Today on the podcast I’m talking with Lenina Rassool.   Lenina is the producer and presenter of The Womxn Show, a weekly TV show produced by Cape Town TV that focuses on gender-based violence and gender justice. The show launched in 2019 and since then has aired over 100 episodes – an incredible achievement.   For listeners who want to go and check it out, you can watch it on Cape Town TV or DSTV 263 on Sundays at 6pm, Tuesdays at 11am, and Thursdays at 9pm. You can also watch it on YouTube.   But the Womxn Show was not Lenina’s first foray into covering these issues. She has 15+ years of experience as a journalist, with a focus on human rights and social justice. She has worked for the mainstream media including for Femina Magazine, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and Independent Newspapers before moving into the non-profit sector, producing content across print and web platforms at Activate! Change Drivers and OpenUp (then Code for South Africa).   In 2017, she started at Cape Town TV as news editor and anchor of Our City News, then Deputy Director of the station in 2018 where she went on to produce the Womxn Show.   So today I’m going to be talking with Lenina about her work as a journalist, about the importance of covering GBV as an issue, and about the ways she’s found to take care of herself while doing this work.

Nechama Brodie is no stranger to the Living While Feminist podcast. We spoke in 2021 for Season 4, so if you haven’t listened to that episode please do go back and find it now.   Nechama Brodie is an absolute polymath – multi-media journalist, author, senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Journalism and Media Studies, musician, singer, martial artist. She has turned her attention to so many important topics, and most recently to the topics of farm killings and domestic violence.   Today we’ll be focussing on her latest book, Domestic Terror, which examines the fact that – as the back of the book says – quote, “every day, more than three women in South Africa, on average, are murdered by their male intimate partners, the person who often sleeps next to them, who shares a bed, a house, a life, children”. This book looks at the stories of some of these women and unpacks decades of coercive control and centuries of state failure to protect women. It manages to examine this extremely important and difficult topic with insight and information, it busts myths in a fantastic way, and it is an extremely important read.   In an early chapter, Nechama writes:  “In my earlier works on femicide I have written how when a woman asks for help, we should listen to her. I want to add to this: when a man says he is going to hurt a woman, we should believe him.”   Later on in the book she asks:  “How do we tackle this? How do we teach women, their families, and their communities to change – because it is clear that while we are very good at marches and hashtags when it comes time to back and believe individual women who need our support before they are killed, we are not succeeding.”   So today I’ll be talking with Nechama about Domestic Terror, her work as a fact checker and myth buster, and her writing world.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Derilene Marco.   Derilene is a creative scholar who holds a Senior Lecturer position in Media Studies at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. Dee’s research pivots around social and cultural practices and experiences of the everyday, particularly in relation to mothering identities, person-making and caregiving as labour/ work. She has written on apartheid and post-apartheid South African cinema, black women’s lives and stories and is the co-editor of Sasinda Futhi Siselapha (still Here): Black Feminist Approaches to Cultural Studies in South Africa Twenty Six Years Since 1994 (2021) and Transforming Pedagogy, a workbook for parents (2023).    Dee is the founder of the multimodal research project, Mother.Lab, which houses a mobile complaints space for mothers and caregivers, called House of Complaints. I'm really excited to talk to Dee today about her work.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Athambile Masola.   Athambile is a writer, researcher and an award-winning poet based in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her debut collection of poetry is written in isiXhosa, Ilifa (Uhlanga Press, 2021). She is the co-author of the children’s history book series, Imbokodo: Women who shape us (Jacana, 2022), with Dr Xolisa Guzula. Her latest book is a collaboration with Makhosazana Xaba; a collection of Noni Jabavu’s columsn from 1977, A stranger at Home (Tafelberg, 2023).   Atha has been a blogger and online commentator for many years and I’m so delighted to be talking to her today.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Sam Beckbessinger. I had the pleasure of talking to Sam in December 2020 for Season 1 about How to Manage your Money like a Fucking Grown-up, and we talked all things money from a feminist perspective. So, if you haven’t yet listened to that episode, go back, and download it now.   Since I last spoke to Sam her writing career has gone from strength to strength and has taken many forms. Her interactive story about climate change, Survive the Century, was featured in New Scientist and Gizmodo. She also writes a very interesting newsletter which is always full of stimulating ideas. Sam is also an associate lecturer in the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University in the UK where she’s sharing her hard-earned knowledge and talent with other writers. If that doesn’t sound impressive enough, just this year she has released not one but two books which we’ll be talking about today – Girls of Little Hope, a novel written with Dale Halvorsen, about two missing girls who come back, changed. And Moving to the UK: A Concise Guide for South Africans, which is a practical guide for moving across the world without losing your mind. Taking a look at Sam’s Projects page on her website also makes me feel inspired. She’s working on another novel and two super-top-secret TV shows. So today I’ll be talking with Sam about all things writing and what she’s got up her sleeve next.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Rumbi Goredema Görgens. Rumbi is a Zimbabwean-born South African-based feminist author and activist. Her writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Vela Magazine, and on FeministsSA.com and MyFirstTimeSA.com. She has worked with various South African civil society organisations, and her current day job is at Embrace, a movement dedicated to making mothers and motherhood matter in South Africa, in benefit of women who mother and the children they raise. Rumbi is the proud and exhausted mother of Samuel (7 going on 18) and Miriro (3). So today I’ll be talking with Rumbi about making motherhood matter.

A quick update to say that my real mom life has got in the way of recording and sharing this week's episode. It'll be out later this week.

Today on the podcast I’ll be speaking with Lauren Beukes. Lauren  is the award-winning author of six novels, a collection of short stories, a pop history about South African women, and New York Times best-selling comics. Her work has been translated into 26 languages. Her novel, The Shining Girls, about a time-travelling serial killer and the survivor who turns the hunt around is now a major AppleTV series with Elisabeth Moss who listeners may know from the Handmaid’s Tale and Mad Men. Lauren is a former feature journalist, who covered electricity cable thieves, HIV+ beauty pageants, metro cops and homeless sex workers. She’s worked in film and TV, as the director of Glitterboys & Ganglands, a documentary which won Best LGBTI Film at the Atlanta Black Film Festival, and as showrunner and head writer on South Africa’s first half hour animated TV show, Pax Afrika, which ran for 104 episodes on SABC. Her work has been hailed by the likes of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, George R.R. Martin. She has won several awards over the last ten years, including The Arthur C Clarke Award, The University of Johannesburg Prize, the Strand Critics Choice Award, The Kitschies Red Tentacle, The August Derleth Prize, RT Thriller of the Year, Exclusive Books Booksellers Choice Award and the prestigious Mbokodo Award for women in the creative arts from South Africa’s Department of Arts and Culture. When asked where she gets her ideas from, Lauren responds “Everywhere. Conversations, observations, watching the cultural shifts and fracture points and weirdnesses in the world. The inside of my head is less a memory palace and more of a hoarder house; full of strange and useless things that sometimes, if I’m lucky, come together in interesting and surprising ways.” One of these interesting and surprising novels is her latest – Afterland. The story of a mother and son on the run in a post-pandemic America. The pandemic, known as The Manfall means that twelve year old Miles is one of the last boys alive, and his mother, Cole, will protect him at all costs – especially from her own sister. This feminist, high-stakes thriller is a blend of many genres and the perfect post-pandemic read. Lauren lives in London with her teenage daughter, two trouble cats and a lot of plants. So today I’ll be talking with Lauren about post-pandemic motherhood, feminism, and literary success. Welcome Lauren.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Megan Ross. Megan is a writer, creative consultant and journalist. She is the author of Milk Fever (published by uHlanga Press in 2018) which is a collection of poetry. In Milk Fever Megan writes about the uneasy truths of unexpected motherhood and all its emotional detritus. It explores the choices and misadventures of young womanhood, centering the personal as political in a feminist and bold poetic style. She is also the author of several short stories and essays that have gone on to achieve critical acclaim. She is a recipient of the Brittle Paper Award for Fiction (2017) and an Alumni Award for the Iceland Writers Retreat in Rekyavick. She was also the finalist in the Gerald Kraak, Miles Morland, Short Story Day Africa, and Short.Sharp Awards. Megan has worked in the book industry on both the copy and art aspects of book production for publishers across the African continent. She left her features writer role at Glamour magazine to pursue a career in freelance writing in journalism in Bangkok. After returning to South Africa her writing has featured in New Frame, Mail and Guardian, Glamour, Brittle Paper, GQ, Prufrock, Catapult, New Coin, New Contrast and the Kalahari Review. As a freelancer she ran her own visual and communications studio and created work for a wide range of clients including Lil-Lets South Africa. Megan is the contributing editor at Isele Magazine. Megan has a Bachelor of Journalism and Media Studies degree and now works in advertising full time at Retroviral. So today I’ll be talking to Megan about motherhood, poetry, and the importance of telling our stories.

Today on the podcast I’m speaking with Sarah Lotz. Sarah was born in the UK, lived in Paris, Israel and spent 20 years in Cape Town. She returned to the UK 5 years ago and is currently living on the Welsh borderlands. She’s an ex mural artist, now lucky enough to be a full time screenwriter and novelist. Sarah has published 20 novels that have been translated into over 25 languages. She’s done this on her own and as part of collaborative writing teams including with Louis Greenberg (under the name S.L Grey - hard core horror novels), Helen Moffett and Paige Nick (under the name Helena S Paige - 'choose-your-own adventure style' erotica novels ;)) and her daughter Savannah Lotz (under the name Lily Herne - zombie YA fiction). Sarah claims to have too many rescue dogs – if that’s even a thing – and is an animal rights and environmental activist. Sarah’s latest novel is called Impossible, and it’s a tale of romance that is fantastic and just a little bit different from the one you might expect. Sarah has a daughter – Savannah – who is 30, and a step daughter, known to the family as little Sarah – who is 32. So today I’ll be talking with Sarah about feminism, parenting, writing, and hopefully a bit about the environment. Welcome Sarah.