Suzanne Brenner (L) and Jani Allan Jani Allan lost her fight against cancer in July 2023 and I planned at the time to write an obituary but it remained incomplete among my website drafts. A chance recent Facebook reminder of a story I wrote a decade ago revived my intention of acknowledging her as a […]
SUZANNE'S WORLD
SUZANNE'S WORLD is the new all-encompassing umbrella for features, blogs and interviews either new or archived on my website. It is also the new home of what was Melville News.
Above: The pin board in my office is a collage of of my world...
For a long time I've been searching for a name that immediately conveys, but doesn't limit, the scope of editorial content I publish on my website. As simple a task as one may think it to be, I have rejected every suggestion for not meeting those criteria. "What's in a name?" asked more than one friend, echoing Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. ("What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smells as sweet," says Juliet in a passage reflecting her wishful thinking.)
As Juliet discovered, there's a lot in a name, and in my case, the perfect solution wasn't presenting itself. Suzanne's World is an honest and broad attempt to to capture the spirit of this page. As the pin board reveals, in my case it is a personal if somewhat random collection of people and places in my professional and private life, which is intended to be symbolic.
It is here too where colleagues and friends will be encouraged to share their original, thought-provoking and entertaining words to engage readers old and new.
And now that I have settled on Suzanne's World, I hope to give up stressing about names and to get on with the writing. I'm working towards forming partnerships with other sites, which will provide yet more options for the short-attention-span age in which we find ourselves.
I'm happy to say that the launch of this new segment coincides with a feature and an extended paragraph (I'm being facetious) from John Miller, an old friend and colleague who lives in Wales... but let him tell his own stories.
Welcome to my world.
CAPE TOWN – THE FIRST YEAR
Cape Town is a photographer’s dream – wherever you look, there’s a picture-perfect view. The mountains, the parks and the coastline are quite something to behold. The last story I published on my website before leaving Johannesburg was about my house in Melville and the memories we’d be taking with us to Cape Town. I […]
MEMORIES OF A HOME – MOVING ON
For some people, a house is just a convenience where they sleep at night. Not for us. In 1999, my husband and I were charmed by a house in Melville, a lively suburb in Johannesburg. It has been our home for 22 years. Born in Durban, I headed for London as soon as I finished […]
CHOPSTIX FOR DELICIOUS CHINESE
There’s an exciting new Chinese restaurant and takeaway in Melville’s 27 Boxes, just 50 metres from where I live, but it took a chance Facebook sighting for me to discover the new kid on the block. How times have changed. It used to be that nothing went down in my neighbourhood that I didn’t know […]
GERALD SHORTLISTED FOR LITERATURE PRIZE
Ntando Gerald, known as Gerald, is one of two South African-based authors shortlisted for The James Currey Prize for African Literature. Named to honour the leading publisher of academic books about Africa, the competition was established last year by Onyeka Nwelue, a Nigerian writer, filmmaker and publisher. The annual award is for the best, unpublished work of fiction set in or about Africa […]