Michelle Pretorius, creative writing doctoral student
Michelle Pretorius, creative writing doctoral student, traveled to South Africa and conducted research at the National Library Archives in Cape Town.
She was awarded a competitive scholarship from Ohio University’s English Department, one of eight to students who are conducting research for their respective dissertations and projects.
ABSTRACT: In fiction, the idea of research isn’t always academically quantifiable. Yes, there is a period while researching a book that requires a lot of reading and conducting interviews with experts in the field, but then there is the element which I can best describe as experiences, creative inspiration, and lucky interactions.
The summer scholarship money I received was put toward a trip to South Africa, where I got useful information by spending time in the National Library Archives in Cape Town, meeting with a criminologist at the University of Cape Town, and visiting various heritage sites and museums in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Bloemfontein.
But the true value of my trip, for my writing, lay in my interaction with, and experience of the city of Cape Town, and especially the people who readily shared their stories and daily experiences in the country. That is the kind of research that I couldn’t have gotten from an archive or reference source, and which has proven invaluable for my next manuscript.
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