Six years after publication, The Fifth Mrs Brink is making her last official appearance at a festival before going out of print. The Book Lounge will be selling the remaining copies of the original edition of my memoir.

But no worries, Future Readers, Karavan Press is going to bring out a new edition of the book soon.

Karavan Press is “seriously punching above its weight” at this year’s festival. You can read about it here: Karavan Press and Friends at Open Book Festival.

I will be participating in two panels, one in which Mervyn Sloman of The Book Lounge will be chatting to Mbali Sikakana of NB, Eugene Ashton of JB, and me about the future of publishing. It will be fun!

And then, I will be chairing a session with Sue Nyamnjoy, Zibu Sithole and Diane Awerbuck and we will be talking about writing journeys.

Diane Awerbuck is a prizewinning writer, reviewer, editor and teacher. She writes femme/goth thrillers (Home Remedies); memoirs (Gardening at Night); pandemic cowboy thrillers (South, as Frank Owen; North, as Frank Owen); doctorates on trauma (The Spirit and the Letter); holy-wholly poetry (As above, so below); and short story collections (Cabin Fever; Inside your body there are flowers). She hopes you are sitting comfortably.

Zibu Sithole lives in Johannesburg with her son. She is a journalist with more than 10 years of experience writing for television and radio as well as print and digital media. She is a published ghostwriter of mainly romance novels. The Thing with Zola is Zibu’s first novel published under her own name.

Sue Nyamnjoh is a Cameroonian-born creative currently residing in Cape Town. She has a background in media studies and languages and holds a BA(Hons) from the University of Cape Town. Earlier this year (2023), Sue released her debut poetry collection. The anthology, [un]ravelling, explores universal themes of love, grief, joy, and loneliness from a deeply personal lens. Beyond literary pursuits, Sue enjoys large doses of music, food, and people, in no particular order. She is mother to a feline named Shola and various plants in questionable states of existence.

You can book your tickets here:

OPEN BOOK FESTIVAL 2023