Greetings and Welcome to Brettfish.co.za – this has been a LONG time coming and huge thanks to my friends, Mandy Papenfus and Simon Streep, for helping me get to this point.

The hope of a cleaner, crisper, fresher look for my blog as well as a space to add videos and book sales and other fun things when i get the chance.

2016 feels like it is going to be a significant year, specifically in the context of my home country, South Africa, and so this feels like a great time to shake things up a bit.

One thing i am hoping to do with my blog this year is be a little more real and honest – i know, some of you are wondering how that is even possible for me but i think i hold back quite a bit with what i post and i am hoping with this change of address will come a change of style and intent as well. Less pandering to the trolls [i hear Megan scream “Yeah!” and those not interested in the vital conversations and actions that need to happen moving forwards.

i want to continue sharing stories on Taboo Topics which are the rarely spoken about topics that so many brave people have shared some powerful personal stories about. That section really feels like one of the strongest spaces on my blog and i want to continue to invite you to be bold in your sharing so that others facing similar situations may be encouraged and motivated to keep going.

i definitely am going to continue to write about Race and Reconciliation – specifically in South Africa, but also worldwide – and more importantly hopefully continue to let this blog space be a platform for other voices besides myself, of people from all walks of life who are involved in transformative thinking and lifestyles who we can all learn a whole lot from.  i want to continue to explore how we can be better allies to our friends of colour, how we can take on and affect the systems and structures that continue to act as conduits for the gone-but-not-forgotten system of apartheid that laid waste to so much of our country, and how together we can build towards the kind of country that most of us dream about. i hope to use this space to challenge white people in particular to become a movement of #NotOnOurWatch with regards to stepping into and taking on racism whenever and wherever we see it happening in front of us.

i am hoping to start writing more about relationships, and particularly marriage. i love the idea and concept of marriage and for those who have chosen this definitely-not-easy path we can use all the help we can get. Well i know i can. And so i hope to create spaces for stories of celebration and challenge and ideas and hope going forwards. Within that i want to continue to recognise and acknowledge and walk alongside my single friends, some who have chosen to be and others who have not, remembering some of the challenges that go with that, especially in world that still in some many ways sees ‘getting married’ as one of the ultimate steps of life.

i really want to make people smile and laugh and be silly. This is an area i need to work on in my blog which can tend to get a little serious. So whether it’s the continued growth and winning results of the weekly Twitterer Hashtagging games, the silly character videos i continue to make [even if only for seven people] such as Brad Fish and DTYCLE or the Germanesque poem–shouting Erik [with a K] and who knows what or who] 2016 might produce, or perhaps some more Top 10 Lists [suggestions welcome] i want to bring the funny, cos with the amount of work the world has that needs to be done right now, we could do with some serious LOLment to keep us all sane.

And i also hope to create. Last year saw me returning to some poetry writing which i really enjoyed, but especially the Micropoetry experiments i did. It also saw Tandem Blog posting with a number of us getting creative under the same title, as well as Breaking Bread posts which saw the posting of a ten part back-and-forth conversation. The new concept of Writken Word, which is a stream of consciousness spoken word rhythmed written word stream which i have only recently come up with so looking to try some more of those where i get a random word from the audience and then write whatever comes out without pausing or editing til i’m done. So i really am hoping this will be a space for creativity.

That’s brettfish.co.za – hopefully a little bit of something for everyone.

This is definitely a work in progress as i still need to figure out how to get the theme tabs across from my old site so you can more easily find posts you are looking for. But in the meantime i would love to hear what you think of the new look and feel and anything you would love to see happen on this site.