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.
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:
Full programme:
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.
Thank you to Everyone I have the pleasure of working with to make these amazing books happen.
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
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 …
LitNet
A few more pictures from Books on the Bay:
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 …
Continue reading: LitNet
I am so looking forward to this conversation with Nondwe Mpuma at the Woman Zone Book Club! All readers welcome! Hope to see you there.
We are thrilled to invite you to join Short.Sharp.Stories and All About Writing for two free online short story webinars. They are designed to provide guidance and support to writers who wish to enter the Short.Sharp.Stories competition:
The sessions are aimed at encouraging new and emerging writers to enter FLUID, as well as to hone their craft.
Thursday 20 October 2022
17:30 to 19:30 South Africa Time
Hosts Joanne Hichens and Karina Szczurek will focus on the aspects of short story writing, with a particular aim to encourage emerging writers to understand the elements necessary in the creation of a short story. This session will include a mini-workshop, to spark ideas for a story based on the theme FLUID: Freedom To Be. Have a notebook and pen handy.
Thursday 3 November 2022
17:30 to 19:30 South Africa Time
In this session we’ll answer questions and field problems. Participants will be encouraged to send in questions beforehand.
During this time we’ll also do a warm-up writing exercise, focus on showing not telling, the cornerstone of good fiction writing.
Short.Sharp.Stories is a proven platform showcasing top and emerging South African writers. However, we welcome all writers over the age of 18, no matter your background or experience, to send in short stories. FLUID seeks to engage fictional expression around identity, culture and society.
Every published writer will receive an honorarium of R 2 000, with a Grand Winner to receive R 10 000. Additional awards will be given at the discretion of Short.Sharp.Stories.
The sessions will be recorded for anyone unable to make it on the day.
Click here for further information and to download the entry form.
Joanne Hichens, author and editor, lives in Cape Town. Her crime novels are Out to Score (co-written), Divine Justice, published in the United States, and Sweet Paradise. Her young adult novels, Stained and Riding the Wave, were both shortlisted for the Sanlam Literature Award. Her memoir, Death and the After Parties, explores the passing of Joanne’s mother, husband, father and mother-in-law within a short period of time, and examines all that happens after death: emotional frenzy, funerals, family strife – the fighting and loving.
Karina Szczurek is an author and founder of Karavan Press. Her debut novel, Invisible Others (2014), was longlisted for the 2015 Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize. Her memoir The Fifth Mrs Brink, about her experiences being married to prominent South African novelist Andre Brink, was published in 2017 and You Make Me Possible: The Love Letters of Karina M. Szczurek and André Brink was published in 2018.
Karavan Press aims to publish books they are passionate about, of any genre and any length. They nurture authors and their creativity, establish strong bonds between their writers and readers, and offer a literary home for those who treasure words and stories. Excellence, integrity, and their love for the book as an object are the cornerstones of Karavan Press.
This year at the Cape Flats Book Festival, I get to talk to a few authors I absolutely adore. Can’t wait and hope to see you there!
Karina Magdalena 