S02 E02 Siphiwo Mahala

Siphiwo is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, playwright, and academic. He is a noted scholar of Can Themba and the Drum generation. Siphiwo joins Fiona Snyckers and Gail Schimmel to talk about how academia is taking over his writing time, and the effort he puts in to keep his creative work alive. He takes us through his earliest days as an idealistic young writer, when he quit his job after having a short story accepted by a journal - and how he quickly rejoined the working world after that! Siphiwo talks about how toxic masculinity has become more of a problem since he wrote 'When a Man Cries', rather than less. He tells us about what it is like to teach a university course that includes his own work, and how he decides whether a new project should be a novel, a short story, or a play. Fiona tells us about using the Pomodoro method to work on more than one project at a time. And Gail tells us about how it feels to get past the halfway point in writing your book. And, of course, we discuss the progress of Siphiwo Mahala's famous beard - both on social media and in real life! Follow us on Instagram · Chat with us on Twitter · Join our Facebook group · Subscribe to us on YouTube · Join our newsletter · Ask your writing-related questions here