Life Lately: April 2024
Little updates and highlights from April
I’m rusty at this. Talking about myself, I mean. With how timid I’ve become with personal, journal-like writing, I can hardly believe I’m the same person who started blogging in 2008, from the age of 14, right up until 2022 when, exhausted by the whirlwind of my father’s death, a failed business and a deep descent into poor mental health, I basically gave up on writing personal reflections.
I have been trying to get back into the swing of things. I shared a (perhaps) too personal book review of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder last year but other than republishing reviews and posts from years ago, I haven’t done much in the realm of genuine self expression.
I’m easing back into a long ignored passion by simply posting my April recap. I used to love writing Life Lately posts and it bums me out that most of the people who used to do stuff like this have relented to criminally uninformative monthly dumps on Instagram and X. I miss feeling updated by my pals and people whose content I enjoy.
I’ll go ahead and do as I preach about sharing a bit more.
Notable happenings
I had partial hosting duties at the first cohort of the Imagine Immensities creative research program by Utawaleza Malawi. The exhibition of participants’ projects was held at Orchid on Saturday, 6th April. It was awesome! I’ve never been an MC before and I was absolutely nervous beforehand but I loved that my first time was at an intimate and intellectually enriching event. Hopefully I get to do more of that in the future.
I worked with the very talented Phindu Zaie Banda to revamp her LinkedIn and update her media kit. It was good prep for working on my own, something I’m procrastinating about.
I began the process of migrating my writing and self publishing content to Linkedin where I think it’ll perform better. (Future Dytodo here…they, in fact, did not perform better! You can find the entire bullet list of posts right here on my blog). I also did it because I want to be a little more personal with my substack. (LOL, I migrated my blog away from substack in the end!). Here are the ones that are up so far:
I got some headshots taken at Photo OPP, a pop-up event hosted by Wona Collective. It was fun to get some professional pics while meeting and catching up, however briefly, with fellow creatives. What do you think? Do I look like the real deal or can you spot my cheekiness in these stills?
Speaking of photoshoots, my own book got a cute little one by my sister. She sent photos of It Was Tender Underneath and I love them so much. I seriously can’t wait to publish more of my fiction so there’s a whole stack of my books I can gently force my sister to photograph.
In less fun news, I unfortunately made a few trips to the hospital. Earlier in the month, I got diagnosed with pneumonia. I had to get tested for tuberculosis. Fun (?) fact: did you know you’ll be asked to take an HIV test before testing for TB? Turns out HIV positive individuals are more likely to develop TB than those who are negative. Thankfully, all tests came back negative. To my dismay, I was back at the hospital after some troubling pain on my hip and abdomen.
An X-ray revealed that I was almost normal except for some chest congestion. They gave me meds for that and I’ve felt much better since seeing the docs. I’ve never been one to get sick. Or rather, acknowledge that I’m sick but ever since I went to rehab and began therapy, I’ve learned to be more empathetic to myself and address any of my body’s health issues. I’m proud of myself, to be honest. There are past versions of me who’d have done the unkind act of settling things with a couple of painkillers and time. I’ll count that as a win!
I’m in the midst of doing final edits for my next books – “The New Author’s Guide To Self Publishing in Malawi” and “Storytelling Fundamentals and Literary Techniques: A Basic Guide”. I’ll be publishing them under my real name. (I discontinued them!) Dytodo Vox is me when I’m writing fiction. My government, Angasamale Maliro, is for everything else. I’m looking forward to the day this fact is not confusing, lol.
In more editing news, I started working on Faith’s book, an uplifting and beautiful memoir written by one of my closest friends. I can’t wait until people can read it for themselves. It’s so worth it.
I finally got my physical degree! It’s a long story but despite graduating in 2020, I only just touched the document that proves I did my time at The University of Malawi – The Polytechnic a.k.a the institution now known as MUBAS (Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences). Incidentally, that’s where I just applied to study a Masters in Media Studies. Wish me luck!
I found out what gooning is. It made me feel so old! I miss just instinctively knowing what new slang meant. (Related: my favourite new youth slang at the moment is yapping//yapper. It speaks to me because if there’s one thing I’m going to do, it’s yap.)
April Reading List
In April, I read:
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. I loved reading this book and I’m so sore it took me forever to get to it. It’s a hilarious, chilling and deeply honest rumination by McCurdy. If you pay attention to this sort of thing then you’ll know even the book’s title was controversial and there were plenty of people who admonished McCurdy for retelling her experience of an abusive mother without washing off the stain of being raised by a toxic parent. I highly recommend it. Rating: 4/5 stars.
Men Like Gods by H.G. Wells. Pitifully, this remains a relevant text and I enjoyed the heartfelt championing of a utopia (something I see little of in this day and age). However, I at times found it too didactic and overly preachy. Still, I liked this a lot despite finding the language slightly more advanced than what I’m used to. Rating: 4/5 stars.
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie. To my mind, this is required reading. I haven’t read Rushdie before (not even a sampling of THAT book) but if I never read anything of his again, I will still consider him a deeply thoughtful, raw and seminal voice. Rating: 5/5 stars.
Left to Right: I’m Glad My Mom Died x Men Like Gods x Knife
In May, I hope to finally finish The Demonstration, a short story collection by Andrew Dakalira, and take on Mombera Rising, a project that is in part the product of Malawian Writer (and my former boss!), Ekari Mbvundula. It’s available to download for free and I highly encourage all fans of Malawian literature to show our support!
Speaking of next month, here’s what’s on the agenda and what I hope I’ll get to tick off my to do list in May:
Publish The New Author’s Guide to Self Publishing in Malawi. It’s been a long time in the making and I’m so glad it’s so close to coming out! I’d be remiss if I didn’t encourage anyone who’s ever dreamed of releasing their work to keep a look out. So I’m doing that now. Keep a look out!Publish the extended version of a workshop on writing and storytelling that I facilitated back in October, last year during the Imagine Immensities creative research program. In collaboration with Utawaleza, the book will be titled, Storytelling Fundamentals and Literary Techniques: A Basic Guide, and it will be available for free on my payhip.
(2025 update: While I did publish both eBooks, I discontinued them. They are not available as blog posts in the Writing & Self-Publishing category)
Rework the pieces from my short story collection. I planned to have it be released in May but…well, you know…life had other plans. I’m now focusing on reshaping and editing them into their final forms. It’s stressful work but getting to tell the stories that live inside of you is always worth the sweat.
Finalise my editing for Faith’s book. I’m currently closed for editing work and manuscript assessments until the end of May since I’m going to Be so busy and the biggest favour I can do for myself is not piling up too much on my plate.
Whew. Well that felt kind of nice. I was dreading writing a post like this and it surprised me how readily I seemed to be to share stuff from my life again.
Let’s hope it sticks and I keep writing these. It’s fun and I missed it.
Enough from me, now. How was your April? What do you hope for May? I’d love to hear about you and how you feel about you in the comments…
Very academic observation, you’re TALL eh!
Another academic observation, let me know what you think of ‘Mombera Rising’, still not sure whether I will read it. I am dreading going through the e-book.
I will most definitely. I might even post a review
There’s a reason I compare myself to a giraffe 😂