Teen Author Jesse Pieters: Faith and writing

In December Jesse Pieters published his second fantasy novel. The teenage author tells Daluxolo Moloantoa how he got into writing and how the Catholic faith guides him.

Cartoons have been entertaining children in comic strips and later in film since the late 1800s. They have also provided inspiration for young writers to expand their limitations and get down to writing their own captivating stories. For 19-year-old Jesse Pieters, this has gone as far as the publication of his first two science-fiction novels, Fang and I, Jesse the Cyborg.

Born in Langebaan on the West Coast on November 24, 2003, Jesse completed his matric last year at a Christian school in Vanderbijlpark.

His parents are active Catholics — his mother Felicia is a catechist and his father Deon is a eucharistic minister and chair of the parish financial council at St Francis of Assisi church in Vanderbijlpark — and they ensured that Jesse learnt about his faith from an early age. “Both my parents have a deep love for the faith and the Church. I was taught to have a love for Our Lady, and I was taught the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Prayer to St Michael. My parents also taught me how to pray the rosary and that it is a powerful weapon against evil,” Jesse told The Southern Cross.

He recalls his early days learning about the faith outside of the family environment. “I was a little boy in Grade 2. I could not understand why I had to stay on at church when Mass was already over and others were going home, along with other children. It took me a while to realise that this was Sunday School, and I was there to learn about Jesus Christ,” he recalled.

“We were often given pictures to colour in, and these pictures were always related to a bible story. The people in my catechism class stayed with me up to confirmation, but some disappeared along the way until there were only three of the original group left.”

Spark to write

The spark that prompted Jesse to start writing came in 2014, while he was in Grade 4. The inspiration was his favourite cartoon characters. “I would take sheets of paper, staple them together and then I would draw lines on the pages with a ruler and leave a space open at the bottom of the page, in which I’d draw a picture. I would then start writing and add the pictures. My first ever completed ‘book’ — which was essentially a scrapbook — was called ‘Dinos vs Super Strikers’. It was terrible, because I was ‘stealing’ characters from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, the Archie comics and even some of DC’s superheroes.”  It may be “the cringiest story I had ever written”, but the impulse to translate his ideas onto paper came with a powerful realisation.

“I had an ‘Aha!’ moment, and I chose writing because nothing else hit me the way that did. Some people choose video games because it’s another world, but there are still limitations in that world. Writing gave me the power to create a world where anything that I wanted to happen or to create, could happen or be created,” Jesse explained.

With encouragement and the support of his family, Jesse continued to write his stories. Further encouragement came from his Grade 4-5 English teacher, Mrs Teagan. After writing three “books”, Jesse took them to the teacher for feedback. Her verdict came in the form of a laminated bookmark which read: For the Best New and Upcoming Author, Jesse Pieters.

This encouraged Jesse to go even further. In Grade 6 he started to write more original stories. In 2018, he wrote his first story to run online, titled “The Shadow Inside Me”, a Marvel-inspired fantasy set in the year 2029.

Towards the end of 2018, Jesse fell out with his two best friends. “That pushed me to start a wolf story that would eventually grow into my first published novel, Fang,” Jesse said. Throughout 2019 and 2020 he churned out one story after another. Covid-19 provided more time and even some new inspiration for his stories. The stories were all linked into one big universe, with Jesse playing the main character. During this time, he also created his first ever stand-alone novel, “meaning that it’s in a universe of its own. It was also the first novel that wasn’t sci-fi or fantasy-related.”

In 2021 Jesse started reaching out to publishing houses, leading to his first publishing contract with Beyond the Vale Publishing. Fang was released in February 2022. I, Jesse the Cyborg was published in December.

Although his debut novel is wolf-themed, Jesse is a cat lover, being the owner of three felines.

Dictates of faith

Jesse’s Catholic faith plays a huge role in his life as an author. “I’m very careful when I’m working on darker chapters or themes because of my faith. Anything that can be read as Satanic or hellish, I immediately throw out. The same goes for foul language; I include it for certain characters because it’s part of them, but I keep it to a minimum. I don’t make it a constant curse-fest because of my aesthetics,” he noted.

Daily prayer is a staple diet for Jesse and the Pieters family. “In the morning, before we all head off to work or school, we make sure that we pray as a family. We also bless ourselves with holy water before leaving the house, regardless of the time or destination. I also pray every night before going to bed because it is my time where I get to have a one-to-one talk with God. I believe that praying isn’t about giving God a list of things that you want him to do for you, but a conversation with someone who will never judge or leave you,” he said.

Support from parish

He also credits his success as an author to the support he has had from the Church. “Fr Patrick Noonan, who is a renowned author, offered me lots of helpful advice in the early days. He made sure that he helped to spread the word about my book in his circles and among parishioners. A couple of copies of Fang are being sold at our church repository. It was also through one of the parishioners that I got set up with some of my media interviews,” he said.

Still early into his promising vocation as an author, Jesse has already experienced moments which he defines as milestones. The first was seeing his book displayed on a shelf at a local bookstore in Vanderbijlpark. “I was asked to sign two copies for the staff members. The books now have a ‘Signed by the Author’ sticker on them.” The second milestone was doing radio interviews, “a huge experience for me”.

But his biggest milestone was being invited to Sancta Maria Primary School in Vanderbijlpark as a guest speaker. “I spoke to the children about success and about pursuing their dreams. It meant a lot to me, as someone who was still in school himself, to tell them that they can achieve their dreams in spite of the challenges. I think that my being a student made it easier for them to believe it as well.”

When not writing, Pieters enjoys spending time with his family and friends, and watching animated series on television. He has some words of advice for upcoming writers: “What you have is a gift, and it is a gift that is often overlooked and under-appreciated. Books immortalise your legacy, and the characters you create will remain long after you are gone. Keep writing, your imagination is the only limit.”

Published in the March 2023 issue of The Southern Cross magazine