Nkosilesisa Kwanele Ncube | #SheCreatesMarch | Screenwriter |Creative Content Producer | Published Author | Journalist

At the heart of it all, I’m just a girl that fell in love with words all those years ago and am just trying to find new ways to make my words mean something.

Before you sink in this piece, I urge you to keep her words in mind as this article goes on a deep dive into the creative process of Nkosilesisa Kwanele Ncube. She is a writer in every sense of the word, having gone from what she remembers as selling ‘mediocre’ poetry at the tenderpreneur age of seven to now being an author with her work available on Amazon. The range of her pen isn’t just limited to paper, as she’ll proudly show you her screen work airing on DSTV’s Zambezi Magic. She is a producer keen to develop her skill in telling stories in a way she hopes to emulate her idol, Shonda Rhimes. She is part of the MultiChoice Talent Factory, which is developing 60 creatives through an immersion programme including both theory and hands-on experience in cinematography, editing, audio production and storytelling.

Such an experience is essentially being trained in a methodology of creativity to develop an all round creative capable of the several facets involved in production work. I asked her about the benefit training a person in creativity, the way she went about it.

I was raised by educators. So I will always be a sucker for education. I believe even though creative work is an art, art also deserves order and that’s what training does. It’s not just people throwing theories at you, it teaches you discipline, it teaches you communication and it refines your art and your thought process. Training refines and channels that which is innate.

I asked her about representation of women in creative fields especially in southern Africa and Zimbabwe especially with the girl child movement as the focal point of discussion. Her creative feminist philosophy is seen through her work behind the scenes in bringing to life the Girls Aloud Podcast. The first season of the podcast which aired last year, focused on examining the personal, professional and societal issues facing women at a political and socio-economic level.

I think it has [paid it forward for me and my sisters in the creative economy]. I think the women before me stood so we could walk and we walk so the ones after us can run. The girl child movement existed so that we could exist in creative spaces. Our job, now having access to the spaces is to give accurate representations of women across different media, black African women in particular. Especially if we do a good job of dispelling misrepresentations of black women, the women that come after us won’t have to fight this battle. Theirs will be a different one.

She’s a Drake fan, but she listens to Button Poetry like she’s paid to, as she’ll unashamedly put it. I suspect it’s that enjoyment of quality audio story tellers that drew her to script writing in a bid to figure out how to make words dance on a page of paper. So I tried to be clever and asked her which of her published works and publicized content is her favorite, and she didn’t chew words.

You can’t ask somebody which of their kids they love the most. A favourite may exist but we never mention it. So I can’t really say. I will say however that each project has taught me something about myself and it has helped me better. I cringe at things that I wrote years back but I know that I wouldn’t be the creative that I am today if I hadn’t worked on these.

Which wasn’t the answer I was looking for, so I tried another tactic to figure out how much emotion she pours into her creative work and which emotions specifically drive her creative process. My innocent question asked if she had one last chance to express herself creatively, what message would she choose to spend her dying pen stroke on, creatively speaking of course.

Live and let live. I think we are big on the living part, not so much on the letting live part. If I could only get people to remember one thing, it would be that. Life is too short to not do all the things you want to do. It’s even shorter when we spend time obsessing over how other people live theirs. To each is own so let people live and love and believe and worship how they want to.

This got me thinking about censorship on creativity in Zimbabwe and the arduous journey other creatives had to trek to blaze a trail for others to follow safely. In essence, the critical feedback on culture in Zimbabwe has been dictated by the cultural benchmarks of the older generation for such a long time it stilled youth progress in the sector as a whole. Several creatives in Zimbabwe have compromised their artistic integrity and creative vision to balance losses and expenses alongside cultural backlash from the audience. Censorship and external judgement go hand in hand as often what holds back the ambitious creative from breaking the glass ceiling on behalf of the culture. I asked Nkosi if censorship and judgement had ever held her back before.

I would be more worried about my art not being judged. If it’s judged, then at least I know it got somebody to think about the content. That’s the entire point of art, I guess. To start a conversation. But yes, there are times when I have to censor myself for obvious reasons. I create for an audience, not for myself. So there are prejudices and biases always need to take a back seat when I start to create.

With that in mind please go buy her book, Drafts: 100 Letters I Will Never Send, the book is available on Amazon and Innov8 bookshops in Harare. Here’s the blurb on the book for those keen on getting themselves a copy.

As I (very reluctantly) approach my late mid-twenties, I can’t help but think back on the many conversations I have had over the years. However, more than this, I can’t help but regret the ones I didn’t have. That’s what this book is about. It is a collection of conversations that I could have, would have and should have had but didn’t because they were too difficult or too awkward or too honest.
This is an assortment of 100 letters to different people, things and situations I have encountered in my 25 years of life. Some are quite heartfelt while others make for a good laugh. Through these letters, I document the best, worst and okayest moments of my life. Finally, while I still have the folly of youth as a plausible excuse, these are my honest thoughts on:
Family, Friends, God, Boys, People, A Million Little Things and it my greatest hope that anyone reading this finds a bit of themselves in these pages.
“When you find out how I’m living, I just hope I’m forgiven”- Drake