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| LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf. |
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Izak de Vries speaks to an eight-year-old author (Joanna Reid) and an irrepressible granny, cum publisher and teacher (Felicity Keats)
It all started when I was shown a book written and illustrated by a girl who was eight years old when it got published. Being a bibliophile, I wanted to buy a copy. The author, Joanna Reid — by now a teenager — refused to accept money for it. In the end I got a signed copy of The adventures of Nelly and Bobby in exchange for a box of Quality Street chocolates.
But obviously there was a story behind this book, and I traced the publisher, Felicity Keats of Umsinsi Press, to ask her about it.
Felicity proved to be a rather unusual granny. To break the ice, I popped an e-mail and asked who she was. The answer by return mail contained four question marks. I did however manage to catch her every now and again during her busy schedule and have the following details to offer:
- Felicity holds a B.Com. degree and a Teaching diploma,
- she taught for seven years,
- took up freelancing,
- became the author of the South African Bee Journal (another job she held for seven years).
- This led to the publication of her first novel The Wild Swarm (Tafelberg 1988). An Afrikaans translation followed, as did a teenage novel on the British Settlers, called Rudolph’s Valley.
- Above all, Felicity got into publishing because her granddaughter told her that the average children’s book sucks.
- By now she has authored 12 books. Her latest, again on bees, are The Birth Of A Queen and For You and For Me (both published by umSinsi Press in 1998).
Here is Felicity with some of her authors. Joanna is the girl with the lovely red hair (second from the left).
Izak de Vries: You did a B.Comm. Have you any formal training in writing?
Felicity Keats: I have done courses on all genres with Fay Goldie of the New Ear School of Writing in the 1960s.
ID: I did a brief interview with Joanna. One question I asked her was: “Did Felicity Keats teach you anything about writing that you did not know?” Her answer was: “I don’t think so.” It confused me somewhat, until I realised that you did not start out as a teacher of children, nor in fact as a children’s author, or as a publisher. Please explain.
FC: I have been writing professionally for 40 years. Then I wrote the two books that were published by Tafelberg. Change in the country brought about rejections for books. I gave writing a raincheck, and took up teaching instead, developing a powerful right-brained course which I thought up with my feet in the swimming pool in Durban’s midsummer (showing that it is different.) I began by teaching adults, started a publishing company because of the good work done, which is called umSinsi Press (the Lucky Bean Tree, or Erythrina Caffra, a local tree for local writers).
The children’s writing developed after a small book called That Old Stove, written by my granddaughter of eight, and me, was discovered and used as a prototype by Manor Gardens, Joanna’s school. Her book was written with no help from me. However, two of her teachers did a four-month children’s writing course with me and learnt a lot about creative writing and use a my methods at school.
ID: That explains it. But now you teach children, so if a teacher asks you: “What are you going to do with my kids?” what would your answer be?
FC: I only go to schools that allow me to start with a teachers’ workshop, and in this I explain the “why” of the process. They also proceed, in my workshops, to do exactly what the children are going to do. This means they know what I am going to do with their kids!
ID: You tell the kids that you are a magician ...
FC: Anybody who takes “nothing” (or words and imaginative ideas) and creates “something” (a lovely story with beautiful illustrations for others to read) IS a magician. My teaching enables most students to become “magicians” themselves.
ID: Your approach to writing classes is a “non-judgmental” one. What does that mean?
FC: It means that the people partaking in a workshop benefit from sincere audience response if they are not criticised. It also means that, though I am a teacher, I run ‘teacherless classes’, the student being his own critic.
ID: “But,” our imaginary teacher asks: “What about spelling, grammar and the like?”
FC: My method of writing before reading means that writers will want to spell better and be better at grammar because they have become interested in writing. Interest leads to attention, leads to learning ... my system comes from within, and is not an “imposed from without” system
ID: How much do you, the editor, change the text before it gets published?
FC: I am a purist. Very little. We want the child or the writer’s voice, not the grammar check of the computer.
ID: That sounds rather like outcomes-based education to me.
FC: Yes, the system is exactly what OBE wants.
ID: And the teachers? Do they see the results?
FC: I also became a very good photographer with my own darkroom when I was freelancing as I needed photographs for my work. Today we can photograph the kids as they write in classes of 150, with no discipline problems at all because they love the creative approach to writing. Teachers often tell me, you won’t last two hours, these are restless kids, and so on. They are amazed at how wrong they are!
ID: A part of your philosophy is to stimulate interest in a book culture, something this country sorely lacks. How, do you think, can you and I get the South Africans to appreciate books?
FC: By my method, which is a “I want to write, I like doing it, and I want to read my friend’s story. Now I want to read library books, and oh, boy! I’ve found what fun learning can be!” method. This right-brained writing system of mine is the answer to literacy because children want to read other children’s work, even in the rough form. My system therefore says that writing comes before reading. Interest is developed, kids learn to love both writing and reading and to take an interest in spelling and the rest of it.
ID: You do put your money where your mouth is. Tell us a little more about the Engen Book Project.
FC: This teaching of mine has taken off and I teach at schools (first the staff and then the children) regularly, sometimes five schools a week! Last year I taught 13 000 children in 13 primary schools over a six-week period, the learners were from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds. This historic programme was sponsored by Engen, as was the publication of 89 new books (seven per school) and of these, the education department in Durban have found 46 they find suitable as classroom readers according to the Outcome Based Education system. We are currently looking at raising funds to give books written by children and selected by the education department as classroom books, to children with no reading books at all in a “child help child” pilot project for 41 primary schools in the greater Durban area, some without school buildings and often derelict surroundings. We feel this is an urgent need and are keen to find sponsors who will have television and other media publicity as recognition of their assistance.
ID: So your message gets around?
FC: I have one trained teacher, Jabulani Hlabangane, who is ready to teach in rural areas and townships. He is half my age, and can go where I cannot go. He was a teacher of street children in the literacy department of the Ark Christian Acadamy in Durban but is now an umSinsi inhouse teacher. So we hope that our minute start can spiral and bring about a literate country, and a literate sub-saharan Africa!
Optimistic, aren’t we?
However, there is interest in what I do as I have been on TV four times, in the newspapers many times, and on radio broadcasts a couple of times. There is growing interest in our books, which are quite delightful.
We are starting a newspaper on Kidzone, and some local schools are organising young journalists and reporters who will write about school activities, and I will give free journalism lessons on the next two Mondays to interested school pupils and media teachers. Our country is badly in need of writers and journalists, we haven’t a literature and what better way than to start off with the children and the schools?
What I really want is to find those funds so that the books we have done can be put into big print runs, and used for education, and the little authors and their schools can benefit with a shared royalty which would be marvelous and would bring joy all round. So this is what I primarily need.
ID: You also teach adults. Is the approach the same?
FC: I am a teacher myself with a university degree and taught at both junior and high school. I have studied all writing genres for 40 years, and though I use a similar approach, I change the method to suit the genre, and also to suit the adult and his or her requirements. I go much deeper with adults.
ID: About your role as a publisher: how do you do it? The big publishing houses are retrenching staff, they weigh their options very carefully before publishing children’s books, and here you are, producing a large number of titles in full colour? I mean, what is your secret?
FC: I work very, very hard and know my craft inside out.
ID: Okay. I accept that, but I am not going to let you off the hook that easily! Many of us work pretty hard for the bread on the table, but have to think twice before buying butter — metaphorically speaking.
FC: I, too, have bread — no butter! My teaching is done at a rate of R250 an hour — plus transport if far away. I have just been flown to Jo’burg to give a writers’ weekend workshop to Jo’burg and Pretoria writers’ circles who accessed their right brains and wrote the most amazing work. The money I earn from teaching helps my whole operation to survive. I also have the use of a double-storey house near where I live, where I give workshops and classes and we have launches — it can accommodate eight to 10 people overnight for a weekend or weekday course. I have also applied to the municipality for a 35-seater bus to bring the junior school children writers from last year’s Engen project (who have no support now, as writers) to a once-a-month free workshop where they can bring their stories.
ID: Thank you, Felicity, for your time. I hope you see your dreams come true.
FC: Thanks, Izak!
As promised, I also interviewed Johanna. She is a shy lass, and I think the idea of being interviewed made her even more nervous. (Just remember, she is no longer is eight years old! We all chose our words carefully in our teens.)
ID: Very few people get their work published before they are old. (I had to wait nearly 30 years). You were only eight years old when you wrote An adventure of Nellie and Bobby. How did it feel when you held the book in your hands for the first time?
Johanna Reid: I can’t remember because it was too long ago.
ID: You also enjoy art, music and drama. Tell me a little more about it, please.
JR: I like art because it’s fun, and I like drawing. I’m learning to play the piano, and I like music. I don’t do lots of drama — Luke [her brother — ID] does more of that.
ID: Do you enjoy reading? If so, what do you read?
JR: Yes, I do enjoy reading. I like reading all kinds of books: novels, fiction (stories) rather than non-fiction.
ID: Have some of your friends read the book? What did they say about it?
JR: I think that only one of my friends has read it. I think she liked it, but I’m not sure.
ID: I know your parents are very proud of you, but what did your brothers say when the book arrived?
JR: I can’t remember!
ID: Did Felicity Keats teach you anything about writing that you did not know?
JR: I don’t think so.
ID: Do you plan to write some more in future?
JR: I’m not sure.
ID: Naughty question: Nellie has red hair, so have you. Did you in any way base Nellie’s character on yourself?
JR: No!
Post Script: Felicity has her own website: www.chapterverse.co.za
After I had finished the interview, the following e-mail arrived:
‘A new birth has occurred — Kidzone for the junior school pupils, who may like to do an instalment for possible choice for an interactive book, or sign the guest book and become part of what we are aiming to do — encourage young writers using the internet. Our next goal is an on-line school newspaper.
And this “birth” is because 11-year-old Stefnie told me my “chapter and verse” site was too adult — so now, on http://www.chapterverse.co.za/kidzone/ you will find the start of what the children think is better, with Stefnie as the webmaster!’
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