Khaya Ronkainen

My Summer Reads, 2020

Posted on 05/22/2020 by Khaya Ronkainen

You must go on a long journey before you can really find out how wonderful home is. ~ Tove Jansson

I’ve just realised that it’s a little over a week before summer officially starts. Where did the time go?

It’s been so tempting to skip the whole summer reading challenge thing, this year. Haven’t we been challenged enough already with this lock-down! But what can a reader do during a holiday, if not reading? So, I’m forging ahead and also invite anyone who’s up for reading to join me. Reading is a shared experience.

On being a tourist in my own city, Tampere

What is my criteria this year? As I shared in the previous post, travel is one of my interests. When I’m not travelling, I’m reminiscing about the last trip or planning the next. But for reasons we all know travel has been cancelled.

Instead I’m planning to embark on an arm-chair travel with some travelogue, memoir as well as fiction with a strong sense of place in order to satisfy my wanderlust.

I’m setting my goal low as I’ll also be catching up on creative writing, this summer. So, here is my pick:

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

Bryson is one of my favourite travel writers. He is just hilarious and a pleasure to read! I’ve read quite a number of his books but not this one set in Australia.

Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi

It’s been sitting too long on my TBR. It’s time…

Londoners by Craig Taylor

I think London’s sexy because it’s so full of eccentrics. – Rachel Weisz

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier

Lisbon is one of the top 5 cities I’d like to visit soon. And Portuguese is one of the languages I’m interested in learning.

Below are two additional books I had already planned to read, and have nothing to do with travel:

Riders of the Tempest: The Story of WE by H. Hennenburg

The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography by Deborah Levy

This a second book in the series, and part of an autobiographical project by this writer. The Guardian claims the book is “not so much a memoir as an eloquent manifesto for what Levy calls “a new way of living.”

Are you reading this summer? How are you choosing your reads? Please do share!

Wishing you a lovely weekend! 🙂

Writing & Living

Inspired Places

Posted on 05/15/2020 by Khaya Ronkainen

As most of you know already, I’m hugely inspired by nature. But everyday life inspires me as much. So, I’ve decided to reminisce about one of my interests, travel. Below are some of the places that had inspired my writings.

1. I Woke Up in Africa

The title is one of many poems I’ve written about inequality that still persists in my home country, SA. I’ve also experimented with short stories and pieces of creative nonfiction inspired by this city.

2. The Lost Diary

Years ago, my husband and I visited Prague. Let’s just say, it’s easy to fall in love with this city. It is beautiful. So, inspired by all sorts during our visit, I wrote furiously on my diary but only to lose it, later. In any case, Prague is one of those cities that warrants more than one visit. And The Lost Diary is a story I still have to write.

3. Presumption

I wrote on a different blog years ago about how we ended up stranded in Warszawa; an incident that saw us sleep at the train station. It’s a funny story, actually. 🙂 But that story I later compressed into a very short poem.

4. Winter Dream

Winter Dream is one of many poems I’ve written about Finnish winter. But on a different subject and season, as we approach summer I can’t help but wonder how the holidays are going to look and feel like with the pandemic still lingering in the air.

5. The Distorted View

An autobiographical novel (yet to be published) came out of this place I called home and a huge part of my childhood. Of course, the inspiration to write the story was much more than just about a place.

My countryside childhood home, now in ruins

That’s a quick peek at some of my travel-inspired writings. You’ve probably noticed that the photos are not touristy but rather mundane. That’s because mood of a place is one of the things that fascinates me. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to experience different moods in one place.

But over to you, have you written a story or book about a place? If so, where can we find it? Also feel free to share what you are reminiscing about these days? I’d love to hear from you! 🙂

Prose

On Slow Processing

Posted on 05/03/2020 by Khaya Ronkainen

“Write!” I say to a friend.

This is in one of our regular correspondence and as we keep each other updated not only of writing but of life. Our correspondence that started as critique partners has become something of a ritual, over the years. It’s an exchange and form that affords me time to sit down, be silent and really listen to her thoughts poured onto the page.

My friend and I live in different countries that have been impacted differently by the COVID-19 pandemic. So, when she says to me, “I cannot tell you how messed up all of this has made me. I can’t seem to write — not even the blog.”

I respond, “Words will come to you. Perhaps in a bundle of mess. Write them down in your journal as clumsy as they come.”

I take time to process things: ideas, conversations and experiences (even this pandemic), sometimes to my own detriment…

After a month since that correspondence I now realize I could have told her that even though she might feel as if she isn’t writing, for me her letters are a calming source of inspiration. They make me contemplate my own challenges and privileges.

“Write back, soon!”