We thought we’d share a recent newsletter sent to the team of fabulous writers that create the weekly fundza.mobi stories.
To all the FunDza short story writers: Big Ups! We can’t keep FunDza alive and growing without your fantastic, dramatic, funny, tragic, romantic, bizarre, heart-warming, nail-biting stories! Keep them coming! We need to feed the content monster and it’s always hungry…
Some highlights from 2013…
One of the things I am most passionate about is developing young writers and giving them a platform for their work to be published. Trying to get published is hard, and often soul-destroying, so to be able to publish new talent on the FunDza site, and to get immediate feedback from readers, has been an invaluable opportunity for young writers, boosting confidence and sparking creativity and new story ideas.
Over the last two years several young writers have grown into commissioned authors for the mobi network and we have seen these writers start to fly:
Three of these are:
Sonwabiso Ngcowa has written seven stories for the mobi site and last night he launched his first novel, published by Cover2Cover Books: In Search of Happiness at the Masiphumelele Library. The novel developed out of a short story with the same title on the mobi site.
Zimkhitha Mlanzeli started as a FunDza Fan, she had a couple of stories posted on the FunDza Fanz section of the site: She is now a commissioned author and has written nine FunDza stories (under the pen name Vixene Jones), and is currently working on the next Harmony High title (her first novel).
Cebisa Zono, in the Eastern Cape, is another rising star: his two stories: Thobani and Lizo (a gay love story set in the rural Eastern Cape) and The Church Girl, have had Fanz clamouring for more.
‘Mentoring Future Writers’ project
In 2013 we expanded our pool of writers with a project, funded by the NAC, that paired established writers: Helen Brain, Michelle Faure, Sonwabiso Ngcowa, Joanne Hichens and Maire Fisher, with young upcoming talent to write pairs of stories with an interesting connection.
The project kicked off with a workshop at the beautiful Casa Labia in Muizenberg. It was a great process and both mentors and mentees benefited form each other’s input. The result was a range of fantastic stories: From mystery to romance to human drama and crime. Enjoy them here . It developed new writers and gave them a platform for their work. It also took writers out of their comfort zone. Maire Fisher’s mentee, Jean-Paul informed her that he only wrote stories that happen at night…hence their mystery/thriller Among the Stars. He is now working on a story that takes place in daylight!!!
This year we are running the Mentoring Project in Gauteng. And in 2015 we hope to do the same in KZN. It is a great way to expand our pool of writers, and develop young writers into commissioned authors.
Developing Young Writers
Then there are the Fanz (our readership) who keep Zimkhitha busy with their own poems and stories that they submit for her to edit and post on the site. There is the astounding Vhuthu in Limpopo who sent us our first novel , written by a Fan, typed on a cellphone, (an old one) and sent to us chapter by chapter…(and it’s not short!) since then they have kept coming. Teens are tapping out stories, letter by letter on their phones, they are so keen to share their stories. Fanz are generous with their comments on other Fanz writing: They save their xxx for the professional writers!
And highlights for 2014…
FunDza’s Rights Series
Our latest exciting project is a series of short stories (one a month) around the rights enshrined in South Africa’s Constitution. The stories are linked to info sections around the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the particular right discussed in the story as well as useful contact numbers and information. Each of these stories is translated into another South African language.
The first story by Michelle Faure: Nowhere to Hide , was about the right to freedom and security of the person. A small A6 booklet of this story – with discussion questions and activities – is at the printers and will soon be ready for shipping to beneficiaries and other rights groups as a promotion of the series. We’re hoping that the series will draw additional sponsorship so we can do this for all the stories.
The second ‘rights’ story was Do Unto Others , by Judy Norton, about the right to freedom of religion, opinion and belief. The third was Acid Minds , looking at the right to a safe and healthy environment and was written by Nicole Levin.
Our next one in April is the right to political freedom with a very funny story by Bobby Jordan, which had us in stitches in the office. It starts getting serialised on 25 April – so keep an eye out for that one!
FunDza champagne lunches
We had our first FunDza ‘tea’ – read ‘champagne lunch! When we’d given writers enough champagne we filmed them talking about their stories, their experience of writing for FunDza and what they do for fun! Diane Awerbuck, Alex Latimer, Francesco Nassimbeni, Sicelo Kula, Maire Fisher, Zimkhitha Mlanzeli and Ros Haden have all been featured. The videos are being posted in weekly slots to our Youtube channel. You can check them out here:
Your profiles
Our mobi network has had a recent upgrade – and so now if you head over to fundza.mobi you can search for your name and find your profile, with links to your FunDza stories. Let us know if you want to make changes or updates to your profile and pics. And, do keep us up to date with any projects that you’re busy with – we like to do what we can to support a #ReadingRevolution in South Africa.
Readership
We’re able to track readership very closely. Over the past year, FunDza averaged 50,000 unique readers visiting its portal each month. The average visit duration is 14 minutes – so we can see they are really engaged with your stories. In our next newsletter, we’ll be able to share some research by UCT, into the impact FunDza is having on getting young people reading.
Besides that we get wonderful comments (in Mxit-lish) – that should inspire you to keep writing.
“Wow author! Author I’m so amazed, dis waz a good story and good job, JST GREAt tanx a lot”
“Its kind of funny cause im also going trough the same thing,reading story makes me to feel like the writer is talking to me like he is reading my mind”
“Wow dis are d wonderful mst precious inspiring stories”