‘Right-brained’ author Felicity Keats turns 90
Keats is an author, mentor and mother who has been writing for more than 60 years, she shares her journey with us.
RIGHT-BRAIN-DOMINANT maven Felicity Keats celebrated her 90th birthday on February 3. Keats is the founder of the Dancing Pencils Writing Clubs and the Malvern publishing house, umSinsi Press.
Keats is an author, mentor and mother who has been writing for more than 60 years. She started her career as a freelance journalist after entering a newspaper competition at the age of 28.
“I was at home with four small children. I had been an academic with a BCom and had also been an accountant. Children haven’t really got intelligent conversations when they’re two, three and four years old. I lost my mental stimuli and my intellectual side,” said Keats.
Keats said she was inspired by a woman named Pamela who wrote in a Sunday newspaper. According to the high-spirited author, Pamela’s words about living your life to the fullest inspired her.
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The words resonated so much with Keats that she got her husband to take her and their kids to Kloof Falls for a picnic.
“It was so refreshing after being locked in with four small children. I wrote a little bit about it [the picnic] and sent it to the lady in the newspaper. I told her what she had done for me, that she had motivated me to go into the country with my husband and kids,” she said.
Keats remembered the day as though it were yesterday. She described the ‘lovely day’ she had with nature, dragonflies and the waterfall. The legendary author explained how the response from the writer motivated her to pursue writing.
“The next thing I did was write a letter to one of the big newspapers. They were offering a prize for the best letter. I remember, I was lying on the grass, and I had an eight-month-old and a two-year-old daughter who were playing in the sandpit.
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“I was penning this letter to the newspaper, saying that women who had children also had a life, and they needed to respect themselves by doing something for themselves. My letter was the prize letter in that month – they sent me R10,” Keats said.
Influenced by her winnings, Keats said this taught her that she could stay at home and still earn money. She then began looking for short courses and took as many as possible.
Years later, Keats started the Dancing Pencils Writing Clubs which were scattered around a number of South African provinces. She created the Dancing Pencils Literacy Development Project which assists disadvantaged schools in the country.
Keats takes inspiration from everything. She spoke about a new electric hotplate that she tends to get onto child-lock more often than she’d like.
“That’s how my [latest] story started – with a woman just getting her new electric hotplate and lying in bed, thinking of the nice breakfast she’s going to make. She gets up and gets everything ready but can’t put the stove on,” she explained.
At the golden age of 90, Keats is still writing books. Although the medium has changed from pen on paper to email, she enjoys every step of the process.
The founder of umSinsi Press described her love for ‘Zooming’. She sits at her computer and is able to teach children and adults in all areas of the world through Zoom.
The tech-savvy author imparted a few words of wisdom to budding young authors.
“Start with an incident, anything you like, and then just say to your character, ‘Tell me, what brought you here?’” she said.
Keats emphasised the importance of not telling anyone about your writing and always having trust in yourself. The wise author noted a time in her life when she explained a story she was writing to a friend of hers. Her friend responded with just two words, and because of those words, Keats was unable to finish her writing process at the time.
She explained that her mindset changed after hearing the words of her friend, and the plot ‘went’. It took her 20 years to then complete the book.
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