about the founder of new post

Zodwa Kumalo-Valentine is a content strategist, editor and writer with more than two decades of editorial experience helping brands, publishers and media platforms tell stories that matter.

Her career has spanned some of South Africa's most respected media brands – including Marie Claire, ELLE, Drum, City Press and the Mail & Guardian – before leading native content at Arena Holdings, where she oversaw editorial strategy across Business Day, Sunday Times, TimesLIVE, Sowetan and The Herald.

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Today, through new post, her independent practice, she works with brands, publishers and organisations that understand the value of considered content. Her work spans content strategy, writing and editing, podcast development, public relations and event curation – bringing an editorial perspective to every brief.

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Alongside new post, Zodwa continues to commission and develop books for leading publishers, shaping ideas from proposal to publication. Her publishing work includes Pan Macmillan South Africa and other publishing houses, and in 2026 she completed a Certificate in Developmental Editing through the University of Washington.

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Her latest project, other houses, brings this editorial thinking home. It's an independent publication rooted in South African life, built around four pillars – The Interior Life, At the Table, What We're Reading, Making and Elsewhere – each one a way of paying closer attention to the everyday.

Whether interviewing executives for the story of Discovery Bank, developing long-form editorial, writing magazine features or shaping a book proposal, her approach stays the same: every strong piece of content begins with a clear idea and the editorial judgement to bring it to life.

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The best ideas aren't confined to a single format. They're developed with enough depth to work across platforms, audiences and media, without losing what made them worth telling in the first place.