How can we write from the perspective of others while still respecting different cultures? How can a children's book author make money from bulk sales? How is self-publishing in South Africa different? With Ashling McCarthy.

In the intro, Spotify for Authors and Katie Cross on self-narration and email marketing; How do I know when to leave my publisher? [Katy Loftus]; and Claude Styles.

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Ashling McCarthy is a South African author and artist, as well as an anthropologist, graphic designer, and non-profit founder. Her latest book is Down at Jika Jika Tavern, in The Poacher's Moon Crime Series.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

How Ashling's background in anthropology helps in writing books
How research can help us write from other perspectives
The importance of empathy when writing “the other”
Debunking South African stereotypes and tips for visitors
The book ecosystem in South Africa
Difficulties of selling direct in different countries
Marketing your book to schools and creating teaching opportunities

Find out more about Ashling at AshlingMcCarthy.co.za.

Transcript of Interview with Ashling McCarthy

Joanna: Ashling McCarthy is a South African author and artist, as well as an anthropologist, graphic designer, and non-profit founder. Her latest book is Down at Jika Jika Tavern, in The Poacher's Moon Crime Series. So welcome to the show, Ashling.

Ashling: Hi, Joanna. Thanks so much. I'm really looking forward to it.

Joanna: Yes, great. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Ashling: Well, writing and publishing has come quite late to me. It wasn't something that I'd ever actually intended on doing. I started off as a graphic designer in South Africa and did a bit of work in the UK, then came home when I was completely homesick.

I got into a really interesting craft development program for people who had a three-year qualification in design, and we would be working with women who lived in rural communities in an area called KwaZulu-Natal, where I live.

As long as you had a three-year design qualification, they'd match you up with women in rural areas who were very skilled at craft. The idea was that then we would work together to match those skills to create high-end product.

So it was really that experience that allowed me to see South Africa in a very different light, and I went on to become an anthropologist and a nonprofit founder. So that took a good probably 15 years of my life and writing a book kind of came out of running the nonprofit.

We're an education nonprofit, and we work with rural schools. So children who go to really poorly resourced schools in rural communities in in South Africa.

I wanted to write a book for the young women in our communities who didn't have any examples of themselves in books.

We would get lots of donations from overseas companies for books, but there was nothing that reflected their lives, their experiences. So I thought, oh, maybe I'll start to write a book that kind of reflects that.

So Down at Jika Jika Tavern is actually the first book in The Poacher's Moon Crime Series. I, last year, published the second book, The Leopard in the Lala.

How that came about, in terms of writing a crime series versus an educational kid’s book, was that my family was very involved in a game farm with wildlife. Just one day I was thinking about the fact that so many people who live on the outskirts of these game farms have no access to them.

So the only chance of them seeing a rhino or an elephant or any other kind of game is from the other side of the fence, and I kind of wondered what that would feel like. So I started to write a story that would bring that to light.

It was during our time on the game farm it was the height of rhino poaching, and we had six rhinos poached over a period of time. I really started to get a feel for what the book would be about because there were so many interesting incidences that took place.

So for example, a traditional healer was arrested on the neighboring game farm for being involved in rhino poaching. I wanted to understand better, why would somebody who effectively has a calling to do good, why would they be involved in such a heinous crime?

We just had so many little interesting things happen that I was able to then weave these real life stories into fiction to better understand why people become involved in rhino poaching and wildlife crime.

Joanna: Yes, because being an anthropologist, I mean, obviously that means you're interested in people and what different people do.

Talk about what the job of an anthropologist is and how much you use from your career in the books. What are some of the interesting anthropological things you weave in? I mean, you mentioned the traditional healer. Like, what are the other things?

Ashling: So I must say, anthropology plays a really big part in my writing. I studied Anthro, got a master's degree in HIV/AIDS and orphan care, and really it was looking at what kind of cultural practices lead to people becoming infected and affected by HIV.

It was really those experiences of understanding how culture can have such a huge impact on the way people respond to certain things.

So now in my books, I mean, obviously, as a South African, we have 11, in fact, now 12 official languages. We are multi-faith, multicultural, so it's very hard to try and tell a story from one perspective.

For me as a white female Christian, how do I write a story that involves many different cultures, different faiths, different belief systems, without it coming across as judgmental or bias?

So I really do use the methodologies that we learnt in Anthropology, of curiosity, listening, observing, and trying to understand somebody's perspective from the world that they've come from without bringing in my own thoughts and feelings about that. So it's really interesting and fascinating.

I think it helps to better understand why people do things. Then we can look at—I mean, obviously we want to end rhino poaching and wildlife crime, but just telling people not to do it isn't good enough. We have to try and help them work with the systems that they have in place that could lead to a reduction in those actions.

Joanna: I love that, and I think that's so good in terms of whatever we're writing, whatever genre, taking the perspective of someone else.

I mean, just your examples there, say poaching and HIV, there are some people who might write a story that's like, “Well, they are evil. They're the criminal. They're the bad ...

Writing The Other And Self-Publishing in South Africa With Ashling McCarthy