Karina Author, Book

Shift from Storyteller to Story Seller in 3 Steps

Fellow Authors,

Do you have boxes of your own finished books gathering dust? And would you love to get them into the hands of readers? But you cringe when you hear the word Marketing and you have to fight the urge to apologise every time you do a post about your book? 

How to find your readers and sell more books?

We’re having a free webinar on how to Shift from Storyteller to Story Seller in 3 Steps, with Cathy Park Kelly, author of two popular memoirs, and independent publisher Karavan Press. Together, we’ll show how you can sell more books without selling your soul. 

Click on this link to register for Wednesday, 16th August, 6 – 7pm: 

Shift from Storyteller to Story Seller in 3 Steps

Karina Author, Book, Event

Pretoria launch of THE FREIGHTENED by Lethokuhle Msimang

The Frightened by Lethokuhle Msimang is partly set in Paris. Lethokuhle herself lived and studied in Paris and has continued learning French at the Alliance Française de Pretoria. The institute has invited her to launch her novella with them. If you are in Pretoria on 20 July, this is your opportunity to meet Lethokuhle and to celebrate the launch of her stunning book with her. She will be in conversation with Thobile Ndimande.

Karina Author, Book, Event

Rosebank Writers: Book talk with Kerry Hammerton

Photo credit: Digby Young

A poetry morning next to the fireplace. Rosebank Writers and Friends gathered yesterday next to a cosy fire to listen to Kerry Hammerton speak about and read from her latest poetry collection, afterwards. I (Karina) had the privilege to ask the questions. It was a beautiful way to begin the weekend: hearing Kerry speak about her work was nourishment for the soul and the mind.

Thank you to all who attended, especially all the Rosebank Writers. Thank you also to Kim Gurney for recording the conversation and Digby Young for the photographs.

The Rosebank Writers have been meeting for almost a year now and are going from strength to strength.

All photographs: Digby Young

Karina Author, Book, Event

Cape Town launch of THE FRIGHTENED by Lethokuhle Msimang

We are thrilled to announce that Lethokuhle Msimang will be in Cape Town on 13 July and will be launching her novella, The Frightened, at The Book Lounge. She will be in conversation with Mohale Mashigo. Need we say more? You have got to be there! RSVP details below:

Lethokuhle won’t be joining us for the Open Book Festival later this year, so if you would like to meet her and get your copy of The Frightened signed, this is the opportunity!

Karina Author, Book, Review

Diane Awerbuck reviews TUNNEL by Nick Mulgrew for the Sunday Times

You’ve been here before. Confinement in close quarters after a disaster not of your making sounds pretty familiar, but Nick Mulgrew’s claustrophobic new novel, Tunnel, isn’t obviously about the pandemic.

It deals instead with the fallout after some unnamed but probably nuclear events that collapse the Huguenot Tunnel and render the surrounds uninhabitable. This terrifying prospect must surely have occurred to anyone travelling in carbon-monoxided convoy through the intestines of the Du Toitskloof mountains. How does this concrete hold back the weight of the mountain? What if it all falls in? Who would come? And how long would that take? And also, crucially for this novel, would it be worth surviving?

Set in a South Africa that’s the same but different, Tunnel plays with the idea of inversion. There’s a South-West and a Caprivi, and there are workers’ compounds and bush cops and baboons — but not as we know them. The day the action takes place is March Day, and all travellers need permits. Then the world goes dark.

After the characters’ initial panic, they find their space literally shrunk and the tunnel fast becomes “the inside-outside”. Their hell descent must continue before they can eventually find their way to fresh air and the elegiac upswing of the ending …

Continue reading: Sunday Times

Karina Author, Book, Event

The Weight of Shade by Michael Boyd launched at Exclusive Books Cavendish

Nothing – not headwinds delaying flights, nor loadshedding threatening with darkness – could distract from the welcoming, warm atmosphere of the launch of Michael Boyd’s Cape Town launch of The Weight of Shade at Exclusive Books Cavendish. Readers, family and friends arrived to celebrate this mysterious, beautiful debut novel. Michael was in conversation with Penny Haw.

Thank you to Linda McCullough and the EB team for hosting the event. Thank you, Penny and Mike, for the fascinating conversation. And thank you to everyone who attended!