Member Profile

Peter Midgley writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, plays, and children’s literature. He also edits, translates and tells stories (folk tales, children's stories, stories for adults, huge whoppers). He wrote his first book when he was twelve. It was awful, and he hopes his writing has improved since then. When he is not writing, he imagines the past life of his parrot—he thinks it may have been a pirate. He gets lost in his own city. Best to avoid travel with him entirely.

In the course of thirty years working as a festival director, freelance editor, university lecturer, managing editor, acquisitions editor, clerk of court, bartender, janitor and door-to-door salesman, he has acquired an honours degree in Afrikaans and Dutch literature, and an MA and PhD in English. It’s astounding what people leave in the garbage.

He has opined about Writing, Editing, Creativity, African Literature and Politics, the TRC and other topics in far-flung places—from Botswana, Canada, Namibia, South Africa, Switzerland and Tanzania, to the United Kingdom and the United States of America. He is working on the rest of the alphabet.