About Helen

I'm an editor, writer, poet, teacher, and scholar.

As an editor, I'm an amalgam of a supervisor, mentor, advisor and sounding-board, as well as someone who re-arranges words, checks facts, and nags about details. I believe that editor and author should meet as practitioners with equally valuable skills in a spirit of collaboration, and that both parties should learn and grow from the experience.

Although I started out as an academic, then worked as an academic editor, in the last twenty-five years I’ve been lucky to work with some of the African continent’s brightest literary and academic minds, including Lauren Beukes, Zakes Mda, Ivan Vladislavić, Sarah Lotz, Thando Mgqolozana, Diane Awerbuck, Gabeba Baderoon, Siphiwo Mahala, Ade Adebajo, Nadia Davids, Jacqui L’Ange, Nechama Brodie, Fiona Snyckers, Petina Gappah, Elinor Sisulu, Jamala Safari, Nick Mulgrew, Liesl Jobson, Adam Habib, Amina Mama, Barbara Boswell, Mia Arderne, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Christine Lucia, Dr Emmanuel Taban, Onke Mazibuko, Nozuko Siyotula, and Sindiwe Magona.

I also work on the other side of the author/editor relationship. I've released two collections of poetry: Strange Fruit, published in 2009 by Modjaji Books; and Prunings, published in 2016 by uHlanga. John Eppel found Strange Fruit a “compelling” read, containing “a poetry of glittering surfaces”. (LitNet found the poems “altogether edible”.) Prunings likewise has been lauded for its “wonder and power” in the Cape Times, and was joint winner of the South African Literary Award for Poetry in 2017.

I've also had great fun producing commercial fiction, notably the A Girl Walks In choose-your-own-erotic-adventure trilogy I co-wrote with Sarah Lotz and Paige Nick under the nom de plume Helena S. Paige. A Girl Walks Into a Bar, A Girl Walks Into A Wedding, and A Girl Walks Into A Blind Date have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Catalan and traditional Mandarin.

I love collaborations, and two of my favourite projects include a memoir of Rape Crisis Cape Town (the world’s oldest independent surviving crisis organisation) and Stray: An anthology of animal stories and poems, co-edited with Diane Awerbuck. The cover was designed by Joey Hi-Fi, the international award-winning designer who does the covers for Lauren Beukes’s books, and the proceeds benefit TEARS, a local animal charity.

Another passion project is Short Story Day Africa. I serve on the Board, and as the Editing Mentor for our regular anthology of stories from all over the African continent. This project is not only designed to showcase the best in fresh talent, but to develop editing skills and support structures by choosing promising young African publishers to nurture. So far I’ve worked on the collection Migrations, with Efemia Chela (Zambia) and Bongani Kona (Zimbabwe); ID, with Nebila Abdulmelik (Ethiopia) and Otieno Owino (Kenya); Hotel Africa, with Ope Adedeji (Nigeria), Anne Moraa (Kenya) and Agazit Abate (Ethiopia); and Captive (with Rachel Zadok).

I’m equally passionate about literacy projects for children, and consult regularly for the Puku Children’s Literature Foundation, and participate (mostly as an editor) in the Book Dash projects in which writers, artists and designers collaborate to create free books for children under the age of five. My first children’s book, Toast, was Book Dash’s one hundredth title.

I’m also an environmental activist and writer, and am currently writing the third book in a series of green handbooks: the first was 101 Waterwise Ways, followed by Wise About Waste: 150+ Ways to Help Save the Planet. For more about this work, click on the “Green Hat” tab on this website.

Away from creative writing and editing, I work as a teacher: I love this more than anything else. While life has led me away from university teaching, I continue to undertake training and facilitate workshops for authors, academics and researchers, both in South Africa and abroad. Some of the organisations for which I have done training include the African Gender Institute, the Centre for Conflict Resolution, Wiki, ANFASA (Academic and Non-Fiction Authors of South Africa), SAFCEI (Southern African Faith Communities Environmental Initiative) and REDISA (Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa).

This overlaps with my activist hat. My work on sexual violence, emotionally draining but necessary work, has been used for training purposes by Rape Crisis Trust Cape Town, UN-INSTRAW, Womankind UK and the National Resource Center for Sexual Violence in the United States.

Until the tide of sexual violence abates in South Africa, I have to find sanity in more soothing work. Most notably, I spent ten unforgettable years working on the late cricket guru Bob Woolmer's magnum opus, Bob Woolmer's Art and Science Of Cricket, with a team that included co-author Tim Noakes and editor Tom Eaton. I have also worked on an anthology of landscape writing, several university textbooks, and much more besides.

You can find out more about my books here.