Ballito author shares how writing helped her deal with grief
Ballito author Lindy Blignaut shared her heartfelt grief memoir, Walking into the Future, with the Ballito Writers' Group at the library last Thursday.
Blignaut wrote the 'grief memoir' in 2023, a decade after the sudden death of her husband Paul at the age of 60.
The book, structured as a 10-step guide, was written to help her cope.
Reading from her prologue, Blignaut said: 'My life came to an abrupt halt; I had no idea how I was going to carry on.'
An author and academic, Blignaut grew up in Ballito after her family moved to Compensation Beach in 1959. She self-published 200 copies under her maiden name, Stiebel, selling them privately for R100. The former English professor uses the proceeds to fund her KZN Literary Tourism website.
She described coping with grief by writing in her journal daily, and using walking and talking as therapeutic tools.
'It's a little book, which will only take a couple of hours to read, but could have been vast, given the pile of journals I wrote. Going back into my journals was hard; they were wild outpourings from a different version of me. I think it took me time to delve back into the past.'
The Ballito Writers' Group meets at 10.30am on the last Thursday of each month at the library, gathering published authors and aspiring writers to discuss literary projects and challenges.
'These writers' groups are important. It is where writers can discuss their projects, because we all stumble and fall during the process,' said Blignaut.
Twelve-year member and event organiser, Peter Gunning, says the group is for all levels of writers. The group discuss their current projects, novels, poetry and how to publish their work. There is often a special guest speaker, and afterwards, the members enjoy a Q&A session and refreshments.
'Our group welcomes everyone, especially those who have not written anything before. We hope to inspire authors through our guest speakers or our creative writing exercises. We discuss our writing and share what we have learned with each other.'
Contact Peter at 083 441 1950.
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Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading 'Most of our discussions on the GBAS are about whether we like the new Rachel Joyce or the most recent Elif not that much to argue about. Members mostly give their opinion on whethert hey're loving or hating what they're reading. But a small percent are contentious things that end up with people feeling there's been an attack on their belief system,and it ends in hate speech. 'In person, Nick is utterly irreverent and choke-on-your-coffee funny. (Remember her columns in the Sunday Times.) She wrote Book People because the subject of online media was close to her heart. 'For me writing a book is figuring out how I fee labout something. I knew what I wanted to think about. As the only admin of the GoodBook Appreciation Society, I've had a lot of challenges and a few bad fallouts with people, where they've come at me very hard. In writing the book, I wanted to know how I felt about cancel culture and online bullying and the ugly side of the internet when things go bad on a person. I wasn'tsure how I felt about it, because on the one hand, woke culture is important to keep people a little bit in line. On the other hand, it goes too far, and then people get cancelled who maybe shouldn't. I wanted to have a very long thought about it and out of that, came the book.' Nick confided that when she started the book club, she was 'ill-prepared'. She set upthe GBAS in 2012 with a few colleagues at the advertising agency where she was working at the time. It started with seven members. "I had no idea we'd end up facing some very serious subjects.' When I met Nick, she was still buzzing after the recent Franschhoek Literary Festival where she spent the weekend in the Green Room with fellow authors Kate Mossse, Niq Mhlongo and John Boyne. She was part of a panel about the 'cut-throat world of publishing' and took part in podcasts and interviews. 'I loved every minute of it. It was busier than I ever remember,' she said. 'There was a great deal of excitement at the festival about the overseas authors, but also about the new South African voices coming up. I always leave the festival desperate to write. It's so inspiring to hear about everyone else's writing because writing is so solitary.' A highlight of the festival, Nick said was that she met a number of members of the Good Book Appreciation Society. 'I mentioned that I'd be there and asked them tocome and say hi if they saw me, and they did. It was so great to put faces to names. A lot of them have read my new book.' The back cover of Book People gives us a taste of the theme: 'Norma Jacobs is your average accountant, running a book club on Facebook and living quietly with her gamer boyfriend in London. Except for the part where she's being threatened by a deranged author and questioned by the police about attempted murder. All just as she's started a new job as the only forty-two-year-old intern in the history of publishing. Harry Shields is a crime writer desperate to hit the big time when a negative review of his latest book on Norma's page, results in him having a spectacular public meltdown. He gets cancelled, his events get cancelled, and before you can say 'author behaving badly', he's plotting revenge and stalking his nemesis. By the time Harry's gone viral, and Norma's given up trying to stop him, the online book club has over a hundred thousand rowdy members and the comments section is a (literal) riot. Entertaining until one member ends up in a coma. 'As the main character in the book, Norma, plods along with her rather dull life in the accounting firm, it's clear she'd rather be doing book stuff. She's self-effacing, but has, in fact, just completed her own novel, and she runs the online book club, but this sometimes comes with challenges and Shields takes this to a new level when he decides to take revenge on a fellow member of the Good Book Appreciation Society. There are the other characters such as Harry's long-suffering agent, Myra Berelowitz who will go to any lengths just to avoid the author's calls, and Harry's wife, Victoria, frustrated to distraction at his obsession with making it in the book world; and there's Harry's friend Phyllis, a conspiracy Norma's best friend, Marina, who, despite doing life the unconventional way, is Norma's biggest cheerleader. Steve, the appalling boyfriend, should clearly have been dumped long ago. Norma is clearly the sanest of the whole bunch and, endearingly, has a propensity,when feeling stressed, to hum songs under her breath, which are appropriate to the situation: 'Under Pressure' by Queen, 'Life is Life' by Opus; and 'Jesus Christ Superstar', with the emphasis on the first two words, when things get totally out of hand. The interactions between the members of the Facebook book club - mostly civil but sometimes tinged with micro aggressions and sometimes outright offensiveness - area treat and there are some laugh-out-loud moments in the book. The idiosyncrasies of the book club members will, undoubtedly, resonate: there's the slightly sleazy Chris Colt, always ready with a lewd comment; sweet Linda who is always trying to defuse book conflicts with comments like 'peace and light'; then there are the pious members who feel compelled to correct the grammar or the facts of a post; and the holier-than-thou ones always quick to point out a moral issue. There's Freda Kruger who is constantly reporting comments: 'Freda Kruger has reported this comment.' There's a hilarious culmination of events, and the book, which provides excellent social commentary, is, largely very funny. However, it's not without its seriousmoments. It takes a good look at cancel culture, and at the social media which, as one character notes towards the end, 'has changed the way we interact with each other … and is becoming more toxic and narcissistic, with long-ranging social consequences'.There's one part where Norma is scrolling through a new post on the online book club which is about the Bible. 'She stopped short and sucked in a breath as she as she read the reams of comments ranging from outrageous to just plain outraged …what was wrong with the world. Was this how things were always going to be from now on? Ugly and combative? Since we were at war in the world, we also had to beat war online …art following life? This lovely group that had once been her hobby and her happy place had started to feel ugly and tedious. She was having to be more vigilant and was spending way more time on the page than she ever had before.' Sipping a mug of tea, Nick confides that she does not enjoy dealing with political outrage and propaganda as admin of the club. 'I spend a lot of time wondering whether I'm doing it right.' Even though discussions on the group are about books, at any given time, a small five percent will be perpetually outraged, she said. 'And this has been heightened by the events of the last few years.' If she sees the names Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or Jordan Petersen on a post, she knows she's in trouble, she said. 'It's the same with Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine. A post will go up in the evening, and, I will know that, by the time I wake up in the morning, it will have blown up.' Paige Nick has loved books since she can remember. The youngest of six children, her parents would load up the kids every Saturday morning and take them all to the library in two cars. 'We didn't all fit into one car, so half of us would go with my mom to the library and the other half would go with my dad to Tiffy's, a little café in Camps Bay for a we'd swap. 'We'd take books out and then take them back the next weekend and get I'd ask everyone to read to me until I was able to read by myself.' Nick is clearly immersed in the world of books. When I ask her if books are her life,she said yes, but is quick to point out that she has to also work for a living. 'I'm also an advertising copywriter, so my life is divided between advertising, books and exercise.' She's 'one hundred percent dedicated' to her exercise – swimming running and yoga. It's very good for plotting and thinking and being away from tech, and it just enables me to have a few long thoughts. I do most of my plotting when I'm running or swimming.' She spoke about some of the book trends she's excited about: 'Book Tok is huge and bringing in a whole new market. Audio books are also trending. Then there's the Silent Book Club, started by a man called Sean Buck. It's been going for less than a year and he's already got 30 000 followers. The demographic that goes for that – the younger readers – are all looking for experiences they can photograph, and for communities to belong to. Historical fiction is huge right now, and, if you want local, there's Penny Haw. She's amazing.'In terms of authors who are 'new local kids on the block', she's very excited about KZN-based accountant Sven Axelrood (author of God's Pocket, Buried Treasure,and most recently The Nicotene Gospel); Juliet Mnqeta, author of debut novel, If the Dead Could Talk, and Bonnie Espie, author of crime novel, Making a Killing. And Angela Shaw, author of Unsolicited, also crime. There's a nice new batch of crime authors who are great.' Asked which of her favourite authors she'd most like to invite to dinner, her first response is. 'Can my partner do the cooking? He's Italian and an amazing have mussels and a puttanesca. 'And it's important that the authors all get on with each other. Can I pick all my author friends? I'd have Gail Schimmel, Ted Botha, Sarah Lotz, Helen Moffett …' Turning to her long-term goals for the GBAS, Nick said: 'I'd like it to continue to be a vibrant space and to grow. I'd love to introduce an online shop where you can click to buy books - get discounts for members. "I've just started a newsletter and I'll continueto try new things and see what sticks. One thing I'd love to do is to have a real-life GBAS book club meet up. We'll do it on a Saturday morning with prizes and goodybags and have a fun book club. I think it will be really fun. That will be my next 'maket he circle bigger' moment. I'm thinking of Exclusive Books, Cavendish. You heard it here first!' *Book People, by Paige Nick, is published by Pan Macmillan South Africa.
