Journal
Fieldnotes + fragments
missives from the studio + collective:
notes on literature, art, culture, projects in progress and the work of making meaning.
These Notes Are Yours
“Ultimately, field notes are archives, and archives are loaded with all the charges of history and place, and biases of the very-fallible humans who write them. We hope, though, that you read These Notes Are Yours in the spirit that it is shared: to help you make meaning, and produce poetry, and publish your work, from what might otherwise pass unnoticed.”
Poet Interview: Helen Moffett
“So, to put it mildly, Strange Fruit changed my life. And this is why we should write poetry, why we must keep publishing it. I have a poem in progress about how years, decades after writing a poem, it can still bring someone to your door, following the silk rope of your words. Write that poem.”
Poet Interview: Manti Moila
“I sometimes have trouble contending with the natural world in all its glorious terror. Houseplants are a manicured, clamped down version of nature that affords people some of the benefits of nature – beauty, calm etc. – without having to deal with the threatening aspects. The word ‘bound’ makes up half of the title for a reason: I love my houseplants, and my plant poems, but there’s something to be said about how we are incapable of reigning over nature, even in language; or especially in language.”
Poet Interview: Sihle Ntuli
“I believe in craft insofar as working towards the mastery of it. I understand the importance of each chapbook and collection I have written, and how they have each contributed to my journey. So to say ‘departure’ would be to premeditate that Owele would be on a road of its own; while this may indeed be the case, it's still very much part of the same legacy.”
Poet Interview: Kobus Moolman
“Phew! I love all your questions, Megan. But they are exhausting. Exhausting because they take me to the real deep centre, the challenges I struggle through on a daily basis… Literature and art is one of the fundamental ways of doing this.”
Poet Interview: Pieter Madibuseng Odendaal
“The process of self-translation felt like a homecoming via a detour. Finding myself in another language helped me to rediscover the feelings and memories that inspired my poems in the first place, and the process became an interlinguistic meditation on what and why I write.”
Poet Interview: Nondwe Mpuma
“I think in most of the poems I am moving between myself, my imagined self, other characters and other people’s perspectives.”
Theatre Review: Please, don't call me moffie (dir. Zubayr Charles)
The play opens with Mushfeeq lying in bed and scrolling on his phone. He is turning 30, an age which is often accompanied by a not-quite-quarter-life crisis and contemplation. He recounts a recurring dream about his own death. He can see himself lying dead, being bathed and wrapped in the kafan before being taken to receive the Salat al-Janazah and be accepted into the afterlife.
Stoep Creative in the media
“I try to honour the themes of the work and pay attention to the vision of the writer. Depending on the publisher, there may also be a set brief or ideas that need to be incorporated.”
Interview with MANCOSA Educator, Michelle Naude
MANCOSA School of Education Academic, Michelle Naude speaks to Stoep Chief Creative and award-winning poet, Megan Ross about how literature promotes STEAM education, innovation and diversity.
Megan Appears on the Mamas with Attitude Podcast
“Megan has been intentional and vocal about documenting her mothering journey through her debut anthology of poetry, Milk Fever, and her short story, Farang. The conversation was an eruption of shared joy in creativity and claiming space to create and practice feminist mothering.”
Stoep Chief Creative mentioned in New Frame News Feature
“In a war against women by men, feminist mothering that teaches boys how to give and receive love is a radical political act.”
