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.
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
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 …
We had a much better venue – the Aquatic Club at the Clanwilliam Dam Resort – with electricity (apart from loadshedding) / generator, toilets, running water and a stunning view. Two vets and two veterinary nurses joined forces with Jeanine, who is a qualified veterinary paramedic, in helping the animals of Clanwilliam and area in attaining a better quality of life wherever they came from and whatever the challenges their humans were facing in their everyday life. No one was turned away.
Whereas last time I mainly helped Jeanine collect the animals and bring them home after their operations/treatments, this time I only briefly accompanied her on one of her trips.
For the most part, I assisted the volunteers who were watching over the animals in recovery: this involves monitoring their breathing and general well-being, cleaning up when they cannot control their body functions after anesthetics, turning and massaging their unconscious bodies as they gradually wake up, and making sure that they are safely back in their cages before they become fully conscious of what’s happening (particularly crucial with feral animals who freak out the moment they are back among the living).
Around a hundred animals were treated during those two days. We lost one – I watched the attending vet try to resuscitate the cat for about twenty minutes, but nothing could be done. Her efforts were herculean. We all felt the loss. One other cat had an epileptic fit, but made it through. One dog and his human arrived from a nearby farm after the dog had an unlucky encounter with a porcupine. (For the moment, the area does not have a permanent vet, so the two were fortunate that the fight happened during the project, and they did not have to travel to Piketberg to find help.) Everyone was taken care of with love – no matter the vomit, ticks, fleas and all. Those in need were assisted with food and whatever else was available.
Natalie from The Hoghouse (where you can buy Jeanine’s handmade beauty products which she makes at Oudrif to raise funding and awareness for CLAWS) was also there with her bakkie, fortitude and compassion – I watched her catch a feral feline runaway with her bare hands and still cannot believe what I saw. She has been assisting CLAWS in all kinds of ways for many years. (She took the photo of me with the recovering animals.)
We spent the night at Oudrif, where after a full day of work with other animals, Jeanine still attended to her Furry Family and two rescue pigeons. Bill cooked a wonderful veg lasagna and even had a glass of bubbly ready for us. I walked to my cottage exhausted, but the Milky Way was smiling above me, the hot shower was blissful, and the few hours of sleep deeper than ever despite the five o’clock wake-up for the second day of work.
If you want to experience Oudrif, they have a fantastic special on at the moment:
They are a registered NPO. Everyone is struggling at the moment, and they are no exception. It will take months for the organisation to pay off their project debts, but they soldier on regardless.
At Oudrif, you can also buy Karavan Press books. All proceeds go directly to CLAWS.
These two will fly again. And the rescue kitten who travelled with me back to Cape Town yesterday has found a wonderful forever home.
Guess who has already volunteered to help with the next CLAWS project … :)
Please join Joanne, me and a few of the amazing authors we had the pleasure of working with on this Short.Sharp.Stories anthology for the launch of FLUID!
Like the weather, it was unpredictable. Rain poured down all night long before the first session of the day, but then the sun rose and bathed the Simon’s Town bay in its glorious light. We all sensed that a literary festival in the Far South of the peninsula could have plenty to offer for readers from near and far, but no one could tell for sure. Although, judging by the crowds that attended the opening event, which was held a month in advance in the presence of such literary greats as Antjie Krog, José Eduardo Agualusa and JM Coetzee, we could have counted on friendly skies. And so they were. As were the crowds that descended on the story-rich Simon’s Town like the kind morning light …
As the poet with “no money in the bank” is driving home, she imagines all the people she cares about living in the “blue clefts ahead”. With the sun and the sea as her companions on one of the most picturesque roads around, she is “embarrassed to be so rich”. Every time I travel towards the Cape Peninsula, I am reminded of Finuala Dowling’s poem “Riches” (Notes from the dementia ward, 2008) and that feeling of wonder and generosity which the mixture of urban and wild landscapes here evokes. It is no surprise that Dowling’s name features on the inaugural programme of the Books on the Bay Festival, a new brainchild of festival impresario extraordinaire Darryl David. After settling in Simon’s Town a few years ago, David realised how many writers lived in the town and its proximity, and when he reconnected with David Attwell, another recent addition to the growing number of local literary residents, the idea for another festival was born …
Fay Weldon passed away on 4 January. She was 91. I can’t say that I knew her, but I did meet her in 2009 and spent some time in her delightful company in Oslo while we were staying at the magical Aschehoug villa. Fay and André shared the same Norwegian publisher and were participating in a few literary events to promote their latest books at the time. It was just after Fay’s 78th birthday and engaging with her I remember thinking, ‘I want to be always as full of life and wonder as you are, but especially when I am older.’
Living and travelling with André, I’d had the opportunity of meeting many of my literary heroes. In most cases, these encounters had been sheer pleasure. And meeting Fay Weldon definitely belongs to these memories. She was kind and funny and generous. She made me feel like one of ‘us’, a writer, even though I was a complete nobody, making only my first steps in writing and publishing fiction back then. Not all established authors show this kind of generosity of spirit when it comes to emerging writers, but it can be such a gift. I remember and treasure it. And I am grateful for all the hours I spent in Fay Weldon’s literary company, reading her books which, even now when their author has joined the Great Library in the Sky, will always remind me of the inspiring woman who wrote them.
Imagine Little Prince’s ‘hat’ upside down. This is how I see 2022 in retrospect. A good beginning, a deep dive into awfulness, a few months of a terrible low, and a gradual return to stability. There were several significant highs, but they had to compete against a lot of darkness.
January: Watched a beautiful wedding on Zoom. Climbed Table Mountain and had dinner at The Hoghouse for my 45th birthday. A fabulous, unforgettable bubbly weekend at Graham Beck followed.
February: A beautiful weekend of literature, wine and delicious food in Elgin, one of my happy places.
March: A magical trip to the Seychelles where I was reunited with my Mom and Krystian and went snorkeling for the first time; we celebrated all the birthdays we missed celebrating during lockdown and loved every second of being together. The return of the (mini) Open Book Festival.
April: Watched the magical Firefly at the Baxter. Visited Oudrif, one of my other happy places. Had a haircut to remove all the bad energy gathered in the tips of my hair.
May: Neighbour’s 70th birthday celebration. Franschhoek Literary Festival and Kingsmead Book Fair.
June: I don’t remember much.
July: Topolino became mine after I paid off the loan. Rosebank Writers met for the first time. The Kenyan writer Idza Luhumyo was awarded the 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story ‘Five Years Next Sunday’, published in Disruption (2021) – a SSDA anthology I co-edited with Rachel Zadok and Jason Mykl Snyman.
August: A dear friend’s 40th birthday party. Another trip to our beloved Oudrif.
September: Return of the (maxi) Open Book Festival. A weekend in Saldanha with new, lovely friends. Blown Away by Books. Gothenburg Book Fair.
October: Visit with Mom and Krystian in Austria for three weeks (and finding great memories in the boxes of my old stuff stored in my Mom’s attic)! Cape Flat Book Festival.
November: Road trip and literary festival in Richmond. Spiritual walk with a new friend in Lundadno. Aunt Zosia’s first visit in Cape Town.
December: The Book Lounge’s 15th birthday party. Second Karavan Press Literary Festival. Beethoven 9th at City Hall. Relaxed Christmas. Meeting my step-great-granddaughter for the first time.
Throughout the year, with the help of my friend Joanne, I managed to continue working on the manuscript of No and Other Contradictions. The first draft is almost finished. And considering that we met only once a week for about forty times, about three hours of writing each time, I think that this is a gigantic achievement.
Greatest lesson of 2022: Setting healthy boundaries is life-saving/changing.
Best books of 2022 (apart from the ones I published at Karavan Press, of course) in no particular order:
The Dark Flood
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention
Mothers, Fathers and Others: New Essays
Ougat: From a Hoe Into a Housewife and Then Some
Mad Bad Love
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
Madwoman
The Men
Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic
The Memory of the Air
Chouette
Pip and Egg
The Invincible Miss Cust
Panya Routes: Independent Art Spaces in Africa
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World
Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi
Desert Star
I am still reading a few that I wish I had finished this year, but …
At dinner last night, a friend and I reminisced about delighting as children in the simplest things just because they were special to us: for her it was sweets and for me it was oranges. She grew up in a time and place when sweets were not easily attainable, and even though my time and place were different, oranges were just as unattainable for me. I would sometimes get one orange as a gift for Christmas, and every time I peel one today, I still think of my childhood. In my friend’s family, they called these simple treasures ‘luxuries’. Many years later, they still use the word and it still holds its magic. When we parted, I wished my friend a luxurious festive season. And today, I wish it for all of us. May we delight in the simple things, and never take them for granted.
My Christmas Eve’s table is set – as is the tradition in our home at Christmas time, I set it for one extra person in case someone needs a place at our table – and my heart is filled with luxuries. I wish everyone health and love and luxuries this Christmas and in the New Year. Merry Christmas!
