IHRAM Writivism laureate Mbizo Chirasha in a candid conversation with versatile South Africa Writer and Poet Abigail George

MC: Who is Abigail George and you have been writing a lot and you have several books published, how are they received in your country and abroad?

Abigail George: From a very young age I started to write, at age eight years old. Mostly poems about nature for the children's section of the newspaper. In high school my first short story was published in the local newspaper. At twelve, my first letters to the editor were published in the newspapers, the local paper The Weekend Post and the national Sunday Times.
I am a poet, essayist, blogger, novelist, produced screenwriter, unproduced playwright, and short story writer. My books are distributed by African Books Collective which is an African owned, worldwide marketing and distribution outlet for books from Africa and my novel “Letter To Petya Dubarova” is distributed in Australia and New Zealand by NewSouth Books through Alliance Distribution Services (ADS). I write articles for Great Health Watch, Newslineplus, Jambo Online, Modern Diplomacy, Ovi Magazine and Synchronized Chaos. I have written three unproduced plays as well. One on a family affected by the forced removals, a semi-autobiographical one woman show and a one man show based on Adam Small. It's based on the poet's life. I was born and raised in the northern areas of Gqeberha, previously known as Port Elizabeth. I attended meditation classes as a child at one of the centres in my coastal city of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University.
By all means, I am a working writer. Have you heard of the term “working actor”? Well, that's true in my case. I am not a bestselling author. I haven't reached the New York Times Bestselling List. Maybe that's the dream of every writer. I am happy and feel quite fulfilled bringing a book out every six months to a year.
In Australia my book “Letter To Petya Dubarova” was Pick of the Week in The Sydney Morning Herald. It was also reviewed in The Age and The Brisbane Times.
Some of my books were sold at Fogarty's Bookshop locally in Gqeberha. They're available from Takealot, Loot and Exclusive Books in South Africa. They're online bookstores, and of course Amazon but I don't keep track of that. In America my books are available from Barnes and Noble. I sold books to family and friends as well. My mother helped me with that. Book sales have been very slow overseas.
I think I am not known in literary circles in South Africa. I think I must be more known as a poet in fewer literary circles than you think in South Africa than say for being a novelist or for my blog African Renaissance, for example. I have just had publishers who have believed in my work. What am I supposed to do, say or think? What is the right or appropriate thing to say? I have been interviewed by the BBC and the USA Today Network. My books are very expensive in South Africa because I have an international distributor for my books. Life goes on. I promise you this, I won't stop writing.

MC: Which genres are you comfortable writing in ?
Abigail George: I am a poet first. I write short stories. I wrote short stories for a very long time, got a Pushcart Prize nomination for one of them from a UK-based journal and then I started sending out my personal essays out on a regular basis to Kalahari Review and other places. I have been doing that for twenty years now. I wrote for a symposium for a year for an online magazine in Finland. I think there's a subtle art to the writing of the personal essay. With poetry I think that you need your own style, a technique, a voice to remember or that you need to have a voice that will resonate with people, change hearts, influence minds, and impact lives, and you must have originality. Novels speak but you as the writer must always remember that there are multiple voices at play because sometimes you're dealing with more than one character's voice so you have to delve deep into your psyche, intellect, psychological framework, educational background, and personality for that very purpose.
Screenwriting is by far the hardest for me. I had to learn how to do the formatting of a proper screenplay. Ihad to learn about writing dialogue. That took time and patience. You face a lot of rejection in the film industry and that is never easy to deal with. The film I wrote and sold was later further developed and produced. It's still somewhat of a learning experience for me, a bit of a learning curve. I'm a full-time writer. That's what I do, have done for the majority of my life. I'm grateful for it. It saved me. My creativity and imagination save me on a daily basis.
I enjoy writing for my blog African Renaissance. I had a blog on Goodreads’ website as well but I haven't posted anything there in a long while. Like I said, I enjoy writing for my blog but not as much as I enjoy writing poetry. A lot has to also do what I feel inspired to write on a specific day. I don't take that for granted. Inspiration, and writing is a gift. It's not effortless and it's not just about being gifted or having a natural ability to write. Writing to me is about building bridges, making connections, realising the divine truths and sacred awareness of faith, spirituality, meditation, prayer in my daily work, finding kindred spirits on the page, in the tapestry of humanity, and making sense of the world around me, meeting, connecting my relationships, my goals, my purpose to whatever character I am creating or dialogue I am working on.

MC: Are you published in anthologies, journals or folios in your country or around the world , name a few.
Abigail George: I have been published in many anthologies, and journals in my country and around the world. Here are some of the anthologies. I was published in Best “New” African Poets Anthologies, Writing Robotics Africa vs Asia Vol 2, Voices: A Poetry Anthology, two Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthologies, Being Bipolar: Stories from Those Living With the Disorder and Those Who Love Them, Lonely, Empowerment and Antiphons. In the United States a few of the journals I have been published in are African Writer Magazine, Synchronized Chaos, The Writing Disorder, Waterwheel Review, and others. In Sweden I have contributed articles, a few personal essays, many poems and short stories for over a decade to Ovi Magazine. In South Africa, I have been published in Itch: The Creative Journal, LitNet, New Coin, New Contrast, Ons Klyntji, Botsotso. I have been published in The Selkie in Wales, the Eunoia Review in Singapore, in Australia in the Bluepepper, in Ireland in Dodging the Rain journal. My work has been translated into Italian and published on a website based in Italy, it has been published in Copihue Poetry, a journal based in Chile, South America, and recently some of my work, some poems, have been accepted by Critical Muslim in the United Kingdom for a forthcoming issue. I have been published on websites based in Asia, Australia, Europe, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States and across Africa in countries as diverse as Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Turkey, Uganda and Cameroon and in the African journals Bakwa and Jalada.

MC: Have you done editorial work, have you ever received  any fellowship award or writing award, if any please  mention some of them?
Yes, yes I have. In the past I have worked with multi-disciplinary artist/translator/thinker/editor/publisher/art promoter and mentor Tendai Rinos Mwanaka on Writing Woman Anthology: Personal Essays and Short Stories, Writing Woman Anthology: Drama and Scholarly Articles, and Writing Woman Anthology:  Poetry and Visual Art.
I haven't ever applied for or received a fellowship but I did win the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award in 2023 for my poem “In a lonely search for Walt Whitman” and was previously longlisted for that prize. I was shortlisted for the Writing Ukraine Prize earlier that year. I was the recipient of two writing grants from the National Arts Council in Johannesburg, one from the Centre of the Book in Cape Town,  and another from ECPACC in East London.
I won my first national writing award in high school for a short story I wrote on a person living with AIDS and the rejection and the isolation they felt. It was for Upbeat Magazine which was a magazine that was available nationwide for students at the time.

MC: How is the publishing, book and writing industry in South Africa and are writers respected?
Abigail George: The National Writers Association of South Africa is doing what it can for marginalised and disenfranchised writers in South Africa. Its efforts are commendable and they are doing good work there. There are good people but in every organisation, for the people, by the people, of the people there is politics. I think that in life everything is a negotiation. They introduced a podcast. At the helm of that is Don Afrika Beukes. He is originally from Cape Town, the Western Cape but now lives in France. They have a magazine, Calabash. More can be done I think to encourage up and coming writers. Perhaps a monthly stipend introduced by our government, meaning a small grant for a poet on a monthly basis or a writer and prizes. Book prizes, a book fund for would-be poets and novelists in South Africa. For example, the Nana Walter Chakela Book Prize, Don Mattera Creative Writing Prize for South African primary and high schools, Bessie Head Essay Prize, and the South African Writers Book Fund (this will secure a small stipend for either a poet or a writer of the monthly sum of ZAR1000 or more, to be decided upon for a year).
Black writers, some, a select few, but not all are respected. If I am respected or well-known in literary circles, I don't know about that. It's not reflected in my book sales. I have a book distributor based in the United Kingdom, African Books Collective, and another in Australia and New Zealand. The books are distributed by NewSouth Books through Alliance Distribution Services (ADS) and sales and exposure have been slow. It looks to me that marketing has been non-existent for the large part for writers from this continent and South Africa, but I am just a writer who lives for the most part in a bubble. How many books I sell and the big bucks does not concern me, only getting the work done, only writing and the writing/writer's life.

MC: Does your work reflect anything on freedom of expression  and free speech?
Abigail George: Yes, I think it does. I believe in freedom of expression and free speech. One thing that is very close to my heart are issues surrounding mental health and the awareness of mental health. I wrote about this subject matter openly, honestly and bravely in my books, short stories, essays, poems and journalistic articles. I want to help and give guidance to those who need assistance. I don't shy away from writing about war, corruption, politics, and semi-autobiographical, confessional writing, trauma, what impacts humanity at its most core level. What is always important to remember as a writer/poet/novelist/artist is to detach yourself from the art. That detachment has its own element, space, void to fill, dimensions to exist in. I believe that the art demands to co-exist with the intellect.

MC: Who is your best inspiration among African and South African writers?

Abigail George: The authors Bessie Head, Gillian Slovo, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee, Finuala Dowling have greatly inspired me, as has the playwright Athol Fugard (he came to speak at my high school once. It was an all-girls school). I have always looked to poets for inspiration as well. The poetic writings of Brian Walter, Silke Heiss inspire me. I am inspired by many of Kharys Laue's poems. The poetry of Mxolisi Nyezwa, Mangaliso Buzani, the late, great Mzi Mahola (he was also a mentor, teacher, editor and confidante), Athol Williams, Alan Finlay, Joan Metelerkamp. Dennis Brutus, Arthur Nortjie, Antjie Krog, the life and times of Ingrid Jonker have deeply encouraged me. Robert Berold has also been an inspiration. He is a poet and editor.

MC: What are you working on in 2025?
Abigail George: I am working on a few projects that are keeping me busy. I have a foot in the film world and the book world. In the film world I am revising a screenplay, and have two short films in development with a filmmaker based in Cape Town and Johannesburg. I am working on a nonfiction book. It is a collection of journalism, travel writing, articles, and personal essays that were published in my blog African Renaissance on the website Modern Diplomacy. I am looking for a publisher for my latest poetry book.

MC: Does the  South African Leadership    respect free expression, writers and artists?
Abigail George: They can do more, offer more support, for example. There should be more literary journals and magazines in South Africa and book fairs that cater for Black writers. As far as I am concerned they are not doing enough. I think freedom of expression is respected to a certain degree.

MC: Are copyright laws respected in your country?
Abigail George: No. Vanity publishing, self-publishing, awards garnered by people calling in and voting for your book are de rigueur. I think the copyright bill still has to be signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

South African Abigail George is a Pushcart Prize, two-time Best of the Net nominated, Identity Theory's Editor's Choice, Ink Sweat Tears Pick of the Month poet/writer.  She has written the following books. Africa Where Art Thou (Drum Beat Media/South Africa), Feeding The Beasts (Drum Beat Media), Winter In Johannesburg (Drum Beat Media), Sleeping Under The Kitchen Tables In The Northern Areas (self-published), The Scholarship Girl, Of Smoke, Bone and Flesh: Poetry Against Depression, The Sylvia Plath Effect: The genius. Diary Of A Misfit, The Poet's Journal, Nobody Loves Me, Young Galaxies, In The Footsteps Of A Bipolar Life were all published by Mwanaka Media and Publishing based in Zimbabwe and distributed by African Books Collective, Letter To Petya Dubarova (Gazebo Books/Australia, New Zealand). Gazebo publications are distributed in Australia and New Zealand by NewSouth Books through Alliance Distribution Services (ADS). When Bad Mothers Happen, a work of narrative nonfiction was released in 2024 and published in America.
She has published five collections of poetry, three collections of short stories, three books of life writing, many electronic books and two novels.
Her publishers are Ambrose George (South Africa/Drum Beat Media), Tendai Rinos Mwanaka (Zimbabwe/Mmap), Xavier Hennekinne (Australia, New Zealand/Gazebo Books), and Thanos Kalamidas (Sweden/Ovi).
Her essay was chosen as one of Afrocritik's 20 Remarkable African Essays for 2021. The 15th George Botha Memorial Lecture, prepared and delivered by Professor Denise Zinn was held on the 8th of November 2023 at the South End Museum in Gqeberha. An extract was read out of her poem "The Theft of George Botha's Silence" to mark the occasion.
She was interviewed by BBC Radio 4 by Maggie Ayre on the influence in her life of the seventies American pop band The Carpenters and on Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department Album for The USA Today Network by Bryan West. Her narrative nonfiction book When Bad Mothers Happen and a poem of hers was presented at a Mental Health Festival in Kenya in October 2024.
Her books are available from Barnes and Noble and from Amazon in the United States.