MY BIO
I studied Literature, Psychology and Criminology at Pretoria University and the University of South Africa.
Apart from my family, there are two things I love most dearly, one is the movies and the other is writing. I write for the sheer joy of it. I bring to my writing vast experience and insights acquired from a truly extraordinary and stimulating life, combined with vivid imagination and a gift to translate them to words on a page.
I wrote my first short story at the age of thirteen in a school exercise book. At the time I was convinced it was going to be a best seller, to my disappointment I didn’t get the expected applause. But I was hooked. From that time till today, I have been living my life in the fantasy world of stories and see a story in the lives of every person I meet, even animals and plants have hidden magic for children’s stories.
Working career
All my adult life I have been proof reading and editing books that were subsequently published, some internationally. I have also been doing research for a number of books.
In Apartheid days I was employed by the Department of the Interior, now called Home Affairs, in the Natal province of South Africa. During the influx of refugees from Mozambique into South Africa during the Portuguese revolution of 1974, all refugees were processed through the Race Classifications office in which I was working at the time. Light-skinned refugees were allowed to stay and those with dark-skins were shipped off to Brazil and Portugal. During that period, I gained invaluable insights and knowledge on “behind the scenes” methods and lingo of the Race Classification process. Internationally published author, Wessel Ebersohn, based his novel, The Classifier, on my experience in that office.
From the beginning of my career in editing, whenever I read a book that I found particularly exciting, I would see it like at movie in my mind, however I never put this into practice until 2020 when I decided to adapt The Classifier for screen.
From the Race Classification section, I was moved to the Passport Control office in the same department. There I learnt about ships anchored out of sight in the ocean until the very early morning hours before entering the harbor under cover of darkness to offload weapons. At the time there was an embargo of arms sales to Apartheid South Africa. I discovered that our government was supplying guns and ammunition to both sides in the war between the white community in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today) and the those who opposed it. Another valuable insight into the government’s many secret “behind the scenes” activities. It also was unbelievably interesting material for novels and movies.
To escape the harassment of the security police after they discovered the possibility of international exposure of these activities, we fled to the quiet ambience of the Knysna forest in the Southern Cape where I started and managed a Care Center for wild life, releasing countless birds and other small creatures back into the wild.
The expectation of a new democratic South Africa in 1994, inspired in me the desire to play a meaningful part in the restructuring of my country. I started Succeed Magazine, an entrepreneurship publication, teaching those who were never allowed to participate in a First World economy, how to run a small business successfully. I remained its publisher for the twenty years of its existence. In audited distribution Succeed grew to be the largest business magazine in South Africa at the time. It closed down as a result of a weakening economy and changes to legislation that caused advertising to dry up for many publications.
I also conceived and started DEBATE JOURNAL with the aim of providing a written platform for civic, political and business leaders to discuss issues of national interest. DEBATE won four PICA Awards, South Africa’s top award for journalism and design. I was the publisher of it until it closed for the same reason.
Currently, I write stories for illustrated children’s e-books for publication on a pre-school learning website, as well as proof reading and editing manuscripts.
When I eventually succumbed to the temptation of writing movie scripts, I discovered that I knew nothing about it and didn’t have the slightest idea of what a challenge it would be to learn.
I started by learning about the movie industry, the language, formatting, dialogue, story and character arcs, etc. etc. I watched and read endless screen writing lessons on the web, read many manuscripts, subscribed to newsletters and critically watched at least one movie every day and when possible, compared it to the written movie script of the same movie, trying to analyze what I liked, what I didn’t like and why. And I wrote and wrote movie script after screen play and changed them every time I learned something new.
Up to now I felt that what I was writing was just learning exercises and didn’t submit any of my movie scripts. After many revisions I now feel that it is time to get some expert feed-back and guidance. I am under no illusion that they are not the final products, and I know that I still have much to learn. My hope is to find a manager somewhere in the world to walk with me further along my road.
I see my movie scripts, and as matter of fact my writer-self, as works in progress. I have recently discovered ISA which opened a new world of competitions and training sessions to me.
So here I am and I’m very pleased to finally meet you all.
I can be reached on miriam@miriamebersohn.com