Arja Salafranca

Contributor

Arja Salafranca is a South African writer and content creator for Now Novel. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Wits University (2012) and currently lives in Johannesburg.

Biography:

Her first poetry collection, A life stripped of illusions, received the 1994 Sanlam Award for poetry, while a short story, ‘Couple on the Beach’ received a Sanlam Award in 1999. Her second collection of poetry, The fire in which we burn, was published by Dye Hard Press in 2000. She received the 2009 Dalro Award for poetry. Her third poetry collection, Beyond touch, was a co-winner of the 2016 Sala Awards. Her debut collection of short stories, The Thin Line, was published by Modjaji Books in 2010. It was long-listed for the Wole Soyinka Award in 2012.

She has edited three anthologies of prose most recently Fool’s Gold (2019), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Awards.

She edited the Life supplement in the Johannesburg-based The Sunday Independent from 2003 to 2016.

Her next publication is a collection of creative non-fiction to be published in 2024, consisting of memoir and travel stories.

Find out more:

Recent posts

Mastering NaNoWriMo: expert strategies from veterans

National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short) is just around the corner. This can be an exciting time, a way to get a 50,000-word novel completed, or part of one completed. For those of you who haven’t done it, the task may seem a little daunting. Three veterans who have done NaNoWri giv...

October 30th, 2023

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10 key takeaways from Bird by Bird

Here are 10 key takeaways from a book that has become iconic: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by memoirist and novelist Anne Lamott. It’s been nearly three decades since it was published in 1994. In the years since it’s become something of a cult book, recommended by writ...

October 22nd, 2023

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Beyond stereotypes: portraying realistic LGBTIQ+ characters

Getting beyond the stereotypes and writing credible, relatable LGBTIQ+ characters is possible. You might want to do some research, if you don't identify as queer, and you will want to avoid the tropes mentioned below. The first kiss Back in 1991, the popular TV legal drama, LA Law was in ...

October 15th, 2023

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From trauma to triumph: using life writing to heal

As a life-long keeper of journals, I have chronicled the ups and downs of my life in sometimes minute detail. When I parted from, and moved out of my former partner’s home, I filled up notebook after notebook with a dissection of what went wrong, how we might have saved our relationship, and...

October 8th, 2023

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How to write a novel using the Save the Cat! method

Background to Save the Cat! Firstly, here's a bit of background on this technique for crafting a story. The "Save the Cat!" method was first created by Blake Snyder in 2005. A screenwriter and author he outlined this method in his popular screenwriting book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Scr...

September 22nd, 2023

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Researching place when you can't just get on an airplane

What to do when your character insists that they visited Calgary in Canada and that’s where part of the story takes place? Except you’ve never visited Calgary, never mind Canada. Or if your character goes to Antarctica, and insists you come with, but getting to Antarctica is way out of your pric...

September 18th, 2023

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