The term 'gatekeeper' is an interesting one. The way it is been used now suggests that there are people who think that the only reason that they are not reaching particular heights is that others are keeping them out. For some reason, it doesn't occur to them that their work, their skills, or their talents aren't good enough.

Are you familiar with the term Dunning Kruger? it means that people who are stupid do not have the intellect to realize that they are stupid, and people who are highly intelligent often doubt the value of their own work because they can actually see the differences that stupid people cannot.

For instance, have you ever noticed the number of people who confuse 'you're' with 'your.' They appear to be completely oblivious that these are two very different words meaning two very different things. Why would that be? It seems such an obvious thing to notice. Yet, they don't. I would suggest that some people genuinely do not have the ability to notice that. They may be able to be taught that, but consider that we all went to grade school, and these people still did not notice that.

Let me draw an analogy for you. Most people, especially when they are young, will at some time in their life go dancing. They'll club, drink, have fun, and if dancing mean hoping from one foot to another in time to the music, well, it is still considered dancing.

However, would you call them dancers?

My sister is a dancer. She danced at a professional ballet dancer, and she has been in numerous shows in varying capacities. There are some videos on youtube. Her name is Charmaine Schlesinger if you'd like to search for her. At 69 years old, she is still dancing. She can do the kind of things on a dance floor that some who is 19 years old cannot do.

Both the people on the dance floor and my sister could be said to be dancing. But are the people on the dance floor dancers just because they are dancing? Is there not a difference in standard, in style, and a thousand other things?

It is the same with writing. Sure everybody can put pen to paper because we all learnt our ABCs. However there is one helluve difference between someone who can write to a publishable standard and someone who can't.

Everybody can also put a paint brush on a piece of paper and draw lines and squiggles, yet when my daughter was 8 years old, her art resembled that of someone with a masters in art. She is incredibly talented that way. She wasn't taught to do that. She just could. She can look at you, and in 20 minutes, she can draw you face with such accuracy that nobody will have any doubt it's you. How many people can do that? Does the fact that everybody has access to paints and pencil make everybody an artist?

Here's another story. Both my daughter and I met this young lady at college in San Diego. She was South African, and she had a very famous cousin who was a rock star. The lady was disabled to some extent, had inherited millions, so there was no need to work.

She was upset that she kept redoing this singing class and the professor kept failing her. She eventually went to him and asked him what she had to do to pass. He said to her, "Look, you don't have it. You can't sing. There is nothing you can do to pass."

She emailed me and said she was very upset. I was a bit puzzled, because my late brother was a singer. He didn't have to do classes to sing. He just had a fantastic voice, and he could hold a tune marvellously. He would simply audition and get the job. I emailed her and said "Well, if you can sing, why don't you just audition for jobs?"

I never heard another word from her. I tried to contact her again, but she never replied to me. As it happened, my daughter was in a singing class with her. My daughter can sing, and she said that the girl simply could not sing, and she wouldn't take no for an answer.

I will give you my interpretation of what was really going on there. She knew at some level that she couldn't sing a damn, but she wanted to be famous like her cousin. and because she had been Americanzied, she honestly believed she could learn to sing - without having the voice and the ear. So, to her,the professor was responsible for not teaching her what she needed to know. She blamed him.

Was the professor a gatekeeper because he kept failing her? Not at all. If she had a genuine capacity to sing, she could have taken to the stage the way any other singer does. Nobody gatekeesp the arts, Jesse, and make no mistake, basic literacy is one thing, creative writing is quite another.

At the end of this month, I am starting at Adult education for photography. I am also doing a fiction writing class.

Here's what I expect to learn. Exactly nothing in the writing class. I was first published in national newspapers in 1962/3. I won my first writing competition at 17 in 1970 when the marketing director of the country's largest newspaper group told me that the piece of writing that I submitted that he had seen in his 20 years as a newspaper man. My first poem was circulated to all the schools in my city of birth when I was eleven years old. I was not taught to write creatively. It is a talent.

My brother was first invited to sing when he was seven. My sister had her first dance class when she was six. Her ballet teacher immediately contacted my mother to tell her that she had it. At fourteen, the Royal Ballet Examiner told my mother to apply to Covent Gardens Ballet.

You can teach a certain level, but that's as far as it goes. You cannot teach that necessary element that some people are born with. Creative writing is no exception.

Does that make me a gatekeeper? I have no power to hold anyone back. I have been published for 60 years on three continents. I have been employed by two publishing houses in London as an editor where I read books that writers submitted.

When I say that someone can't write, they can't write, and they will never be able to write. That's not because I'm spiteful or jealous or mean. It's not because I'm a gatekeeper either. I have no power or influence to stop someone from writing a great story and being accepted by one of the publishing houses.

It is my professional opinion, the same as the professor who told the lady that she couldn't sign, and she was never going to be able to sing.

Is it a nice thing to hear? Well, in America, if one has been taught all one's life that one can do anything one likes, I think it will sound arrogant and spiteful. In South Africa, we are more emotionally hardy. If someone tells us that we can't sing, we either get off our backsides and go find ourselves a job as a singer, or we actually realize the guy knows what we are talking about, and we find something else.

Years ago, the creative wriiting professor of Columbus University approached me to ask me if he could use one of my pieces in his class. I said yes. I said more or less the same thing. For the record, a good few of my articles on writing have been used as references through the years. I must know something about the discipline, otherwise that wouldn't happen.

I have a publication on Medium called "Born to write." I don't write for it anymore. There is only so much that one write about how to write. And I've said it all.

Hope that answers your question.