Fluid available: Karavan Press. KL Bohle: photo provided.
Short.Sharp.Stories is a platform showcasing top and emerging South African fiction writers. The theme of this year’s anthology is Fluid – freedom to be. Fluid, this year’s Short.Sharp.Stories anthology, seeks to engage fictional expression around identity, culture and society.
Joanne Hichens conducts interviews with the respective short story writers.
Below is a mini-interview with KL Bohle, author of the short story “My name is” in the 2023 Short.Sharp.Stories anthology, Fluid.
Born into a family of readers and writers, Kirsten has devoured stories since the beginning. This is her first time putting a story of her own out into the world. She lives in Sea Point, and spends her time working and studying and generally just trying her best. She is often found out on the promenade or up the mountain, and equally often at home on the couch. She writes of her story, “My name is”:
I had a dream one night; I was at an event of some sort, and everyone was dressed beautifully. And in the crowd was a small child who didn’t seem to belong to anyone, and who was borrowing names from people in the crowd. That dream became this story.
JH: Many writers speak of finding their stories in dreams. Is this usual for you?
KB: Some nights I dream so vividly, it feels like I’m watching a movie. I’m not in the habit of writing them down and I tend to forget them pretty quickly again, but I couldn’t shake the story of a nameless child, which is why I quickly scribbled it down. I need to get myself a dream journal!
JH: How easy or difficult was it subsequently, as you refined the story, to put yourself into the mind of the child?
KB: Honestly, I don’t think I really thought about it. When I started writing this story, it wasn’t for anyone but me – I wanted to document the very vivid dream, and without really thinking about it I just started writing. When I knew it was going to be published, I became a lot more intentional about trying to verbalise a child’s voice, and that’s when it got difficult. I started overthinking it. I’m very aware that I am writing about an experience that is not my own, and that is pretty scary. This story, and this child, is not unusual – particularly not in my neighbourhood of Sea Point – and representing the child fairly and correctly was very important to me.
JH: The story has a great sense of rhythm to it, which also reflects the child’s way of thinking. Did you at any time have the sense of being transported into the mind of the child? Of “becoming” the child, so to speak?
KB: I did, though I can’t say it was a conscious effort. It happened organically. I’ve always been much better at writing in the first-person narrative; being able to visualise my character through their own eyes makes it easier for me to know what their next move will be or how they’ll react to a situation. I borrowed much from everything I see and experience when I’m walking along the promenade, and then adapted those moments to how I imagined a child might have experienced it.
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I’ve always been much better at writing in the first person narrative; being able to visualise my character through their own eyes makes it easier for me to know what their next move will be or how they’ll react to a situation.
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I wanted to make sure the child (this nameless, anonymous street child whom we see all the time in this city) was very human and very real – more real than how we perceive street children in our normal, day-to-day interactions.
JH: The child certainly comes across authentically in his struggles, in his daydreaming. Getting to the heart of it, do you believe that writers should write stories from any experience, and any character, no matter whether the experience is first-hand or not?
KB: Gosh. This is an interesting question and probably a good time for me to say that I was actually very wary of submitting this story, because the struggles of a street child are not mine and not something I have any way of understanding. I think writers should be able to write stories of any experience or character; stories should be written with respect, with empathy and without bias or assumption. I can’t say I got that right here – it’s a journey of learning, and I am open to trying and open to hearing feedback.
JH: The sense of place struck on a visceral level. Were you aware of this in your dream, too? What was more visceral, the character or the setting, or did they mesh in some way?
KB: I love writers who are able to paint a scene with words, to write about a setting so clearly that you can see it and hear it and feel it on your skin. For me, great storytelling is in the detail. The dream itself was actually an entirely different storyline, which I can still remember but which made little sense. It was the character that stood out for me, that stuck with me long after I woke up – the image of a child who took on the identities of the people they came into contact with.
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For me, great storytelling is in the detail.
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And I wondered why a child would do that, what it meant or what was going on in my subconscious. At some point, I married the child in my dream with the nameless street children in my neighbourhood, and it evolved from there.
JH: On a personal level, tell us a little more about yourself. And what drew you to this competition?
KB: I work as a product manager in a tech start-up, and I really enjoy my job. I like being stimulated, I like being productive and I love a steady pay cheque. And I am studying, too; I’m currently enrolled at Stellenbosch Business School doing a postgrad diploma in Business Administration.
This was the first time I’d ever let anyone read something of mine, the first time I’ve sent something to a competition, so I was a little bit shell-shocked when my story found a place here, in this anthology! My mom convinced me to enter the competition. She’s always encouraged me to write. I had the beginnings of this story, which met the theme of Fluid, and I just decided to go for it.
JH: Your mother, Gail Gilbride, has just brought out a memoir on her battles with cancer, titled Cat therapy. Is she a role model? Or did she warn you: no, don’t do it! Writing is badly paid and characterised by rejection!
KB: My mother’s tenacity is really incredible. When she decides she wants to do something, she throws herself all in. That is inspiring to me. My mother is not only a writer; she’s really immersed herself in the local literary industry and has embraced every opportunity she’s been given, and created many of her own opportunities, too. She doesn’t write for the money; she writes because she loves it and loves to see her words in print. I think that if I told her I was quitting my job and pursuing this full-time, she’d be fully behind me.
JH: How do you fit creative writing into your life with all your other responsibilities?
KB: I don’t know that I do, to be honest. This is the first story I have finished writing in probably a decade. I would like to spend more time writing, and it’s a goal of mine to find the space and inspiration to do that. I spend so much time at my computer when I’m working, that in my downtime I try to be anywhere but in a chair – hiking or swimming or even running errands, anything to get up and step away. It’s hard to find the want to write, when it feels a bit too similar to work. I have to figure it out still.
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The only advice I will offer is to stop overthinking it. Just write the story. Submit the story. And then keep doing it. That’s my process.
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JH: As a first-time published writer of a short story, do you have a tip for those who’d like to try their hand at it?
KB: I’m hoping writers can share some tips with me! I have no tips; I’m just going with the flow and seeing where it takes me. The only advice I will offer is to stop overthinking it. Just write the story. Submit the story. And then keep doing it. That’s my process.
JH: To end with, as you mentioned your love of reading in your bio, do you still read as much as you did when you were young?
KB: Reading was and still is my favourite form of escapism, of self-soothing, of entertainment. I binge-read books as a child; I read whenever and wherever I could. I used to hide in the bathroom when I had friends over to play, and read my book until my mother came to find me.
I still love books. It’s one of the few times I can just be, and just sit still – reading occupies my mind and my hands, and I can get completely lost in a story.
Read more:
Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Fluid: interview with Vuyokazi Ngemntu, author of “Mirror, Mirror"
Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Fluid: interview with Alex Latimer, author of "YOLO"
Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Fluid: interview with Kingsley Khobotlo, author of "Against the grain"