Roela Hatting

Roela Hatting

Lecturer

Roela Hattingh trusts stories to unlock the magic from mundane, render beauty from brokenness, grit and grace from the incomprehensible. As teacher, strategist, writer, and student, she delights in moments of coherence when meaning emerges from dialogue, contradictory texts, perspectives and utterances. Born in a mining town in the sixties, attended seven schools in the seventies, studied languages, education, drama, and completed a MA (Cum Laude). She is proud of Kamee (2015), a book of short stories, which received the UJ debut prize for Creative Writing in Afrikaans and Nadine-Gordimer-Short-Story (SALA) awards in 2016. She completed a PhD in strategic communication titled “Dialogic Learning and Narratives of Becoming Strategic Communicators” (2023). Her magic power is making friends anywhere. She has been a teacher for as long as she can remember and has engaged with children and students of all ages: kindergarten in Taiwan; primary and secondary school in South Africa; tertiary education full-time or as guest lecturer at AAA School of Advertising, Vega School, University of Pretoria, Midrand Graduate Institute, Big Fish, Boston City Campus, Stellenbosch Academy, University of Free State and currently at the University of Johannesburg. She develops bespoke creative thinking, writing and strategic communication workshops for the branding and communication industry. She worked at Flow Communications as copywriter, strategist and content creator and frequently does freelance copywriting, translation, and creative and strategic consultation. Roela shares a life with artist Flip Hattingh, two incredible sons Nicholas and Chrisjan. She says her claim to fame is the spelling error she found in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary and maybe the ‘dagga is gagga’ graffiti she tagged in Rocky Street, Yeoville, in the eighties