Author | Lightnews

Heléne's Word Emporium

@helenewordemporium.bsky.social

37 followers 48 following 83 posts

A South African farm girl with a Sesotho name, Puleng, which means rain. Reluctant-townie-turned-city-girl-and-international-resident. Translator and editor. Cookbook compiler. Occasional Psychologist. Lapsed Musician. Insatiably curious.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Aug 28

Beginnings - back in 2007. Launched into the universe of words and stories.

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · 19d

I'm so glad someone else also forgets #s

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · 23d

In Gottlieb’s conversation with The Paris Review, he said:
"The last thing anyone reading Jane Eyre would want to know, for example, is that I had convinced Charlotte Brontë that the first Mrs. Rochester should go up in flames."

Text: TheParis Review
No AI was used to create this post.

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · 23d

"The day the interview ran, Bob called me and said he didn’t think it was a good idea to talk about editing and the contributions of editors, since the public likes to think everything in the book comes right from the author."

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · 23d

Joseph Heller completed his second novel, Something Happened, thirteen years after Catch-22. Discussing the completion of the book in an interview with The New York Times, he talked about the value of Robert Gotlieb as an editor.

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · 24d

They both have enlarged hearts and will probably not survive the flights, especially Rafiki. They are also too old now to get new medical insurance in South Africa, and they both take medication, which we won’t be able to afford there.

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Sep 29

Translation into English: Multilingualism - always an advantage
Hopefully, you know enough languages to understand the 'Dog Afrikaans' uttered by the mouse to scare the cat.
Happy Translation Day, colleagues all over the world.
Image Credit: Afrikaanse Taalraad (Afrikaans Language Board)

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Aug 28

Beginnings - back in 2007. Launched into the universe of words and stories.

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Aug 27

This quote comes from an interview with Jacki Lyden at NPR in their special series on poetry.
www.npr.org/transcripts/...

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Aug 16

When Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel prize in 2017, the Swedish Academy wrote in a statement that Ishiguro, “in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

In an interview, in his own simple terms, he clarified it as follows:

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Aug 4

In JR Salamanca's book 'Lilith' (1961), the main character didn't appear in the first sixty or eighty pages. His editor, Robert Gottlieb, suggested that Salamanca change the original title to ‘Lilith’, because even if she hadn’t yet appeared, the reader would be expecting her. #TheParisReview #edit

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Jul 2

Temperature between 37 and 39 C #heatwave #Berlin #Summer2025

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · May 18

What to do with this office assistant!

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · May 16

What a refreshing experience - someone finally acknowledging their own screw-ups.

Lessons in humility: “This has been a life lesson,” Fialkov said. “You get too arrogant.”
He admitted that the company had been sitting on a known problem: ageing infrastructure, flagged for replacement years ago.

EXCLUSIVE: Cybersmart founder owns the internet outage

‘This lesson could help the industry,’ Cybersmart cofounder and CTO Laurie Fialkov told Daily Maverick in a candid interview as the national outage dust settles.

www.dailymaverick.co.za

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Apr 29

Sometimes, there's just nothing more to say. So, I'll keep quiet and just leave this here. @jameswhylebooks.bsky.social #wetwofromheaven

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Mar 30

My old favourite Harold - the best science teacher in the world.

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Mar 26

Years ago! One of the very first classics I read.

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Mar 15

A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet spac is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they might be, exquisitely. Mark Forsyth – The Elements of Eloquence.
Photo: Valentyn Kuzan, September 2019
#betweenopeningsandendings

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Mar 13

The problem with AI-generated *&^%(!#)?
14 000 likes, hearts, etc. and comments about the wonderful things animals do by people who cannot discern the difference between fake and real!!!
Fake Image Credit: unsplash.com/@a_chosensoul

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Mar 1

Take a shower ... no notebook at hand. 🤭🙈

Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · Feb 5

Unsolicited writing advice, no. #1614:
Not all writing happens at a desk. If you're feeling stale, feed your mind - go for a walk, read a book, talk to someone, do something new. You don't find inspiration in looking at a screen all day...

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Feb 21

Watter tragiese nuus om op Internasionale Moedertaaldag in jou e-pos te kry:
What tragic news to find in your email on International Mother Language Day:
In Afrikaans
En Engels
www.vryeweekblad.com/nuus-en-poli...

Vrye Weekblad: hamba kahle, sala hantle, au revoir, vaarwel!

Ons fade nie, ons fokof, 2. 0. Die sluiting van Vrye Weekblad is die einde van ’n trotse era.

www.vryeweekblad.com

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Feb 19

Because every editor should have an apostrophe, says my friend.
And no, I'm not in the running ... 😉🙃

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Feb 11

If you need cheering up, today. I love this bit of fun from Bill Whitehead because it turned a story I've loved since my beginnings (and had some experience of *not to be discussed* in 2015) on its blonde head.
I have the Grimms in German and Afrikaans.
What are you reading? Translation perhaps?

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Jan 22

A bit of brilliance from Bill Whitehead
May you have a week filled with #bellylaughs

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Jan 16

After my long absence (because FB locked my account when I got a new phone), I'm back with something to smile about.😊
Long live the Oxford comma.
Thank you, #NateFakes

Heléne's Word Emporium @helenewordemporium.bsky.social · Nov 28

Especially today ...