MEGAN ROSS
Storyteller*
*WRITER, CONTENT SPECIALIST, BOOK COVER DESIGNER & CREATIVE CONSULTANT.
About Megan
Megan is a freelance writer, editor & designer. She is also the Chief Creative and Co-Founder of Stoep Collective. Megan holds the positions of Contributing Editor at Isele Magazine and Production Designer at New Contrast, and is the Responder Manager and Lead Moderator at Lil-Lets Talk. Originally from the Wild Coast of South Africa, she now lives and works in London, UK.
EDITORIAL | COPYWRITING & WRITING | BOOK COVER DESIGN | PERFORMANCE | CONTENT MARKETING & BLOG WRITING | ART
News + Work:
RETROVIRAL & LIL-LETS WIN A SABRE AWARD FOR THE ‘BE YOU CAMPAIGN’
“We are incredibly proud to announce that Team Retroviral won the most coveted award of the night, the Platinum SABRE for ‘Best in Show'” for Be You. Period” - Retroviral x Lil-Lets
NEW ESSAY PUBLISHED IN ISELE MAGAZINE:
“My healing was anything but gentle. Healing had its own language, its own voice, even, and sometimes it spoke in ugly, hissing tones. And yet I realize now that my anger was a signal. A sign from my subconscious. A voice whispering to me, growing more and more urgent, saying that I was not okay. And that I had every right to not be okay. It was an emotion that said: stand up for yourself. Forgive yourself. Protect yourself. And most of all: hold everyone around you accountable. Force them into community with you.”
- READ IT HERE.
I HOSTED THE FIRST SEASON OF THE LIL-LETS TALK ONLINE VODCAST ALONGSIDE BOKANG LEHLOKOE OF ‘THE B WORD’
I was featured in the #BEYOUPERIOD campaign for lil-lets south africa
Feature in #BEYOUPERIOD campaign for Lil-Lets South Africa
LATEST FICTION: THE MECHANICS OF BRUISING
“I like to stand in arm's reach of the breakers and feel the spray on my skin. Later, when I shower, I'll find the salt pooled in certain places—the base of my spine, my breasts, my cheek. Then I'll light a spliff on the roof and watch the bats flit through the sky.”
SHORT STORY DAY AFRICA COVER REVEAL
‘DISRUPTION: NEW SHORT FICTION FROM AFRICA’ is forthcoming from Catalyst Press in the US in September 2021. This was such an exciting cover to work on and I’m grateful to the Short Story Day Africa team for trusting me with another cover (I designed the cover for ‘Hotel Africa’ the year before).
POP THAT MUMMA PODCAST
In honour of maternal mental health week, Poppy from Pop That Mumma invited me to share my experience with postpartum depression on her amaaaazing podcast (follow her on Instagram for brilliant honest motherhood + birth positivity content) + I think the episode is a pretty honest account of what I went through (+ fyi I said fuck a lot so just a heads up I'm 100% myself 😂😂). You can listen to the episode here.
W O M {B} A N I F E S T O
AN EXHIBITION AT THE MIXED REALITY WORKSHOP
Wombanifesto consists of a series of activations, artworks, workshops and research designed to form a manifesto - a declaration of intent. It brings together creative women in order to produce knowledge through an interactive documentation process
Viewings are open by appointment. Tuesday - Saturday, 10:00 - 15:00.
I explore dreaming as a way of walking through the world without the constraints of disease, viruses, disability, Apartheid spatial planning, segregation; dreaming as a living, organic, ever-changing archive of our lives; dreaming as the medium itself; dreaming as a method to realise ideas; and dreaming as a source of material for making art.
The series is my means of mapping out the social, political and economic crises in South Africa, which have been highlighted and exacerbated during the pandemic. In one sense, Bubonica is what I have named this apocalyptic moment we are living through - deaths of friends, loss, trauma and the upheaval of all of our lives - and the feelings that I have felt during this generally chaotic time. My hope is that in naming the moment I am able to draw a metaphorical and psychic boundary around it to stop its spread, and in doing so, harness its potential as a source document or material for making art in the future. The sense of map-making and mapping-out is also drawn from the living remnants of Apartheid spatial planning that we live in, and how this desecration of lives and public space has seemed to deepen and multiply during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some actors congregate, others return home, and it is this movement and limitation of movement that I wanted to explore through the medium of cast-off material. I propose that the only way to transcend these limits is through dreaming of all kinds by accessing the collective unconscious and creativity through art and community.
