Karina Book, Event, Festival

Secrets and other stories at Blown Away by Books

Please join us for another Blown Away by Books event at the Fish Hoek Library on 18 April 2026, at 9.30AM – this year celebrating Secrets, the latest Karavan Stories anthology (2025) and the stories that have flown into and from the project. Secrets contributors Lucienne Argent, Christine Coates, Máire Fisher, Michelle A. Meyer, Helen Nevin, Joëlle Searle and Jana van Niekerk will be in conversation with Karina M. Szczurek about the anthology and their other writings. Now in its fourth year, the Karavan Stories project has gathered a wonderful community of writers who have continued writing and collaborating together. Come and be inspired by their remarkable stories, those already written and those in the making!

Karina Book, Event

Flash writing workshops with Kerry Hammerton

A wonderful opportunity to explore a genre that teaches you how to tell great stories within a limited word count. Creativity, precision, discipline and care are needed to write flashes, and all these skills allow you to hone your craft as a writer like nothing else.

Please join Kerry for one or both of these workshops, and have the opportunity to submit your flash to one of her In Other Stories anthologies, published annually by Karavan Press.

Karina Author, Book

Global first: Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, appoints Athol Williams to the role of School Poet Laureate

In an international first, Saïd Business School has appointed Athol Williams, South Africa’s distinguished poet living in exile in the UK, to the role of School Poet Laureate. Athol is an applied philosopher and poet. He holds seven degrees, including a doctorate from Oxford University. He is the recipient of numerous literary, academic and public service awards including two Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Awards and the Mayor’s Medal for Extraordinary Bravery from the City of Cape Town. Athol has been in exile since 2021 after exposing state capture in South Africa. End & Beginning, proudly published by Karavan Press in 2025, was his seventh book of poetry.

For details of the announcement, click here: Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Karavan Press at Books on the Bay 2026

Books on the Bay is taking place in Simon’s Town between 13 and 15 March 2026 this year and we are thrilled to announce that a few Karavan Press authors will be taking part. We hope to see you all there!

SATURDAY, 14 March 2026

11:30 – 12:30

Simon’s Town Methodist Church

Elleke Boehmer

Ice Shock

An Icelandic volcano has thrown an ash cloud into the atmosphere and, across the world, planes have stopped flying. Karina Szczurek is in conversation with Elleke Boehmer about how her characters respond to a catastrophically changing environment.

17:00 – 18:00

Simon’s Town Methodist Church

Karen Jennings

Swartbooij and Titus

Critically acclaimed author Karen Jennings tells Karina Szczurek about the inspiration behind her latest book, set in the eighteenth century on the Cape’s northern frontier, its mix of genres, and the real-life father and son at the heart of it.

18:30 – 20:00

Town Hall

Roger Lucey

How to Build a House in the Mountains

His musical career was destroyed by the security police: this is the story of how he built back his life, brick by brick. Legendary musician Roger Lucey, combines storytelling, memoir and song in this moving account of building his own house in the mountains of the Breede River Valley.

Sponsored by The Hardy Boys

Wine sponsored by Mooiplaas.

Books on the Bay: 2026 Authors

Click here for the entire three-day programme: Books on the Bay

Karina Author, Book, Event

EVER AFTER, THE END: Consuelo Roland and Lucienne Bestall in conversation

Mortality forms a thematic throughline in both Consuelo’s first novel, The Good Cemetery Guide (2005), and Lucienne’s debut collection of non-fiction essays, Except for Breath: Reflections on Image and Memory (2025). The authors’ mutual curiosity about death – and what it might teach us about love and longing – is differently explored in their respective genres. While Consuelo tells the story of a funeral director who leads a double life alongside the recently departed, Lucienne considers the ways art and literature have pictured and described ‘the only possible ending’.

Consuelo is a writer working across fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her debut novel, The Good Cemetery Guide, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Olive Schreiner Award, and was recently reissued by Karavan Press.

Lucienne is a curatorial researcher and writer. She has contributed to leading local and international art publications and journals, and her essay collection, Except for Breath: Reflections on Image and Memory, was published by Karavan Press in 2025.

Consuelo and Lucienne live in Cape Town.

WEDNESDAY, 28 January 2026, 10:30AM – MEADOWRIDGE LIBRARY HALL
WEDNESDAY, 18 March 2026, 10:00AM – PINELANDS LIBRARY COMMITEE ROOM