Marisa 'eM' Louw

  The dictionary defines a freelancer as someone who is "self-employed and hired to work for different companies on particular assignments."  I am a  professional freelancer  who specialises in creating content with  earned media  exposure in mind. In other words: press releases, thought leadership pieces and, may the gods help me,  listicles . The latter is the PR Agency's favourite brief and my least favourite writing job. I also do PR and marketing strategies and consulting.  My husband is a professional freelance  opera singer . His favourite joke is: "What do you call an opera singer who is not in a relationship? Homeless!" It is especially true in South Africa where opera died a slow and painful death following the provincial performing arts councils' closure in the early 1990s.  Having two freelancers in one household means that there is no fixed monthly income. Unlike full-time workers who earn a monthly salary, freelancers rel...

I'm not having a good day because I am experiencing severe eyesight problems. When I was in primary school, my teacher realised that I struggled to see on the whiteboard. As a result, I started wearing spectacles for nearsightedness before I turned 8 years old. My eyesight deteriorated over the years. Two years ago, I started wearing multifocal contact lenses to help me read better. Soon after, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the chemotherapy dried my eyes out. So much so that I couldn't wear my contact lenses any longer. I found it difficult to read but coped. But then, over the last few months, my eyesight started getting worse. When I was in the hospital in May last year; I had to take off my spectacles and put my nose against the form I had to complete ahead of surgery to read the questions. But I thought that was just me getting older. The same thing happened with my most recent surgery last month, and again I wrote it off to ageing eyes. When I had my first clien...