Moira Lovell

Moira Lovell (born May 30, 1951) is a South African poet, playwright and literary critic prominent in Pietermaritzburg. She has released 5 books of poetry, along with plays and works of fiction. She received the Olive Schreiner Prize for playwriting in 2000.^[1][2][3][4]

Lovell was born in Harare, and educated at the University of Cape Town and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In Pietermaritzburg, she taught English for 4 decades, becoming the head of English at The Wykeham Collegiate, a private girls' school, before retiring in 2015.^[5]

Poetry collections

• Out of the Mist (Snailpress, 1994)
• Departures (Snailpress, 1997)
• Not All of Me is Dust: (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004)
• Speech after long silence (Otterley Press, 2017)
• Notes (Otterley Press, 2023)

Short stories

• Firetalk (1990) ed. Marcia Leveson (Carrafour Press)
• The New South Africa: Writing for a Changing Society (1992) ed. Stephen Cooper (Systime, Denmark)
• No Place Like ... and other stories by South African Women Writers (1999) selected by Robin Malan (David Philip, Cape Town and Sterling Press, Delhi)
• Opbrud (2000) ed. Chris van Wyk in association with Danish publishers AKS/Hjulet
• Post-Traumatic: New South African Writing (2003) ed. Chris van Wyk (Botsotso)

Plays

• Bedtime Stories, awarded the Olive Schreiner Prize and performed in Sydney.
• The Entertainer, awarded ENACT Play of the Year
• The Art of Dreaming, broadcast on SAfm