Jo-Anne Richards is a South African novelist and journalist, who lectures at Wits University in Johannesburg. Her fourth book, My Brother’s Book, was published in March, by Picador Africa. See extract from first chapter.
Her first novel, The Innocence of Roast Chicken, topped the South African bestseller list in the week it appeared and remained there for 15 weeks.
She and Richard Beynon launched a new site, allaboutlove.net on Valentine’s day 2008. It’s a website dedicated to nurturing and publishing writers of the best romantic fiction. It features fiction of all lengths and offers writing courses in various aspects of romantic fiction.
More about Jo-Anne Richards
Jo-Anne has divorced two husbands and kept two children. She lives with writer, Fred de Vries in Johannesburg. They spend every second weekend in a small traditional Free State house in the agricultural village of Vrede, which means Peace. They have fruit trees and cows next door.
Her parents still live in Port Elizabeth, where she was born and bred. Her brother, Professor Guy Richards, is an internationally known repiratory physician, also at Wits. He is head of respiratory ICU at the Jo’burg Gen.
The Innocence of Roast Chicken was well reviewed in Britain, Holland, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. German translation rights were sold and the book was chosen as a Dillon’s Debut in Britain, to be showcased for a month as an “outstanding first novel” by the well-known book chain. It was short-listed for South Africa’s premier literary award, The M-Net Book Prize, and was nominated for the international literary award, Impac International Dublin Literary Award.
Film rights were sold to a British production company based at Pinewood Studios. She co-wrote the screenplay with award-winning screenplay writer, Richard Beynon. South African-born director, Ross Devenish, agreed to direct the movie, although sufficient funds have not yet been raised.
Her second book, Touching the Lighthouse, was well reviewed locally and internationally. When the German translation of Lighthouse was launched, she was invited to speak at Bayreuth University in German on Writing in a Transitional Society. Both books were published by Headline in London and were launched in both London and Johannesburg. Her third book, Sad at the Edges, launched in 2003, published by Stephan Phillips.
She has published short stories in five collections. One was in a collection of women’s writing by Headline and Cosmopolitan UK. An adapted version of this story appeared in Laugh the Beloved Country, edited by Harvey Tyson and James Clarke and published by Double Storey Books. A third appeared in From Joburg to Jozi, published by Penguin. A short piece was published in Something to Write Home About, by Jacana, a collection of behind-the-scenes stories by journalists around the world. Another short story appeared in a collection entitled Twist, published by Oshun, late in 2006.
She is lecturer and academic co-ordinator of the Honours programme in Journalism and Media Studies at Wits University, where she is also involved with the Masters programme in Creative Writing.
She teaches writing skills in journalism, narrative journalism and creative writing. She runs a Writers’ Circle, with colleague Richard Beynon.
She has worked full-time for four South African newspapers – The Star, the Sunday Express, the Cape Times and Evening Post. She has written features and supplements for local magazines and newspapers: She has written for international titles, including The Guardian in London, Vanity Fair and Talk in New York.
She has a number of different hats. She is also co-editing a book, The Clinical Genetic Education Manual, with Professor Arnold Christianson of the Dept of Human Genetics. This is a comprehensive work on human genetics, intended for all health professionals, including primary health carers. It is being written in plain language and will eventually be used by health professionals all over Africa, many of whom don’t speak English as a first language.
As vice chair of the South African Inherited Disorders Association, she was invited to represent South Africa at the Biovision World Life Sciences Conference in Lyon in March last year, as part of the International Genetics Alliance delegation.
As national chair of the Turner Syndrome Contact Group of South Africa, she has produced a first-ever informational pamphlet on the genetic disorder – translated into eight local languages.
