Karina Author, Book, Event

Catching the wave with Byron Loker at Salon Hecate

Following the enormous success of last year’s “Surf’s Up” reading by local surfer-authors-poets, Salon Hecate at the Noordhoek Art Point Gallery is returning with another fabulous line-up of surf literature the first Tuesday evening in June. We’ll be launching the re-issue of Byron Loker’s short story collection, New Swell, and getting a teaser taste of his brand-new collection, Heavy Water, forthcoming from Karavan Press. Byron is one of “Nature’s gentlemen”, a surfer who never drops in and shares not only the backline, but the limelight. He asked if others could get on board too, so … check out the entire line-up here:

Catching the wave at Salon Hecate

Date and Time

Please join us at the Noordhoek Art Point Gallery on 4 June, 5.30 for 6. Entrance is free, but PLEASE RSVP by 1 June at the latest. Otherwise we run the risk *gasp* of running out of wine. Small snacks provided.

Got a question about this event or interested in a particular piece you’ve seen at Noordhoek Art Point? Get in touch at info@noordhoekartpoint.co.za or call 0835642493.

Karina Festival

Spoilt for choice at the KBF 2024

The Kingsmead Book Fair took place yesterday – a day of gorgeous weather, glorious encounters and the most amazing exchanges of stories. Literary fun has been had! The programme this year was so rich that the one persistent comment throughout the day was “I wish I could have attended all the other sessions!”

Anna Stroud made her literary debut as a novelist with Who Looks Inside. She has a bright literary career ahead of her, and it is such a privilege to publish her debut novel and to see her shine on this stage. The official launch of the book will take place at Love Books on 19 June. She will be in conversation with Michael Boyd.

Other session highlights in photographs:

The short story panel was a joy:

“Make a virtue out of your quirk!” – Diane Awerbuck

“Genius is not a constant thing.” – Frankie Murrey

In the Green Room and around Kingsmead grounds:

Personal highlights:

Thank you to everyone who makes this annual event possible, especially Alex Bouche and the KBF Team, Kingsmead College, Standard Bank, Timberland and Exclusive Books! #KBF24

Thank you to Mike and Family for hosting me, to Khalida and Dawn for the photos, and to all the other Writers for their generosity of sharing – stories and kindness!

Until next time! 🙂

Karina Author, Book, Event

Love Books launch of GOOD HOPE by Nick Clelland

Dear Readers of Joburg,

Good Hope, Nick Clelland‘s debut novel about an alternative-reality independent Western Cape, is venturing outside of the Good Hope Territory for the first time and will be launched at Love Books next Monday, 27 May 2024. Nick will be in conversation with the wonderful Kate Sidley. Hope to see you all there!

About the book:

Lisa Robinson has moved from Durban to Cape Town to be with Grant, the prospective next First Minister of the Good Hope Territory. The GHT is the safest and most prosperous country in the southern hemisphere – at a price. Citizens contract to be tracked by drones, executions are synchronised to the Noon Gun and only those with qualifications are permitted to vote in the Qualified Franchise system. Life here is picture-perfect. The Mother City is pristine. Everyone has a job. Tourism is booming. But this shiny new state has decided that Lisa is a problem, and problems here disappear quickly and quietly …

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Karavan Press at the Kingsmead Book Fair 2024

We are all looking forward to the next Kingsmead Book Fair, taking place at Kingsmead College on Saturday, 25 May 2024. Hope to see you there!

09:30-10:30 | Mackenzie 2

Dawn Garisch (What Remains) confirms, with Diane Awerbuck (Inside your body there are flowers), Frankie Murrey (Everyone Dies: A Series), Alex Latimer (Love Stories for Ghosts), and Barbara Ludman (Moving On), that brevity is the soul of wit. And drama. And romance.

09:30-10:30 | Mackenzie 3

Fiona Snyckers (The Hidden) asks Owen Salmon (A Weakness to Die For) and Andrew Brown (The Bitterness of Olives) to unpack the male gaze in storytelling.

12:30 – 13:30 | Music Centre
Georgina Geddes asks Alistair Mackay (The Child), Craig Higginson (The Ghost of Sam Webster), Shubnum Khan (The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil) and Amy Heydenrych (Bad Luck Penny) what it is that makes stories ‘literary’.

12:30 – 13:30 | Chapel

Diane Awerbuck (Inside your body there are flowers) answers the call of nature with Adam Welz (The End of Eden), and Nick Norman (The Woodpecker Mystery: The Inevitability of the Improbable).

12:30 – 13:30 | Mornington

Kate Sidley (Katie Gayle – Julia Bird Mysteries) asks Saaleha Bhamjee (Home Scar), Anna Stroud (Who Looks Inside) and Janine Jellars (When the Filter Fades) what it takes to really own your writing space as a woman.

14:30 – 15:30 | Mornington
Amy Heydenrych (Chasing Marian, Bad Luck Penny) sees if she can find a reason why the characters created by Ashling McCarthy (Down at Jika Jika Tavern), Marina Auer (Double Edged), Femi Kayode (Gaslight) and Natalie Conyer (Present Tense) need to worry about their welfare.

16:00 – 17:00 | Lange Hall
Police reservist Andrew Brown (The Bitterness of Olives) guides Daniel Steyn (The Thabo Bester Story), Naledi Shange (Killer Cop – The Rosemary Ndlovu Story), Karl Kemp (Why We Kill: Mob Justice and the New Vigilantism in South Africa) and Nechama Brodie (Domestic Terror) into the minds of murderers both famous and anonymous.

16:00 – 17:00 | Music Centre

Alex Latimer (Love Stories for Ghosts) discovers if the future is fantastic or frightening with Mandla Moyo (The Fallen Angel), Sarah M Naidoo (A Remedy for Death), Alistair Mackay (The Child) and Babette Gallard (Future Imperfect).

Full programme:

KBF 2024

Tickets:

Webtickets

Karina Author, Book, Event

Melissa A. Volker reports from Comic Con Cape Town 2024

My books on display at the ROSA stand.

Comic Con was first held in 1970 in San Diego, California as an exhibition of comic books. Today, Comic Con is international event, celebrating popular culture, film, comics, fantasy novels, anime, art and storytelling in its multiple forms. Comic Con Cape Town and Comic Con Africa (Johannesburg) are now annual events.

With one of the Jawas from the deserts of Tatooine – Star Wars.

Comic Con Cape Town also hosts the Animation Festival, where visual storytellers are upskilled by international and local animators, story board artists, producers, screenwriters and filmmakers.

A Fremen – Dune.
The Mandolorian.

Comic Con brings gamers, writers, actors, dancers, publishers, illustrators and artists together to gather, learn and share. Merchandisers, artists, animation schools and book sellers display and sell creative wares. I saw a stand selling the most accurate replicas of light sabers I’ve ever seen.

This year, I was invited to participate at Comic Con Cape Town as an exhibitor with the Romance Writers Organisation of South Africa (ROSA). As a member of ROSA, I assisted other members who were hosting the ROSA stand next to the main stage.  Writers, readers, fans and publishers stopped to buy books or discuss reading and the craft of writing. I displayed my books, Shadow Flicker, A Fractured Land and The Pool Guy. I am so proud of the beautiful physical books that my publisher, Karavan Press, created for my stories. The Cape Town City Library stand was nearby, on the other side of Artist’s Alley, so I and the other ROSA writers enjoyed meeting them and discussing strategies to raise up readers and writers together through libraries and author events. The ROSA stand was coincidentally at the gathering point for the daily Cosplay competition. (Cosplay is costume play – a form of performance art where fans dress up as their favourite popular culture character.) We had a close-up view of Vikings, superheroes, a Fremen (from Dune) in a Stillsuit, and children’s cartoons characters. Captain America had to sit down to take a break after a lengthy round of selfies with fans. A writer came to the aid of one cosplayer who found the confines of a heavy costume caused overheating. Perhaps there’s inspiration for a fictional meet cute there?

The resting Captain America.

My favourite were the many Mandolorians. I admire the storytelling techniques of the streaming series. If you’ve not yet watched The Mandolorian, it’s a Sci Fi tale set in space, with the atmosphere and some tropes of an old Western. Of the two main characters, one speaks, but the audience (almost) never sees his face. The other character never speaks but communicates with facial expressions. It’s delightful. And clever.

Comic Con Cape Town is bright and busy, loud and energetic, a diverse mix of creative people, from geeks to gamers, who love stories and characters. It’s a crowded, frenetic celebration of storytelling in its multiple formats. 

I am Weird Barbie from the movie. My daughters and niece are K Pop Band G-Idle.

Karina Author, Book

Karavan Press title: Who Looks Inside by Anna Stroud

I wish I could stay where I am right now.

In the in-between, neither here nor there.

The past behind me, the future a distant dream.

The news of her mother’s death pulls Hannah back from South Korea to her childhood home in the Karoo where she discovers that she has never escaped her abusive father and passive mother. That, in fact, she has been there all along, baking bread and raising a son whose father might be a local farmer she is having an affair with. Her world unravels as she struggles to separate the life she has built for herself from the one she survived. Unsettling, eerie and evocative, Who Looks Inside explores themes of childhood trauma in a working-class Afrikaans family.

“Poetic, atmospheric and haunting—Who Looks Inside is an intricate and compelling exploration of family trauma, small-town secrets and the decisions that seal our destinies.” — JENNIFER MALEC

ISBN: 978-1-0672224-2-0

Publication date: May 2024

Cover artworks: Serena Moodley Anderson | Cover design: Monique Cleghorn

About the author:

ANNA STROUD loves books. Like, really loves them. Authors, too. She once travelled over two hundred kilometres by bus from Daegu to Wonju in South Korea to hear Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o speak. She’s been reading Antjie Krog since the age of eleven, even the sweary bits. She moved close to Love Books so she’d never miss a book launch. Naturally, she’d become a writer, with stories appearing in Grocott’s Mail, Cue, WordStock, The Sunday Times, Books LIVE, City Press, The Reading List, Daily Maverick, The Johannesburg Review of Books, tagged! and Business Day, among others. When she’s not writing, she’s walking her husband, Sean, and two dogs, Raven and Poe, at the park. Who Looks Inside is her debut novel.

Karina Author

Author: Anna Stroud

ANNA STROUD loves books. Like, really loves them. Authors, too. She once travelled over two hundred kilometres by bus from Daegu to Wonju in South Korea to hear Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o speak. She’s been reading Antjie Krog since the age of eleven, even the sweary bits. She moved close to Love Books so she’d never miss a book launch. Naturally, she’d become a writer, with stories appearing in Grocott’s Mail, Cue, WordStock, The Sunday Times, Books LIVE, City Press, The Reading List, Daily Maverick, The Johannesburg Review of Books, tagged! and Business Day, among others. When she’s not writing, she’s walking her husband, Sean, and two dogs, Raven and Poe, at the park. Who Looks Inside is her debut novel.

Karina Author, Book, Event

CROOKED SEEDS by Karen Jennings launched at The Book Lounge

Deidre, the “compelling”, in Hedley Twidle’s words, protagonist of Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings, had her first official outing in her hometown, Cape Town, last night at The Book Lounge. The bookshop was filled with writers and readers who wished Deidre – this broken, fascinating, difficult character – well. “She is horrific,” the author said about her creation, “but I loved writing her.” And she emphasised that no matter how difficult certain aspect of the novel are to read, Crooked Seeds is her love song for South Africa, a country she cares about deeply: “I am in awe of our resilience, and the people who are saving communities, caring for others, despite all the failures of the officials.”

“She is a word surgeon,” Mervyn said of Karen in the introduction to the evening. She is indeed. And Dr Karen Jennings is also a hermit by her own admission, finding “all my writing a never-ending hell. At some point in my life,” she said, “I must have signed a contract with the devil. I asked to be a writer, and I was granted the wish, but I did not read the small print, which said: you will be a writer, but you will be in agony from now on.” Agony and all, she hasn’t lost her humour. And her exquisite writing is a precious gift to our literary world.

Thank you, Karen, for writing another incisive, stunning novel and for being the wonderful person you are. Thank you to Hedley and The Book Lounge team for all the incredible support. To all who were there: mountains of gratitude!

Dear Readers,
May Deidre make you feel, and think about our own fragility and brokenness. She is impossible to ignore …

Karina Festival

Karavan Press at the FLF 2024

The Franschhoek Literary Festival – 17 to 19 May – is just around the corner and it promises to be another exciting literary adventure. We are thrilled to be involved. You can listen to and meet Karavan Press at the following events:

FRIDAY

11:30-12:30 | [6] THE SOLACE OF STORY
OLD SCHOOL HALL
When the world is falling apart, a novel can help. John Maytham digs into the empathetic and cathartic power of fiction with Andrew Brown, whose new thriller, The Bitterness of Olives, is set against the backdrop of the Israel–Palestine crisis; and with Ian Sutherland, whose new historical novel Catastrophe deals with the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown of 1986.

13:00-14:15 | [18] THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID (Screening)
FRANSCHHOEK THEATRE
Natasha Sutherland’s inventive documentary begins by observing the making of a stage adaptation of Tracy Going’s book Brutal Legacy, in which she reveals her past experience of abusive relationships. It then documents the frank conversations that follow between members of the audience. A powerful social dialogue about men, women and violence.

14:30-15:30 | [26] GOOD THINGS IN SMALL PACKAGES
COUNCIL CHAMBERS
In an age of attention deficits, short fiction is in demand. Diane Awerbuck (Inside Your Body There Are Flowers) discusses the nuts and bolts of the form with three writers: Troy Onyango (For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings), Frankie Murrey (Everyone Dies) and Dawn Garisch (What Remains).

16:00-17:00 | [32] TURNING THE TIDE
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Anti-GBV awareness campaigns are not stopping the war waged on women by violent men. What will? How will the codes of South African masculinity be rewritten? Tracy Going (Brutal Legacy) speaks to Andy Kawa (Kwanele, Enough!) and Joy Watson (Striving for Social Equity).

SATURDAY

10:00-11:00 | [47] A HOME IS NOT A HOUSE (Screening)
FRANSCHHOEK THEATRE
Written by Lester Walbrugh (Elton Baatjies) and directed by Earl Kopeledi, this short film is a bold exploration of Cape Town’s class and race chasms – and the weight of personal histories. Three homeless people are tasked with retrieving a hard drive from a beachside bungalow. They stick around to luxuriate, but then it gets complicated …
Lester Walbrugh and Earl Kopeledi will give a short Q&A after the screening.

13:00-14:00 | [61] THE GRIM READER
CHURCH HALL
“No two people ever read the same book”, reckoned literary critic Edmund Wilson. Even so, a writer’s imaginary reader can become a singular presence — one that variously needs to be defied, satisfied, seduced or erased. 2023 Sunday Times Literary Awards winner, C.A. Davids (How to Be a Revolutionary) swaps notes on readers with Karen Jennings (Crooked Seeds), Ivan Vladislavić (The Near North) and Craig Higginson (The Ghost of Sam Webster).

13:00-14:00 | [64] SIGNS OF A STRUGGLE
HOSPICE HALL
Sponsored by Pam Golding Properties
Thobeka Yose (In Silence My Heart Speaks) tells Sara-Jayne Makwala King about her experience of parenting a transgender child – and of understanding her child’s attempted suicide. How can parents of teenagers recognise a crisis, and fight the transphobia that inhibits teens from seeking help?

14:30-15:30 | [71] IN THE THIRST PERSON
CHURCH HALL
Having good sex is apparently easier than writing good sex scenes. But that’s not rocket science, surely? Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane juggles the ins and outs of high-end lit smut with Busisekile Khumalo (Sunshine and Shadows), Joy Watson (The Other Me) and Kobby Ben Ben (No One Dies Yet).

SUNDAY

10:00-11:00 | [88] THE WRITE THERAPIST
OLD SCHOOL HALL
Sewela Langeni gathers three writers who have grappled with personal trauma: memoirists Thobeka Yose (In Silence My Heart Speaks) and Margie Orford (Love and Fury); and Megan Choritz in Lost Property, a work of fiction. Does the ordeal of writing a painful history dispel the pain, and how?

10:00-11:00 | [92] STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
HOSPICE HALL
Sponsored by Pam Golding Properties
Claustrophobic tensions drive the acclaimed new novels by Booker long-listed Karen Jennings (whose Crooked Seeds proceeds from the discovery of human remains on a family’s land) and Nick Mulgrew (whose Tunnel traps a random group of travellers in a Cape highway tunnel). Both of these taut literary thrillers conjure unnerving versions of South African reality. Karina Szczurek will ask them to dig deep.

11:30-12:30 | [96] HOW TO GRIP
CHURCH HALL
Being unputdownable is a delicious dream for most fiction writers, but a rare knack. Still, some of the narrative tricks that make for a one-sitting read can be acquired, as Danielle Weakley learns when speaking with Femi Kayode (Gaslight), Fiona Snyckers (The Hidden) and Nick Mulgrew (Tunnel).

For the full programme, click here:

FLF 2024

Tickets:

Webtickets