why did you become a writer?

6. The becoming of Captain Zara Dewane

1. And so the year begins. I am busy preparing for the 2026 The Writers’ Masterclass so now’s the time to sign up to get your fiction or non-fiction started or finished this year. You can read more about The Writers’ Masterclass here and you can sign up here. Last year was amazingly successful with Masterclass writers having books published and books contracted for publication. One of those published was Hannah Botsis’s memoir, The Clergyman’s Daughter, which gets its Cape Town launch at Exclusive Books at Cavendish on Wednesday 4 February at 5.30pm. If you’re in Cape Town why not come and support her, and I’ll see you there.

2. It’s about eighteen months since I last posted the Who’s Who of South African Crime Fiction Writers, and I’d like to publish an updated edition. Here’s the 2024 version. If I’ve missed out your book or anyone who should be included please let me know. The list is for South African authors writing and publishing in English or being translated into English for publication. Can be traditionally published or self-published.

3. I came across an edition of John le Carre’s first novel - A Murder of Quality - in a charity shop shortly before Xmas which included the movie script based on the novel he wrote thirty years later. Both novel and script were engrossing but in the end I thought the movie script was better than the novel. In fact, based on that novel, you would just never have expected the impressive novels that were to come. In le Carre’s foreword there’s a piece of wisdom that really resonated. He writes, “So perhaps by the end of my career I too shall have discovered the truth of the adage that, after all their flailing about and looking for new material and experience, novelists end up writing the same book all through their lives.”

4. A journalist’s work can be demanding, never more so than for The Economist’s global business correspondent, Avantika Chilkoti. In a recent newsletter she outlined her latest assignment: “I have been at my desk at The Economist’s headquarters of late doing something most office workers wouldn’t dream of: logging into porn sites. We have written about how artificial intelligence is transforming lots of industries, like law and retail, but the technology is also being put to work to produce smut. From videotapes to cable television, the adult-entertainment industry is often the first to take up new technologies. AI isn’t just changing how porn is distributed. It’s changing how it’s made. I have used AI-porn generators that let me create my own porn star—down to their skin tone, body type and hobbies—and get them to enact more or less any fantasy I like. In some ways, this seemed like good news to me: if sex workers don’t want to do a particular scene, they could use AI to machine-make it. But there is a lot to worry about, too.”

5. During a Zoom discussion with Catalyst Press authors the other day, publisher, Jessica Powers, asked everyone, why did you become a writer? The replies broke down into four categories (sort of): (1) to try and make sense of the world; (2) to get a handle on a plethora of ideas and stories; (3) a need to tell stories; and (4) what one writer called ‘an existential drive’. That’s the category that means something to me. In other words, you have to do it. It’s compulsory, like breathing.

6. Coming up next week: how the character of Captain Zara Dewane - she of the about to be published, Falls the Shadow - stepped into my life.