A publicity still from Pride & Prejudice (hint: the book is better than the movie!)

Before we begin, let’s introduce ourselves. We are Jo-Anne Richards and Richard Beynon. We bring to this labour of love many years of our own tears, sweat, success – and of course, failures and rejections.

We’d like to share these, and hope that some of you may then avoid the mistakes that we inevitably made, and learn the good skills that we’ve developed the hard way.

Each of us brings our different skills. I (Jo-Anne) bring everything I’ve managed to learn (miraculously, and some of it by pure chance) while writing four internationally published novels (and a few short stories). Richard brings his skills in dialogue, building character, writing good scenes and maintaining suspense, gleaned during an award-winning career in scripts and screen-plays. We’ve also shamelessly picked the brains of many of our writerly friends.

Richard and I have been training – at university level and to civilians – for years and we run a Writer’s Circle for creative writers as well as of other courses in the same field.

All our courses are interactive. We will offer feedback and the opportunity to mix online with us and other participants.

Jo-Anne Richards is the author of four novels, her latest being My Brother’s Book [link], published by Picador Africa in March 2008.

Her other books include the critically acclaimed bestseller, The Innocence of Roast Chicken, and Touching the Lighthouse, both published by Headline Review in London. Her third book was Sad at the Edges,  published by Stephan Phillips.

She has been short-listed for the M-Net Book Prize and nominated for the Impac International Dublin Literary Award. Her first book was chosen as a Dillon’s Debut in London, to be showcaased as an “outstanding first novel”.

Her short stories have been included in five collections. A sixth is due to appear in 2010.

She lectures at Wits University, as the academic co-ordinator and lecturer in the Honours programme in Journalism & Media Studies. She has also supervised students in the Creative Writing Masters programme at Wits.

Richard Beynon is a television and film writer. A former journalist, he has conceived, shaped and written scores of documentaries.

He managed the writing team of the popular soap, Isidingo, for three years, as well as contributing over four hundred scripts to the series. He is currently a writer and generator of stories on a new daily drama, Rhythm City

Richard has won numerous awards for his work, specifically in comedy, soap and children’s drama. . He has lectured on writing for film and television to film students at university level.