Volume 52 Issue 04 - April 2014 : Readers Diary

I attended my primary schooI at Mmathethe Primary School where I was the “cream of the school”. I am not trying to boast - that is the truth. I was a pure straight A student until I finished my PSLE and Junior Certificate. I then went for my senior school at Matsha College, where I got 43points. 

After that I went to pursue Bachelor of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Botswana, taking Statistics and Economics as my majors. 

I then decided to take a Post Graduate Course in Business Information Systems and Business Administration. I enrolled myself on an online course on writing skills at Writer`s Berea-Manchester, where I got my first experience of writing short stories for online magazines but never finished the course due to financial constraints. 

I actually started writing my book - “What does not Kill You” - when I was doing my Post Graduate but I stopped working on it during examinations. After the examinations, I finished the book.

I then approached local publishing houses that shut the door at my face and told me they only published material that could be used in the school curriculum because it was easy to sell to government. I decided to go from door to door, from one private company to the other and other government institutions, trying to find help to publish my book but to no avail. 

I was rejected day in and day out but I never gave up. I ran from ministry to ministry, company to company but all they told me was they don`t help individuals with sponsorships or something else. 

After a long time of running around, my parents put up everything they had to help me publish the book with a certain publishing company from Zimbabwe, where I was able to print a few copies from my pocket and they were sold within a very short period of time.

I had to go back around to ask for more help to print more copies of the book to sell. Upon running around, I went to BNYC where they helped me a lot in marketing the book and had already acquired a lot of potential buyers who made offers to buy but unfortunately I had no stock to supply them. 

I had to be more persuasive at this point and went back to the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture, Department of Arts And Culture after I was rejected for the first time. 

After convincing them about the potential of the book, I was offered sponsorship to print more copies of the book. 

As I am writing this article, I am an author and my book is found in all libraries around the country as well as other bookstores, thanks to, most of all my parents - Mr Joseph and Mrs Ontebile Kgomotso. 

I also thank BNYC, Department of Arts and Culture and all my school teachers from primary school, especially my mother who was always tough on me, especially during composition writing and showed me that I had creative writing skills, and the whole of the U.C.C.S.A community for helping me learn everyday that dreams are nothing without God, to always count my blessings no matter what kind of situation I am in and to help me keep grounded and hopeful all the time.

In our country, writers are not taken seriously as in other countries where someone can make a living through writing and selling of books. 

Aspiring writers especially do not get enough support to make their dreams come true and it is just ignored that writing is a creative art just like any other and it takes a creative, determined and a special mind to write a publishable piece. 

However, I`d urge young and upcoming writers to never give up, talk to writers who are already established to get help and more information and knowledge. I also wish the Writer`s Association of Botswana (WABO) could provide more support and stand up for the rights of writers. Ends

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