Monty Roodt and David Bristow are both writers and publishers in their own rights. They both love the Eastern Cape and while one currently lives there, the other plans to one day. They met in the Rhodes University Journalism Department and found they both had a leaning to the off-beat and left-of-centre.
Monty (left) and David (right) first met at university in the 1970s. They share numerous interests and their lives have intersected over the years. Decades later they reconnected at a writer’s retreat.
They both love cheese (but only one is a producer) and music (although only one plays it). The Southern Right Publishing venture was first suggested when they met up at a creative writing retreat in the Cederberg in 2022. Around a year later – with a bottle of red wine and a handshake – a deal was sealed and the dream became reality.
David Bristow
Following the usual salad days, David registered to study Journalism in a backwater then called Grahamstown (now Makhanda). Four years later he graduated with Honours Degrees in Journalism and Speech & Drama.
Following graduation he worked as a journalist in Johannesburg, when he wrote his first book Mountains of Southern Africa, which did rather well. With his earnings he set off to read for a a Masters Degree in Environmental Sciences at UCT.
There followed his first foray into publishing, starting Pachyderm Press in 1990, while more books followed. For 13 years he was editor of Getaway travel magazine, and still the books flowed. To date he has written more than 30. He lives on a marina in Cape Town where he paddles, surfs, rides his mountain bike and is active in conservation.
Monty Roodt
Monty is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Rhodes University in Grahamstown/ Makhanda. He lives on a smallholding in the nearby village of Bathurst, where he collects stories, grows indigenous trees and organic vegetables, makes cheese, and writes novels.
Monty holds a Journalism and Media Studies degree from Rhodes University, a Masters in Development Studies from Wits University, and a PhD in Sociology from Rhodes. He has worked as a journalist on several South African newspapers and published numerous journal articles and academic articles as chapters in books.
He is a publisher (Meteoric Publishers, now incorporated into Southern Right Publishers) and the author of the crime novel trilogy The Bathurst Chronicles: Dead Man’s Land, The Shining Path, and Triad.
