Blogging Player of the Week: One more, with feeling

You may not have heard of this week’s choice for blogging Player of the Week, but you have probably come across her writing, reporting and commentary — probably in isolation of the bigger picture of the amazing work she does in her blogs.

Damaria Senne makes her living from covering technology issues for ITWeb, but she makes her life in many other ways. Most of those are reflected in her blogs. While she is not the first person in South Africa to produce a variety of blogs on different topics, she is one of the most creative at doing so, and one of the most compassionate.

There are two deeply refreshing aspect of her blogs:
• With one exception, they have little to do with technology, which remains the staple diet of South Africa’s better-known bloggers;
• She writes with feeling, but without having to resort to the “too-much-information” style of most confessional blogs.

It does help that Damaria is a published author. Her first children’s book, The Doll That Grew, was published by Macmillan SA in 1993. Boitshoko was published by Heinemann SA in 1996 and translated into four other languages. She’s not too shabby as a journalist either, and was finalist in the online categories of both the MyADSL ICT Journalist of the Year Award and the Telkom ICT Journalist of the Year Award in 2006.

Her first blog post went up in December 2005, “purely as an experiment: I wanted to see what blogging was all about and whether I can do it”. A slightly updated version still exists.

“Right from the beginning,” she says, “I knew I wanted to do it about children’s writing.”

There was just one problem: her larger-than-life image as a “kick-ass journalist”, which she thought was in conflict with her other life as a children’s writer.

“I didn’t tell anyone at work. Somehow I didn’t think people would make the connection. Lord knows what I was thinking – my name is fairly recognisable!”

However, as most bloggers quickly discover, such table-turning is precisely the advantage that blogging offers anyone with a double life. Naturally, her colleagues loved her the more for it.

Her real life is consciously offline. Interests include reading, cooking for friends and family, renovating old houses (she’s on her third), and “going to the park just to sit and watch people”.

Damaria’s growing roster of blogs include:
• Storypot: Her adventures as a writer and parent.
• Online Children’s Stories: Stories for parents to read to their children.
• Memoir of a former Zimbabwean Freedom Fighter: The story of Amos Nobele, who joins the liberation struggle at the age of 10.
• MobileLife: Her one blogging nod to technology, for ITWeb’s My Digital Life blogging portal.

There is more in the offing, with a Sotho-language blog threatening to make its appearance. But, for a great insight into the attitude that makes a great blogger, read her non-blog article entitled, Your Words Have the Power to Inspire.

• Feel free to submit nominations for Blogging Player of the Week here or by e-mail.