Karina Author, Book, Event

A HIBISCUS COAST by Nick Mulgrew launched at The Book Lounge

To say that I was moved would be the understatement of the last two years. Our first post-lockdown book launch at THE BOOK LOUNGE again – after more than seven hundred loss-filled days! Fittingly, it was of Nick Mulgrew’s debut novel A Hibiscus Coast, and he was interviewed by Bongani Kona. Nick is as much of a literary institutions in his own right as is The Book Lounge. So is Bongani. Between the three of them – Mervyn (and his Book Lounge team!), Bongani and Nick – they connect most of the local literary community around us in ways that are difficult to capture in a few words. I would just like to say that I do not want to imagine a world without them. They make what I do at Karavan Press possible. They give me hope when little else does. Thank you!

And thank you to all the writers and readers who showed up at The Book Lounge tonight – I cannot tell you what it meant to me to sit among you during this evening of celebration.

Nick, thank you! You are an inspiration.

Karina Author

LRC Memoir Course: Routes to Meaning in Johannesburg!

The Life Righting Collective (LRC), founded by Dawn Garisch, is offering a memoir course in Joahnnesburg at the end of the month. Dawn will be facilitating the course:

We all have a story to tell from our own lives about how we became who we are. Stories about the way we were born, or about how someone helped us. About how we got ill or overcame a terrible loss.

Stories about how someone we loved to hurt us, or how a political or spiritual circumstance almost broke us. Stories about how we were bullied, about how an accident changed the course of our lives, or about how we were able to make a difference in someone else’s life. These stories are often invisible to others. They might still influence the way we think and feel in ways we don’t fully understand.

Writing about your own life can help you connect with the story you are living, and it can help to heal or manage the effects of trauma. It is a powerful way for us to communicate and to grow compassion for ourselves and for each other. 

During this course we will find refreshing approaches to assist us in putting our personal stories down on the page.

Beginner writers are welcome!

DATES: Saturday 30 April – Monday 2 May 2022
TIME: 9 – 2 pm daily
VENUE: Family Life Centre, 1 Cardigan Road, Parkwood, Johannesburg
FEE: R3 000 
FACILITATOR: Dawn Garisch

If you are keen on joining this course please make your bookings via admin@liferighting.com  and kindly forward to anyone you feel might be interested.

Remember, for our health and safety, all LRC in-person courses will be conducted in strict compliance with current Covid-19 rules and procedures.

We look forward to having you on the course! 

With thanks from the LRC team.

LRC

A note from Dawn: People who cannot afford the full course fee, please get in touch with the organisers (contact details above) and they will try to accommodate you.

Karina Author

“Section 22” – a short story by Nick Mulgrew

Nick Mulgrew

Subtropical sounds nice, but it actually just means that it’s hot, and that when it isn’t hot, it rains.

Over the years he’s slid a fair bit down the hierarchy of needs. Technically he could rent through Social Housing, but he has enough coming in to get someplace on his own sweat. Not in Ifafa Beach or Hibberdene, no — more like Clansthal, a roomshare in Port Shepstone. The distance doesn’t matter — the road is his job. For now a house is an overexpenditure of effort. Maybe one day.

He’s used to it, this. His parents used to take him camping. Life is one long camping trip. It’s more convenient to live in the bakkie. He’s not a tall man anyway. He’s lined the fibreglass canopy with insulation, hooked up some curtains and a second battery. It’ll chow his alternator — but what else are things for other than to be used?

To be more specific, he empties bins. The classified in the Mercury said it was a plus if you came with your own car — you could cover a greater stretch. The municipality was trying to cut costs. He does the job of four people for the salary of just one …

minor literature(s)

Continue reading: “Section 22”

The story was runner-up in the Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction in 2021. There is still time to enter this year’s prize:

Karina Author, Book, Event

BOILING A FROG SLOWLY by Cathy Park Kelly launched at Love Books

There must be a thing like book launch envy, because I am definitely experiencing it. Boiling a Frog Slowly by Cathy Park Kelly was launched at the beautiful Love Books last night, and I really, really wish I could have been there. Cathy was in conversation with the fabulous Joburg author, Pamela Power.

This is what Pamela had to say about the launch:

During all of this, I had to prepare for the launch of Boiling a Frog Slowly, Cathy Park Kelly’s Memoir published by Karavan Press about “love gone wrong”. It was FANTASTIC and more than a little emotional to be book-launching at Love Books after two years, and it was very exciting to meet Cathy in the flesh as we have only met online. The launch was packed and I saw a couple of familiar faces, including Nicola Cloete who is a former student of mine from WITS (and is now very fancy and much degreed), and her husband who is a former student of Cathy’s (nothing like meeting former students to make you feel seriously MATURE).

The book sold like hotcakes which is always lovely to see, and Cathy has organised for a book box where you can buy an extra copy of the book which then goes to organisations that deal with the survivors of GBV like Kwanele and POWA which I think is WONDERFUL. There are some copies left at Love Books, including signed copies, so hurry up if you want one for yourself or you want to contribute to the book box because I think they will sell out fast.

Authors Sue Nyathi and Gail Schimmel were both at the launch, Gail reminded me that it was exactly five years ago that we launched Delilah Now Trending at Love Books. Shocking that it’s taken me so long to get another book out (and a quarter of a book at that) but I guess it’s been a rather busy five years. Sue, who was Cathy’s editor on the anthology When Secrets Become Stories also got to meet Cathy IRL for the first time which was rather special.

The Week That Was – Go.See.Do. South Africa

Thank you, Love Books, Pamela, and all who attended (lucky yous!). And thank you, Cathy, for your brave and beautiful book.

Karina Author, Book, Literary Award, Literary Awards

Let It Fall Where It Will by Lester Walbrugh shortlisted at the HSS Awards in the Best Fiction Short-Stories subcategory

Congratulations to Lester – we are so proud! – all the other shortlisted authors, and the winner of the subcategory: Nthikeng Mohlele!

Congratulations also to the winner of the Best Fiction Edited Volume subcategory: Hauntings edited by Niq Mhlongo. The anthology includes short stories by Lester Walbrugh and Joanne Hichens!