VANDERBIJLPARK. – Jesse Pieters is only 19, but he has already published two books.

This shy young man started to write when he was in Grade 4. “I decided to create my own world. I took printing paper, stapled them together, and even left spaces for drawings,” he remembers.

His first story was called Dino’s vs the Super Strikers, and it combined soccer with Super Heroes. After the first story, the rest began to follow fast.

He remembers taking the stories to his English teacher at Vaalpark Primary School.

“She read them and gave them back with a bookmark that said: “Best new upcoming writer,” that meant the world to me.”

Jesse still has contact with Mrs. Teagen Venter and says she encourages him even today.

Throughout the years, he started to come up with his own original characters and stories. In 2018 he received his first laptop and then commenced writing seriously.

“My first real book was called The Shadow Inside of Me and was set in 2029. Since then, he has written 20 novels, although only two have been published thus far.

He was only in Grade 8 when he started writing Fang, a story that combines his favourite animals, wolves with a bit of the supernatural.

“I finished the book in less than six months. It was a way of escape for me after a bad fallout with my friends,” he explains.

Jesse uses his stories to work through his emotions and make sense of the world around him.

With Fang still doing quite well, his second novel I, Jesse the Cyborg was published earlier in 2023.

Currently, on a gap year, Jesse now writes full-time and is working on a prequel to I, Jesse the Cyborg.

Next year he is planning on studying literature at the NWU with English and French as his main subjects.

In the end, there is only one thing he wants to do, and that’s writing more stories.

Follow Jesse on TikTok @iamthelone wolf0 or Instagram @lonewolf6577. His books are available online at Amazon and at Bargain Books in Vaal Mall.