Humbled by FCJ Excellence Awards shortlist

My attempts at writing dates back to my boyhood at Ribane-Laka High School in the Pretoria township of Mamelodi.

At the time English grammar teacher, Odrie Mamabolo, selected my essay as the best of the class.

She urged me to consider journalism as a career. The rest is history.

In later years more inspiration came from erstwhile editor-in-chief of the popular Reader’s Digest (Southern Africa), Wendy Morgenrood.

The good lady had read a column I wrote for the Pretoria News.

She suggested I consider researching and writing fiction, but do it around real-life characters.

One thing led to the other and my very first short story — titled “Baba Mfundisi, the clergyman “ — was published in an anthology called “Crossing Over: Stories from a new South Africa (Kwela Books)”.

Since then I published several other short fiction, some of which has been translated into Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Afrikaans.

Enter my Pretoria-based buddy, the medic-cum-filmmaker, Dr Gomolemo Mokae.

The man suggested I try my hand at screenwriting, although I had no clue what a film script looked like.

Months down the line Gomolemo was breathing on my neck, so to speak, urging me to send a short film story idea to the M-Net New Directions Short Film initiative.

The result was that after workshops and shortlists starting at regional level, with mine being Johannesburg, I ended up one of eight finalists flown to Cape Town for the final stretch.

At the end of it all my screenplay, “Christmas with Granny”, was selected and made into a short film. I was really humbled.

Now as early as last Friday 1 June, my colleague and the editor at Die Pos/The Post, Keina Swart, dispatched a list of names shortlisted for the FCJ Excellence Awards.

No less than five of us at the two newspapers had been nominated for these prestigious awards.

The finalists from our side include Keina, photographer Herman Steyn, the go-getter reporter Ronél van Jaarsveld, graphic designer par excellence Willie Nel, and myself.

I for one was nominated once again for Best Columnist (Die Pos/The Post), and also for the category of best headline writer.

I am still humbled after being named the Caxton Excellence Awards Best Columnist in recent months.

Like the Caxton awards, the FCJ Excellence Awards are dead serious business.

More than 130 journalists from more than 80 newspapers countrywide had sent in entries.

Veteran journalist and former Press Ombudsman Joe Tlholoe, chaired one of the various categories.

The judging for the scores of categories was conducted in Johannesburg, Cape Town and the North West University’s Potchefstroom campus.

Leriba Hotel and Spa in Centurion here we come!

– The BEAT