After retiring from the University of Cape Town in December 2016, Etienne van Heerden is now emeritus professor and guided his last MA Creative Writing students through their examination processes in 2017. All three these students developed novel manuscripts under his supervision and all three received distinctions for their dissertations. Beyers de Vos, Mike Hardaker and Wilken Calitz. Beyers and Mike wrote in English, and Wilken in Afrikaans.