Bryony's Blog

For some time, I kept getting an email from the Guardian advertising a travel writing course with Peter Carty.  Of course, it is one of those computer-generated things; at least once a week, I am informed of teaching jobs in Nepal or media placements in London.  However, the frequency of the ad, and the fact that it was always the same one, encouraged me to look into it.  I have been planning to give up teaching for some time now and considering ways to make money from my writing.  I couldn't help thinking that perhaps this was a sign. Many people think if you can write, you can write anything.  Is there much difference between writing a crime novel and describing a trip to the Great Barrier Reef?  Well, yes, there is actually.  I have written some travel articles over the years: sometimes a review of a place I have stayed at; sometimes something wider in scope.  I enjoy writing articles with an historical basis - like one I did of interesting chu...

  Whatever happened to Rick Astley? may be an unusual title for a book of short stories set in Africa. Western expectations of African literature demand something more exotic, something at least with connotations of heat, dust and hardship.   Like every place, Africa has more than one side to it and there are as many different experiences as there are people and places.   Growing up in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, my life was an interesting mixture of experiences.   I lived on a gold mine out in the bush.   There were snakes and scorpions – and fear. It was an unstable time politically in post-Independence Zimbabwe.   Not everyone wanted the ruling party, ZANU-PF, in power and, in retaliation, the government sent North-Korean trained soldiers to Matabeleland to ‘sort them out’. This time of anxiety left an indelible mark on me. In other aspects, my life was ‘normal’ by Western standards.   I went to school, played sport, belonged to the library and watche...