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The Writing Coach Podcast 15: How Nelson Mandela taught me to write faster

The Writing Coach Podcast 15: How Nelson Mandela taught me to write faster

Today’s episode addresses two questions I get asked all the time, but never together: How can I write faster? What brought you to South Africa? These are somewhat surprisingly interconnected for me, and today i’m going to share with you one of the lessons Mandela taught me–how to write faster. Listen to episode 15 of […]

The Writing Coach Podcast 9: Longform articles and short documentaries with Christopher Clark

The Writing Coach Podcast 9: Longform articles and short documentaries with Christopher Clark

09: Longform articles and short documentaries with Christopher Clark Christopher Clark is a freelance journalist and filmmaker. He recently co-directed two documentaries about people living on the fringes of South African society for Al Jazeera and the BBC. Subscribe to The Writing Coach Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Android, or RSS. Christopher Clark is a freelance journalist and filmmaker. He’s reported from […]

The Writing Coach Podcast 8: Backstory of a New York Times travel feature with Sarah Khan

The Writing Coach Podcast 8: Backstory of a New York Times travel feature with Sarah Khan

08: Backstory of a New York Times travel feature with Sarah Khan Sarah Khan is a freelance travel writer for the Wall Street Journal, Condé Nast Traveler, and Travel + Leisure. Today Sarah shares the backstory of her award-winning feature for the New York Times, “A Muslim American’s Homecoming: Cowboys, Country Music, Chapatis.” Subscribe to The […]

The Writing Coach Podcast 7: Procrastinate later

The Writing Coach Podcast 7: Procrastinate later

http://writingcoachpodcast.libsyn.com/07-procrastinate-later Subscribe to The Writing Coach Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Android, or RSS. What does a wild animal have to do with procrastination? Your brain wants to protect you from danger–be it a baboon in the bedroom or the anxiety of writing your first draft. Oh, wait, writing that draft isn’t a threat to your survival? […]

The Writing Coach Podcast 3/Travel writing: Pitching stories before or after the trip?

The Writing Coach Podcast 3/Travel writing: Pitching stories before or after the trip?

03: Travel writing: Pitching stories before or after the trip This episode addresses two of the most requested topics my readers told me they wanted to hear about: travel writing and pitching. Should you pitch your travel story ideas before or after you have a notebook full of notes? In theory, you can do it […]

What freelance writers can learn from Cape Town’s Day Zero

What freelance writers can learn from Cape Town’s Day Zero

As a freelance journalist based in Cape Town, South Africa, the full meaning and impact of Day Zero is revealing itself both incredibly fast (what about this? and that! and the other?!) as well as incredibly slowly (such as the city’s non-release of details about logistics, or queuing for water). What is Day Zero? In […]

Freelance Writer Retreat near Cape Town, South Africa

Freelance Writer Retreat near Cape Town, South Africa

Registration for the Freelance Writer RETREAT near Cape Town, South Africa, is now open. Two days of workshops focused on boosting your confidence, skills, and bottom line as a freelance writer. Plus, penguins. Imagine if you could easily generate freelance article ideas that delighted you, your editors (or the editors you want to write for), […]

That thing you want to write

Early bird registration is now open for the Freelance Writer Retreat near Cape Town, South Africa. Visit www.rebeccalweber.com/retreat to register. In my own small way, I’ve taken the advice of Toni Morrison to heart: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” A […]

On my bookshelf: Solrevolution

On my bookshelf: Solrevolution

“My” new book has been published! I wrote the South African sections of Solrevolution, which has finally arrived from Sweden thanks to the South African postal strike ending. If Monocle were to create a coffee table book in Swedish about solar energy, this is what it would look like. Another post soon to come on […]

Ebola as a geography teaching tool

On a nonstop flight from London Heathrow to Cape Town last week, I had to sign a compulsory new form stating that I didn’t have any ebola-like symptoms, and that I would notify … er, somebody, possibly the Department of Home Affairs, though they didn’t provide any sort of literature for me to take with, […]

A story killed and resurrected

A story killed and resurrected

Throughout my years of freelance writing, there is one recurring situation that is genuinely tricky to prevent: the story that gets killed because the assigning editor leaves the publication. You might think that the new editor would be so busy trying to get up to speed that the last thing they’d do is kill a […]

Chicken stalker

For a forthcoming feature about food in Cape Town, I stalked this rooster for the better part of an hour.

Robben Island

On the eve of South Africa’s 2014 elections–20 years of democracy was celebrated last week on Freedom Day–I reported from Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela served the majority of his 27 years as a political prisoner. About 250 people currently live on the island, a half hour ferry ride and a world away from Cape […]

Freedom Day

I wrote this piece, “Segregation still the rule in schools,” about 10 years of democracy in South Africa 10 years ago, in 2004, back when I still had a day job as an editor, but was furiously freelancing in the evenings and weekends. I was traveling to South Africa for a visit and a wedding, and […]

Braai baby braai

Braai baby braai

With no fewer than five public holidays over the next three weeks (yep, that is one entire work week), South Africans are sure to be getting their braai (barbecue) on in a big way. It’s a distinctly local culinary tradition, and unique that it cuts across race and income groups. At my first braai invitation […]

It’s a sign

Posted in Cape Town, design
It’s a sign

Hand-lettered signs were once ubiquitous in Cape Town, but are rapidly being replaced by printed plastic-y signs. Here are a few from Brooklyn, Cape Town.