CEA Writers without Boundaries – Part 4

CEA Writers without Boundaries, the debut volume for the general fiction anthology from Celenic Earth Publications has been released, and along with that comes stories to exciting, scare and thrill you.

Seven writers and myself from the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) group in the Western Cape Region have been hard at work putting stories together for you to enjoy.

For the next few days, I’ll be revealing the short interviews that I had with the writers of each story to give more insight into not only their story but the writers themselves.

Next up we have Fiona Tanzer and Shameez Patel Papathanasiou:

The Smell of Roasting Meat

by Fiona Tanzer

Question: What did you enjoy about writing it?

Fiona: I enjoyed having this story just flowing out and onto the page quickly and without a great deal of conscious thought. I suppose that this is because the story premise comes from my long-standing fascination with people’s beliefs (ever since I can remember!) and something that I have frequently ruminated over for many years.

Q: How did the inspiration for your story come about?

Fiona: My inspiration was in one sense my abiding interest in how would a person’s beliefs appear in practice? – and in the more immediate sense, the title phrase just popped into my mind one day and sparked my thoughts on people’s beliefs – and I just sat down to write without any planning.

Q: What do you want people to take away from it? If there is anything you want to get across?

Fiona: I would like people to take away from my story the reality that whoever we are as people, we all share the same love of family and care for one another, however different our beliefs may appear on the surface. After all, we developed our beliefs and practices ultimately as a sign of our spiritual care for one another.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the process?

Fiona: The most challenging aspect in this case was the notion that I am writing about another cultural belief system and while I believe that I have done so respectfully, I hope it came across well. I also wanted to make the story general to Africa rather than particular to one specific locality in South Africa, and to give no indication of historical period so that the generality of the belief system comes through. I chose my characters’ names according to names that I happened to like – but unwittingly I chose names from different traditional groupings in Southern Africa. Ms Masobeng pointed this out to me (for which I am grateful) and I gave it some more thought but decided in the end to keep the different names in token of the intended generality of this belief system. So the name choice ended up adding to the story theme. Obviously, it would have been too much of a stretch to use East and West African names as well.

Q: Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Fiona: I’ve chosen the story to be loosely set in Southern Africa because that is where I live and have grown up, but the basics of this old traditional spiritual belief system in Southern Africa is shared not only throughout much of the rest of Africa, but indeed throughout most of the rest of the world at one time and another – both today and throughout history. And that, I find fascinating.

 

In.Hold.Out

by Shameez Patel Papathanasiou

Question: What did you enjoy about writing it?

Shameez: I love writing about smart, strong women

Q: How did the inspiration for your story come about?

Shameez: I have experienced the anxiety of having an intruder in my house and it was a different situation, but inspired it nonetheless

Q: What do you want people to take away from it? If there is anything you want to get across?

Shameez: Someone, somewhere will read your story and enjoy it. If you don’t, that’s okay too

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the process?

Shameez: My story is anxiety-inducing and I am easily frightened, so basically, I frightened myself

Q: Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Shameez: Keep writing, regardless of recognition and money, as long as you enjoy your own work

If you would like a copy of CEA Writers without Boundaries, then click here.

CEA Writers without Boundaries – Part 3

CEA Writers without Boundaries, the debut volume for the general fiction anthology from Celenic Earth Publications has been released, and along with that comes stories to exciting, scare and thrill you.

Seven writers and myself from the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) group in the Western Cape Region have been hard at work putting stories together for you to enjoy.

For the next few days, I’ll be revealing the short interviews that I had with the writers of each story to give more insight into not only their story but the writers themselves.

Next up we have Rets’epile Motiki and Caroline M Reid:

HIDDEN FIGURES

By Rets’epile Motiki

Question: What did you enjoy about writing it?

Rets’epile: Hmmm…the last part of my story makes me smile. Now finally everything falls into place in favour of Mary. She exposed to everyone and most importantly to her father, the kind of friend he has…despite the pain she was feeling, laying in hospital…she smiles, “…Daddy…Mummy!”
Her father was her favourate and so, even she speaks to them both, she always calls first her Dad.

Q: How did the inspiration for your story come about?

Rets’epile: More often than not, most girls suffer silent abuse by people who are pretty close to them. And even when they speak out to make parents aware, they are not believed.

Q: What do you want people to take away from it? If there is anything you want to get across?

Rets’epile: People should basically beware of everything and everyone. No matter how close one is to them, they just need to take a special note that there is always that hidden musk-like figure behind each person and each and everything.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the process?

Rets’epile: The biggest challenges I met were the naming of the characters and expressing the depth of each character’s immense being as of how I wanted the message to cut across.

Q: Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Rets’epile: Either way good or bad, people have hidden figures. Know that.

DR WHYE & sSOPHEE

By Caroline M Reid

Question: What did you enjoy about writing it?

Caroline: Writing can be solitary, and this collaborative project mixed it up a bit. There was a community created around this anthology; writing, reading, and editing. (And a busy WhatsApp group!)

Q: How did the inspiration for your story come about?

Caroline: I am surrounded by scientists who have an intense dedication to their art. 

Q: What do you want people to take away from it? If there is anything you want to get across?

Caroline: I wanted to write about how research can be an isolating experience and take over your life.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the process?

Caroline: The leap from having your story as a private document on your computer, to putting it in the public sphere.

Q: Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Caroline: Enjoy!

If you would like a copy of CEA Writers without Boundaries, then click here.

CEA Writers without Boundaries – Part 2

CEA Writers without Boundaries, the debut volume for the general fiction anthology from Celenic Earth Publications has been released, and along with that comes stories to exciting, scare and thrill you.

Seven writers and myself from the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) group in the Western Cape Region have been hard at work putting stories together for you to enjoy.

For the next few days, I’ll be revealing the short interviews that I had with the writers of each story to give more insight into not only their story but the writers themselves.

Next up we have Wesley Jade and Agnes Masobeng:

Wesley wrote the first the story that first appears in the anthology:

FATAL PERFORMANCE

Question: What did you enjoy about writing it?

Wesley: I enjoyed the process if diving into a world that’s different from our own.

Q: How did the inspiration for your story come about?

Wesley: I was thinking about actors and how they would be perfect assassins because they could pretend to be anything they wanted. It was a really random thought. And then I was thinking about lost civilizations, the Akkadians, the Atlanteans and the Muin (Lemurians). Then I just combined the two thoughts, and Fatal Performance was born. This story is only the beginning of a bigger story I’m working on.

Q: What do you want people to take away from it? If there is anything you want to get across?

Wesley: I think that sometimes people do things that we think is wrong, but is actually done to protect others. I dunno, I think that people who end up in bad positions always start out with good intentions and a pure heart. It’s up to the good and honest people to help those who are on the beaten track, to help them find the right path again.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the process?

Wesley: Finishing it! Haha! I always start things easily and the flow well, but halfway through I peter out. So the challenge comes in finishing something.

Uitlanders’ Sweet Bitter Revenge 

by Agnes Masobeng 

Question: What did you enjoy about writing it?

Agnes: Describing my characters especially their physical appearance. Putting them out there, visualising and contemplating about them managed to put smile on my face. The other thing I really liked was the boldness of the students. It is not always the case to find young people standing up against the elders fighting for what they belief to be true.

Q: How did the inspiration for your story come about?

Agnes: Camping at the strict church B&B in town one time for the Macufe WordFest brought the slighted inspiration of this story as I imagined how it’d be like for strangers to do the unspeakable in the unknown land. Clearly what they’ve been advised against when they left their country and when they were allowed accommodation at the B&B.

Q: What do you want people to take away from it? If there is anything you want to get across?

Agnes: Revenge. Most of the time the story of revenge never produces sweet fruits. It is true that most avengers have good clear intentions and motives about their vengeance but, as I know of, revenge often times never serves a good cause in the end.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the process?

Agnes: Changing non fiction to fiction. Every time I wrote a word it always forcefully wanted to reflect back to the actual events of the WordFest. Therefore creating the atmosphere, the plot where the story is at the moment was very challenging.

Q: Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Agnes: In the end, I guess we all have to stand up for what we belief in sometimes. No matter how dangerous as long as we are opinionated, raising our voice to be heard and doing away with exploitation, oppression, corruption and et cetera. We’ll be good to go.

If you would like a copy of CEA Writers without Boundaries, then click here.

CEA Writers without Boundaries –

CEA Writers without Boundaries, the debut volume for the general fiction anthology from Celenic Earth Publications has been released, and along with that comes stories to exciting, scare and thrill you.

Seven writers and myself from the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) group in the Western Cape Region have been hard at work putting stories together for you to enjoy.

For the next few days, I’ll be revealing the short interviews that I had with the writers of each story to give more insight into not only their story but the writers themselves.

First up is the man who came up with the concept, and pulled a variety of different writers together – Shaun M Jooste who also wrote, Maze for the Dying.

Q: What made you want to do an Anthology?

Shaun: I’ve always wanted to write with other writers. Being a publisher now, I have the opportunity to gain exposure for other writers.

Q: How exciting/strenuous was the process of wrangling writers, who are notoriously slow movers, to get involved?

Shaun: It was more exciting than strenuous. Im pretty easy when it comes to deadlines and I found that when you all share a passion for writing it is easy to work together.

Q: What was the process like of putting together?

Shaun: Since I have my own templates that I have set up for ebook and paperback, pretty easy. It is just a case of copy and paste into my formats, and then setting up the distribution agreements. If I have structure in my workflow, it becomes a piece of cake. The only issue is finding the time, which becomes tough with a family of two kids and a day job.

Question: Turning attention to your story, “Maze for the Dying”, what did you enjoy about writing it?

Shaun: Developing the suspense and thrill at each turn.

Q: How did the inspiration for your story come about?

Shaun: The original Resident Evil game and movie.

Q: What do you want people to take away from it? If there is anything you want to get across?

Shaun: That nothing is ever as it seems.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the process?

Shaun: Developing a thrilling story with suspense that makes sense and drives fear.

Q: Lastly, how proud are you of the finished product?

Shaun: Absolutely on top of the world. I think all writers pulled their weight and above on this one and we all have a reason to be proud.

If you would like a copy of CEA Writers without Boundaries, then click here.