Meanwhile… #16: As Seasons Change

Hello there, friends and fans! It’s June 16, 2025– and here are some things that happened in the meantime!

This Is The Current State Of Things:

General News:Last week, I sent my research proposal to my supervising professor, and am still awaiting feedback! After that, I’ll be given a list of changes to make, and after another round of editing (and hopefully not complete re-writing) it should be ready for formal submission. Exciting times! This is a once-in-a-lifetime journey, and although I’m stressed out, I’m doing my best to enjoy every minute of it!

Current Writing Projects: With my time now fully occupied with research assignments from varsity, I’ll have no time available for writing fiction for the immediate future! At least not until I’ve handed in my PhD thesis sometime next year! (It still doesn’t sound real to me, but yes, it really is happening!) I did have a bang at a story when I took a public holiday off from varsity work a while back, but I’m so focused on academic writing and research right now, that everything I wrote came out a bit wooden (and to be honest, I kept looking for citations!) so imagine the following:

Captain (junior grade) Stuart Flane was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a man who enjoyed being ambushed(citation required). Yet here he was, disembarking from a hired starshuttle onto the desolate, dusty surface of Hamet, only to be promptly grabbed at the bottom of the boarding ramp by a group of grim-faced, obviously ill-tempered treasure hunters who seemed to have mistaken him for their competition (citation required).

“Well, that’s a good start!” Flane thought with an edge of sarcasm to his internal monologue as the shuttle’s engines still hummed faintly in the background(citation required).

So yes, I decided to give it a rest until I’m done with that whole PhD project. In the meantime, if you like, you can catch up on books you may have missed (there are over 40 of them!) or keep up by bookmarking What’s Brewing?

There we are, all caught up!

Other Stuff:

Zille’s Transphobia, the DA’s Complicity, and the SAHRC’s AWOL

Just pointing out that it’s been over a month since I sent an email of complaint about Helen Zille’s transphobic tweets and articles to the SA Human Rights Commission – and a week since I sent a follow-up email – and I haven’t had any acknowledgement to either emails.

Is the SAHRC defunct? Or is it just ignoring me? Or is Zille just above the law? Or is it because it’s ‘only’ transphobia and they don’t care about us? Hmmm…

From the Peanut-Gallery

Yes I have a big mouth. I have an awful voice (at least, I think so) – but it’s the only voice I have, and I use it to do activism.

So a guy responds to a comment I left on something about Israel’s genocide, by saying “But remember, you want to sell books?”

Eh? Whut?

What’s that even supposed to mean?

Aside from hinting that he’d snooped around on my profile, I mean.

Is he implying that for the sake of selling my books, I should just shut the fuck up and let injustice, bigotry and the sheer horrors of genocide pass me by? For the sake of selling more of my books?

Fuck no.

I don’t write or “aim” my books at people without a conscience – if they’d actually read any of my books, they’d know I don’t stand for any of those things – and I’m certainly not one of those people either – so… aluta continua.

Let the fight continue.

Friday the 13th!

In case you’re one of those people who is superstitious about Friday the 13th, allow me to lay your worries to rest!

Unless you are one or more of the following:

a) A Knights Templar;

b) a time traveler;

c) accused of witchcraft or sorcerie;

d) on King Philip IV of France’s shit-list;

e) in France in the year 1307;

You have absolutely nothing to fear. It’s just another day