“Virginia Woolf famously said “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” I reserve comment on the money bit for now but as for a room, my upcoming writers’ residency at Paulet House in Somerset East is about to generously sort that out.
Writers’ residency.
Yep. It really is as cool, artsy and healthily self-indulgent as it sounds. Along with all the amenities that are so meticulously provided, the mother of all gifts is bestowed – time.
In preparing for the residency – two weeks where five writers share a space to work on our individual projects – I find myself reflecting on the two previous residencies that have helped shape my writing over the years.
I still have the massive sheet of white paper from the Femrite Regional Residency for African Women in Uganda where, in 2013, I brainstormed my first novel, If You Save Me. On my version of a blank canvas, I plotted my characters, their relationships, issues, locations and connections. I had everything in there from the Vietnam War to Caribbean folklore attempting to pose as magical realism. It was overly ambitious of course and when I had my one-on-one with the workshop facilitator, Ugandan writer Doreen Baingana, her wide eyes said what her mouth…well…said: “It’s a huge story. Don’t you want to start with something smaller?”
I didn’t. But as I wrote, the story naturally whittled itself down and the characters converged towards each other in an organic fashion. That workshop not only produced the bones of my first novel but were some of my most enjoyable days as a writer.”
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Lisa-Anne Julien is originally from Trinidad and Tobago, but now lives in Johannesburg. After studying dance in New York in her early twenties, she completed her master’s degree in social policy at the London School of Economics before moving to South Africa to work as a development consultant. As a features and travel writer, Lisa-Anne’s work has been published in a wide range of commercial publications, including O, The Oprah Magazine, Elle, Psychologies, House & Garden, New African and Sawubona.
Lisa-Anne received a Highly Commended award in the 2009 Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Her writing residencies include residencies at Femrite – Uganda Women Writers’ Association and the Yale Writers’ Conference. Her manuscript of If You Save Me was long-listed for the UK Mslexia First Novel Competition before being published by Kwela Books in 2021.
If You Save Me was long-listed for the 2022 Sunday Times Fiction Prize and was the joint winner of the 2022 UJ Debut Prize.
