It's a good morning!
We are the Wordwise team, and this is our writing retreat! The Sun is not shining today, here in the Mpumalanga Lowveld in South Africa, as it seems the sun has decided to take a vacation break, and that it intends to stay away for the rest of the summer. The sun works overtime in the Southern Hemisphere, so it is a well-deserved holiday, and we’ll not complain. In fact, if you have any knowledge of just how dry parts of Africa have been for the past several years, rain is very welcome. That said, it’s been more of a monsoon season. It has literally poured, and poured, day after day. Everything is multi-hued green, and lush. Our rivers are flowing. Some of the dam walls broke recently, and there
are still wild crocodiles, as yet uncaught, swimming around somewhere in our local rivers. But such is life here, where we are, placed between the beautiful Blyde River Canyon (above) and the world-famous Kruger Park.
So our writing world sits against a backdrop of wildlife and bush. My name, by the way, is Kellie, and I am part of the Wordwise team. And, because it’s a stay-in-doors type-of-day, I thought that I would take this opportunity, on behalf of the team, to tell you, our readers, a little about who we are, and what we do, here under the Southern Sun.
We are a group of Academics, authors, and writers, with some collective 30 years’ experience in teaching and learning how to write. We have theses, and academic journal articles to our name, as well as newspaper publications, and short stories. In other words, we are well placed to assist you with learning to write really well. Writing academic texts is undoubtedly the most difficult type of text/s anyone could ever write. If you are a student, you will know this. Even if the language you are studying in is your home language, it is still going to be very difficult to adjust, and learn how to write in such a formal style. Here in South Africa, we have added complications in that the majority of our students have to learn in English – a language that is, for the majority, not even their second language, but often 3rd, 4th or even a foreign language. This is, of course, the case in Western countries as well, where there is a large immigrant population.
Therefore, our vision with this blog is to teach writing techniques in all genres. A genre means a ‘’type’. Each piece of writing that you create will have a specific genre: from basic stories, news articles, and explanation texts, to academic texts, reports, abstracts and even journal articles. We plan to provide tips and strategies for all of these. And because the literature and publishing world has changed so much over recent years, we will also be including information on how to ultimately self-publish your own work. We will be developing a monthly Book Club, and providing various texts for you to read and enjoy.
We are also teachers of both language and reading. That means not only do we care about our students, and the people who come to us for assistance, but we also know how to best get that information across to you, so that you can learn. We understand the ins-and-outs of grammar, and how it is used for function, or to make meaning. Ultimately, writing is all about communicating. It is one of the most social activities you can ever take part in, even though ironically, when you write, it often means you are alone, and sometimes even lonely. But when you send that email, or write that article, or publish that story, then it becomes an incredibly interactive thing. It is ultimately about relationships.
We will also add here that our experience with teaching and speaking language itself, and the fact that we speak several different languages between us (we count isiZulu, Afrikaans, Dutch, German, Portuguese and French, amongst our repertoire) also means that we understand the difficulties that students may have with writing and communication, especially if English is not their home language.
We hope you will come and join us and be a part of our vision for this journey. Being a writer is not as much what you do, as what you are. Really, at the end of the day, you write because you must. Words pour out of you, and if they don’t have that outlet, they will just get bigger, and bigger, till they explode. If you are wise, you will let them out!
So that’s it for today from the Team. Next time we can talk about the beauty of writing retreats, and finding your ‘’special writing space’’, whether that is in your head, or as with us, in the middle of the African bush.
Until next time,
THE WORDWISE TEAM