Author: Wesley

Amy Shelver was born in Johannesburg in the early 80s, an ongoing extension of the Clan McEwan and Emslie families, who arrived in South Africa as colonizers and settlers more than 200 years ago. She is both of the Cape and the world. A journalist, anthropologist, and development specialist, Amy plies her trade in words and by making meaning out of life’s complexity. Over her 15 year career, she has worked on major development and communications projects, campaigns, and strategies to drive narrative change, tell compelling stories, influence opinion, and manage crises and reputation, taking her from creative industry basements to world industry boardrooms. Amy spent her early career as a journalist for Times Media and freelancing as both a writer and researcher. Later she moved into public relations, running Meropa Communications’ national corporate division, while also dedicating her time to her social entrepreneurship initiative, the n_mb city project, which nurtured and skilled young creative talent in Nelson Mandela Bay. Then, she joined the South African Cultural Observatory to help establish it as a statistical office for measuring the size and impact of South Africa’s creative economy. In the latter half of her career, Amy has worked at the United Nations, pivoting between substantive and communications roles, for UNCTAD’s creative economy and communications teams. Amy has not only written thousands of journalistic stories, but she has also spent the past 20 years kindling her poetry and essay writing. This led to the establishment of Onomatopoeia Publishing, a collaborative digital publishing house that brings together artists and writers, and the publication of her first poetry collection, Onomatopoeia: Observations, Moments, Poetry. Amy also co-authored Rogue, Rebel, or Revolutionary. The Life and Times of Dawid Stuurman and Feel It Forever: The 2010 World Cup in Nelson Mandela Bay, which she edited.Difficult to box, Amy is extremely creative and collaborative, and when she is not communicating about the trade and development issues of our time, Amy seeks to make meaningful connections, explore stories, and create positive social spaces in the digital dimension that nurture creativity. She has lived in Johannesburg, Gqebhera, London, Tokyo, New York, Geneva, and Cape Town, but also spends a lot of time in Berlin and San Francisco, her happy places and sources of inspiration.