Author Archives: Karina

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About Karina

Author living in Cape Town.

At the Open Book Festival 2023

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

Smoothie ( — 31 July 2023)

A furry family member went to Cat Heaven today. Smoothie did not live with us at Driekatfontein – she lived with my love – but she was also my family, and I loved her dearly. No one knows how old she was, but I always teased her that she had nineteen lives and was the ultimate survivor. She was spirited; her vet file came with a warning. We visited the vet regularly to make sure that her quality of life remained high despite diverse health- and age-related vulnerabilities. The estimate is that she was at least seventeen. When she started losing weight again earlier this month, it was difficult to believe that with the help of our wonderful vet she would not bounce back as she did so many times before, defying all odds and expectations. But she was living her nineteenth life already, and it became clear very quickly that the time to say goodbye had arrived. She had a good life. She made our lives a lot better because of her determined, devoted, loving presence. We are hurting today and missing her unbearably, but we also know that Cat Heaven is a brighter, feistier and more purring place tonight, because Smoothie has arrived.

Driving Miss Smoothie

May you rest in peace, beloved Smoothie. I miss you so much …

Artistic longings

I recently participated in one of Gabriella Kaplan’s art workshops and LOVED the experience. If you ever thought of exploring your artistic longings, here is another opportunity:

I cannot recommend this enough. For a few weeks this was a space of exploration, musings, self-care, meditation and discovery. One of the things that I enjoyed the most was playing with a different medium than words. I love working with words, but there was something truly special about escaping into sculptures, images and collages for a few hours every week. I will let a few of the ones I created speak for themselves:

Through the workshops, I have also been inspired to continue creating visual artworks alone at home. A precious gift one can give to oneself.

If you are reading this, thank you, Gabriella! I hope to join another workshop in the near future.

FLF 2023: Hope in times of chaos

The Franschhoek Valley does golden autumn like no other place I know in the world. Once again, the season was on full display during this year’s Franschhoek Literary Festival (FLF). I drove into town on Friday and could not help feeling elated just by looking at the bright reds and yellows of falling leaves bathed in the soothing morning sun. The scene was perfectly set for what was to unfold. I have never seen Franschhoek so packed during the festival. The place was heaving with writers and festivalgoers from all over …

Continue reading: LitNet

FynArts Hermanus

The FynArts Festival is taking place in Hermanus between 9 and 18 June, and I have the huge privilege of participating for the first time.

Please join us for these two events on Tuesday, 13 June:

DEAR ME, DEAR YOU with Nancy Richards and Dianne Stewart, 9h30-10h30, Municipal Auditorium

THE FIFTH MRS BRINK, 17h00-18h00, Windsor Hotel

Click on the images above to book your tickets.

Hope to see you there! Books will be on sale.

Open Book Workshop Week 5-10 June 2023

What a pleasure to be part of the Open Book Workshop Week and to share my passion for the short story with others. I hope you will join me for one or both of the workshops I will be running:

SHORT STORY BASICS

SHORT STORY COMPETITIONS

Full programme:

Open Book Workshop Week

FLUID in my hands

Every time a miracle! I don’t think that I will ever be able to take holding a new book with my name on its cover for granted. The latest is FLUID: The Freedom to Be, an anthology of short stories I have co-edited with Joanne Hichens. The book is published by Tattoo Press and distributed by Karavan Press, together with Protea Distribution. After HAIR: Weaving and Unpicking Stories of Identity (Tattoo Press, 2019), it’s the second collection of stories that Joanne and I edited together, and once again it was pure literary excitement. We worked with established and emerging writers and were bowled over by the talent shining between the pages of FLUID. Thank you to all the writers who entered the Short.Sharp.Stories competition, especially the twenty included in the anthology. You are a huge inspiration! Tomorrow night, we are launching the book at The Book Lounge in Cape Town. Another book baby making its first steps in the world …

And like any book parent, I feel proud … and a little bit tired. 2023 so far has been my most productive publishing year ever, and it’s only the beginning of May. Lots more work is waiting to be done, but tonight, I am just going to celebrate and relax.

2023 at Karavan Press so far …

Thank you to Everyone I have the pleasure of working with to make these amazing books happen.

Kingsmead Book Fair 2023

I will be chairing two sessions at the KBF this year. I had so much fun attending the book fair last year that I can’t wait to return and look forward to engaging with all these wonderful authors, talking about fictional revenge and the short story – two of my favourite themes.

12:30 – 13:30
Karina Szczurek (Karavan Press) lets Lester Walbrugh (Elton Baatjies) and Michiel Heyns (Each Mortal Thing) allow their protagonists to settle the score.

16:00 – 17:00
Joanne Hichens (Fluid: Freedom to Be), Zaheera Jina Asvat (The Tears of the Weaver: Short Stories), Terry-Ann Adams (White Chalk: Stories) and Chase Rhys (Misfit: Stories vannie anne kant) share with Karina Szczurek about less sometimes being more.

For more details about the book fair, click here: KBF 2023

Book review: I Wish I’d Said … Vol. 5

Unless we are suffering through a natural disaster, war, famine or pandemic, grief in the everyday is usually deeply personal. In the last three years, however, the world has been in the throes of grief on a global scale. COVID-19 and the resulting worldwide lockdowns initiated a process of communal mourning that is long from over. Many of us have turned to art for understanding and solace during this time. Art can provide both, on its creative and receiving ends. And perhaps no other art form can capture this wonder as succinctly as poetry.

The AVBOB Poetry Project began in 2017, and since then, in the words of AVBOB’s CEO, Carl van der Riet, “has expanded its reach as an essential archive representing our shared experience”. Many thousands of poems have been received since the inception. A significant number of these have found their way into the AVBOB Poetry Library, which is available online, and into the five volumes of poetry – I wish I’d said … – published as part of the endeavour. The first time I read one of these anthologies, I was surprised how much it meant to me. And now, engaging with the latest, the fifth volume in the series, gave me the renewed feeling of belonging that I’d sensed with the previous reading …

Continue reading: LitNet