The biggest surprise of 2018 had to be the moment when the creative writing workshop I was leading turned out to be not, as I’d assumed, adult learners, but a group of thirteen and fifteen year olds. That was a bit of a shock!

More generally, though, I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed teaching and tutoring. And by how much less intimidating it’s been than I would have expected. Then again, my own learning style is very much, ‘read around the subject a bit, and then jump in and have a go’, so I’ve found that it’s really been a question of equipping other people with the confidence to do that.

I’ve led a few creative writing workshops now, and undergone four days of tutor training. It turns out that ‘read around the subject a bit, and then jump in and have a go’ is an approach that…

To be totally honest, I didn’t have any specific goals for my blog this year. I was getting away with ” I am going with the flow” whenever I was asked about my goals. Trust me it is not something I recommend you to do. I have missed opportunities just because I didn’t know what I wanted at that specific moment. I have learnt from my mistakes and decided to write down 2019 goals.

1. By the end of 2019, I would like to have 20,000 views on the blog and reach more African readers
2. I would like to attend at least three blogger networking events in my city and meet in person the amazing blogger I follow
3. Do at least three events where I meet selflovies_society (join the society on Instagram)
4. Mastering public speaking is also on the list for 2019
5. Finally do my driver’s licence
6. Learn to swim, I…

The Children’s House is Alice Nelson’s third book: her first was a novel called The Last Sky (2008), which was followed by After This: Survivors of The Holocaust Speak (2015).  I haven’t read The Last Sky, but based on its blurb and my reading of After This, (see my review) it seems to me that Nelson is drawn to the melancholy.  She writes about exile, displacement, abandonment, loss and survival.

Just as After This chronicled the hope and healing of Holocaust survivors, The Children’s House concludes on an optimistic note.  But what lies at the heart of the novel is the contrast between the helping professions and the power of love.  The story is peopled by damaged characters: two children raised in the impersonal world of an Israeli kibbutz and then by a mother too remote to offer love; a boy scarred by his mother’s abandonment when new love took her to the other side…