David Chislett

David Chislett is an author/journalist from Johannesburg, South Africa. He is notable for his contributions to publications such as Men's Health, GQ, FHM, Style, Fairlady, Cosmopolitan, numerous short fiction pieces, his book '1,2,1,2, A Guide to the SA Music Industry', as well as a long-running appearance on national pop radio station 5fm as a correspondent for alternative rock DJ Barney Simon.

History
Chislett was born in Portsmouth, England in 1970. He came to South Africa with his family in 1974. He matriculated in 1988 from Grey High School in Port Elizabeth and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in English and Philosophy from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1993.

David spent a long stint on national pop radio station 5FM from mid 1994 until the end of 1996 as a guest correspondent for alternative rock DJ Barney Simon. Initially he was part of the weekly UK USA feature where he reported in from London from mid 1994 until 1995. Upon his return to South Africa at the end of 1995, he became the host of a custom feature conceptualised by Barney Simon called 'The South African Music Explosion'. Chislett hosted this feature until the end of 1996. During this time he established himself as a freelance music journalist and wrote for local news papers such Leisure Options, The Star and The Sunday Times. He also wrote for music magazines Epic, Top 40 and Get The Funk Out.

David later expanded his journalism career to include all lifestyle related topics and wrote extensively for Men’s Health, GQ, FHM, Style, Fairlady, Cosmopolitan and other magazines. In 1999 he moved into digital journalism and spent a stint as entertainment and travel editor at iafrica.com and the M-Web portal.

In 1998 David won the Ernst Van Heerden Creative Writing Award from the University of the Witwatersrand for a short story, 'The Pinstripe Punk'. In 2001 David conceptualised, edited and created 'Urban 1: a collection of short fiction' by previously unpublished writers, including himself. This was published by Spearhead, an imprint of New Africa Books, Cape Town. The collection garnered much critical praise and Chislett went on the edit 'Urban Two' and 'Urban 03' before the series was discontinued.

In 2005 he contributed a short piece to 'From Joburg to Jozi' a collection of short fiction about the city of Johannesburg published by Penguin South Africa. In 2009 Ge’Ko Publishing released 'A Body Remembered', Chislett’s debut solo collection of short fiction.

In 2010	Chislett self-published a music business advice book for the South African music industry entitled '1,2,1,2, A Guide to the SA Music Industry'. The book sold out its print run in South Africa.

In 2011 Chislett converted 'A Body Remembered' to an e-book and re-released it online before launching his debut solo collection of poetry, 'For You Or Someone Like You' both as a physical text and an e-book. This volume came with a limited edition album of recordings, for which Chislett asked 9 well-known South African Musicians including Matthew van der Want, Jay Bones and Shannon Hope to convert their own choice of poem from the book into a song which was then recorded and presented on CD.

Chislett has been completing work on a novel, 'Johannesburg' to be published in 2014.

List of Works

 * Short Fiction
 * The Pinstripe Punk (1998)
 * From Joburg to Jozi (2005)


 * Short Fiction Collections
 * A Body Remembered (2009)


 * Poetry
 * For You or Someone Like You (2011)


 * Guides/Handbooks
 * 1,2,1,2, A Guide to the SA Music Industry (2010)