Cue Natasha, Ballito woman of many talents

The thoughts, ideas and observations Natasha Freeman expresses are the proverbial pearls of wisdom you want to immediately capture and string together for later contemplation.

Canadian-born and a world traveller who loves to surf, Natasha has settled in Ballito with her South African husband, Jonathan and their two young sons, William and Oliver.

Natasha is a Rhodes University Alumna with a post graduate diploma in Journalism and a BA in English (cum laude).

Other areas of study include political science and women’s studies, but she has always maintained a personal interest in theology, in particular, the many ways in which people are affected by religion.

She is a communications specialist, was project director TEDx Salt Rock, is an event co-ordinator/director, co-host, feature writer and columnist.

With a string of accolades to her name already, the communications specialist event co-ordinator/director, co-host, feature writer and columnist has been nominated for the Ashton Wylie Book Award (honouring work in New Zealand that contributes to the further education and enlightenment of humanity) for her book , “The Story of Q”*.
Mystery of writing

When Natasha decided to write “The Story of Q”, during her time in New Zealand, she set herself a daunting task.

Six years of research later, three of them full time, and her book, a controversial one that tackles people’s deepest beliefs, was birthed.

“It was hard work. It takes great effort to actually sit down and do it, start to finish. As soon as you have nothing left to give, you have to work harder,” she said.

Her research into biblical history, lost meanings, lost gospels, historical anomalies and missing philosophical accuracies are all referenced.

“These are true. The Story of Q is a weaving of what it would mean if we all discovered a lost truth that speaks beyond the borders of religion to teach us something we’ve known all along but have been disallowed the gift of understanding, simply because of an order of historical events.

“The characters Farah, Rose, Roger, and Mateo are fictional characters whose experiences mirror our own to some degree – whose hopes, fears, religious suspicions, religious glories, God-seeking, and debate invoking queries reflect the most hidden wonderings of our hearts and minds.”

“To me there is a mystery at the heart of writing – of any creative process really. There is the part of us thinking and planning our way through a book, and then the part that just listens, expresses, composes, lets flow whatever it is that seems to be flowing through our thoughts that creates them into stories.

“It’s a huge, wonder-filled mystery how this works.”

Commissioned work becomes text book
Natasha is also blessed with the ability to read a vast amount of technical and complicated information and transform it into something a readable and engaging.

That is why the South African Water Research Commission and editor Kate Rowntree asked Natasha, not a scientist, to write a book for people with English as a second language.

The book, “Our Changing Rivers: An introduction to the science and practice of fluvial geomorphology (2004)” she completed in a year and nine months and is such a success it is now being used as a text book for first year students at Rhodes University.

Considered a heavyweight in the literary field, Natasha was asked to write a cover comment and do a formal review for Dr Jean Benedict Raffa’s new book: “Healing the

Sacred Divide: making peace with ourselves, each other and the world.”

She is also busy doing work for BrandBird Boutique Marketing Agency and is a project director of a new Sage Cafe cookbook series!

This woman who has a passion for words, good coffee and things that turn regular life into an exceptional experience, is naturally working on another book, in-between her busy mother duties and other work.

The topic of her new book is top secret and is probably being well-researched as we speak.

* The Q source (also Q document, Q Gospel) is a hypothetical written collection of Jesus’ sayings. Q is (part of) the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark. The German researchers who pioneered in this work called this lost document “Quelle” which means “source”. This is usually abbreviated as “Q” as in the “Gospel of Q.”

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