After the success of FLUID: The Freedom to Be, the Short.Sharp.Stories project returns with a new theme: YOLO. Joanne Hichens and I look forward to reading your stories and publishing the most exciting interpretations of the theme in the next Short.Sharp.Stories anthology!
Happy writing!
In keeping with the Noordhoek Art Point Gallery‘s theme for November — the Flow of Water — this month’s Salon Hecate will feature the recently published Short.Sharp.Story anthology, Fluid: The Freedom To Be.
For Fluid, South African writers were given this intriguing prompt: “In a FLUID state, nothing is fixed, matter can flow easily — between borders and boundaries, between cultures, between genders — everything is possible, porous, playful. In this world, increasingly conservative and restricted, we embrace the fluid nature of humanity. We grow, we change course, we discover more about who we are.” The best twenty stories in response were published in this collection. In reviewing it, author Jen Thorpe said: “I am always searching for writing that challenges me to try new techniques, forms and genres, and that takes on subjects I hadn’t considered. This collection does just that.”
Together with three Fluid contributors, I was asked to speak about the collection at the next Salon Hecate event. Contributors will read brief extracts from their stories. One of them, local artist Alex Latimer, will talk about the “fluidity” and overlap of being both a visual artist and illustrator, and an author. Vuyokazi Ngemntu will speak about the shades (literally) of identity for another perspective on what it means to be fluid. And Anna Hug will read from her shocking and entertaining story featuring perfume — also a fluid. Additionally, author Athambile Masola will read her poetry in both English and isiXhosa, to show us another form of fluidity — translation.
Karina Szczurek is an author, memoirist, reviewer and the driving force behind Karavan Press. She lives in Rosebank, Cape Town, and has won too many awards for her writing to list here. She looks very fetching in a witch’s hat.
Alex Latimer is an artist and illustrator who lives in Fish Hoek. His picture books are published around the world, and his stories have won or been shortlisted for the Short Story Day Africa prize and the Commonwealth prize. He has published a novel and two apocalyptic sagas, South and North, as one half of Frank Owen (the other half being Diane Awerbuck, whose work also appears in Fluid).
Vuyokazi Ngemntu is a writer-performer who lives in Nyanga. She uses a wide range of performances of words (poetry, ritual, song and more) to look at trauma and inequality, and to inspire healing. Her short stories have won or been shortlisted for a number of prizes in Africa.
Athambile Masola is an academic, archival expert and poet who lives in Muizenberg. She lectures in Historical Studies at UCT, and her PhD and primary research focuses on black women’s life writing. Her debut poetry collection, Ilifa, was published in 2021.
Anna Hug, an author and editor who lives in Kommetjie, has had her stories published in South African literary journals, and has been longlisted for the Myslexia fiction prize.
Date and time: TUESDAY (note: not our usual Monday!) 14 November, 5.30 for 6pm, until 7pm. Entrance is free, and all are welcome.
Please join us for small snacks and a glass of wine or juice.
The 4-5 November weekend promises a lot of literary joy. The Cape Flats Book Festival is taking place that weekend and the one-day Festival of Poetry is happening on the 4th. Karavan Press authors are well represented at both, and I am also playing a role in my diverse capacities.
4 November | Bertha House and Youngblood-Africa
5 November | West End Primary School
I had great fun at the Cape Flats Book festival last year; I am so looking forward to returning. And I am thrilled about the Festival of Poetry. A weekend of inspiration and enlightenment awaits!
I wrote about my experience of the Open Book Festival this year for LitNet. You can read the article here:
This year’s Exclusive Books Homebru list includes our anthology, FLUID: THE FREEDOM TO BE.
Contributors and editors were asked to share their thoughts about the anthology and all Homebru authors had to come up with a South African proverb.
See our answers below and above.
To order your copy of the book and earn your Fanatics points, click here:
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:
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
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.
Karina Magdalena 