Karina Festival

SHORT & SWEET: KARAVAN PRESS LITERARY FESTIVAL 2024

The third Karavan Press Literary Festival will take place in cooperation with the BLOWN AWAY BY BOOKS Festival at the Fish Hoek Public Library on 9 March 2024. This year’s edition of the festival focuses entirely on the SHORT STORY!

ALL EVENTS FREE

09:00-11:00

SHORT FICTION & NON-FICTION WORKSHOP

Short Story Day Africa’s Rachel Zadok presents the FLOW WORKSHOP. All welcome. Please register here: FLOW WORKSHOP.

12:00-13:15

CRAFTING THE DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION

Short story authors talk to Karina Szczurek about the process of compiling their first collection: Kerry Hammerton, Sally Partridge, Kharys Laue, Michael Boyd, Werner Pretorius, Paul Morris, Anna Hug.

14:00-15:15

THE SHORT STORY LOVE AFFAIR

In the famous words of Lorrie Moore, “A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage.” Authors with published short story collection to their name discuss their passion for the genre with Joanne Hichens (Short.Sharp.Stories): Diane Awerbuck (Inside your body there are flowers), Frankie Murrey (Everyone Dies), Dawn Garisch (What Remains), Byron Loker (New Swell), Lester Walbrugh (Let It Fall Where It Will), Karen Jennings (Away from the Dead), Alex Latimer (Love Stories for Ghosts).

16:00-17:15

CELEBRATING TIGER & CAPTIVE

Authors and editors of two new workshopped short story anthologies celebrate their work: Tiger contributors Caitlin Spring, Kerry Hammerton, Gail Gilbride, Lucienne Argent, Anita Shapiro, Desiree-Anne Martin, Michelle Meyer and Anna Hug as well as the Captive editors, Helen Moffett and Rachel Zadok, discuss the first Karavan Stories anthology and the eighth Short Story Day Africa anthology with Karina Szczurek.

All welcome!

Karina Festival

Karavan Press at the Cape Flats Book Festival 2023

The Cape Flats Book Festival will be taking place on 4 and 5 November this year, and I cannot encourage you enough to attend this wonderful festival. Last year was the first time Karavan Press participated and we had an amazing time. We are so happy to have been invited back and can’t wait!

The programme is packed with literary goodness. The venue – West End Primary School – is great. Books will be on sale. Parking and delicious food are available at the school throughout the weekend. The atmosphere is celebratory. And we have heard that Oaky will be there. You do not want to miss it!

This is what we are doing:

4 November

5 November

For more details see:

Cape Flats Book Festival

Hope to see you all there!

Karina Festival

Festival of Poetry – 4 November 2023

Earlier this year, the McGregor Poetry Festival announced a hiatus for a year. The organisers are taking a well-deserved break. The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Collective and the Rosebank Writers’ Circle decided to step into the breach and organised a once-off event to celebrate poetry at a day-long poetry festival here in Cape Town. Please join us for these exciting poetry panels, taking place at two venues, the Bertha House and Youngblood-Africa, on 4 November 2023.

Events are free! Books will be on sale throughout the day.

Hope to see all poetry lovers there!

Karina Book, Festival

Open Book Festival 2023 – Bestsellers

Five of our books are among the fifteen bestselling books at Open Book Festival 2023!

Everyone Dies by Frankie Murrey (Karavan Press)

Glass Tower by Sarah Isaacs (Holland House Books, locally distributed by Karavan Press)

The Bitterness of Olives by Andrew Brown (Karavan Press)

Inside your body there are flowers by Diane Awerbuck (Karavan Press)

Striving for Social Equity edited by Joy Watson and Ogochukwu Nzewi (Karavan Press)

Thank you to all who bought a book!

Karina Author, Book, Event, Festival

Karavan Press and Friends at Open Book Festival 2023

In their latest newsletter, The Book Lounge, wrote the following about Karavan Press:

Karavan Press is a small publishing house owned and run by Karina Szczurek, seriously punching above its weight. We are so grateful to Karina for publishing so many wonderful books that we thought we should shine a light on some of the books she is responsible for that will be featured at Open Book Festival:

Everyone Dies by Frankie Murrey ~ An exquisite debut collection of stories – I will be cajoling Frankie on to the stage to talk about Everyone Dies. – Mervyn

A Crowded Lonely Walk by Sipho Banda ~ In this riveting poetry collection, Sipho Banda delves into the daily happenings of the ubiquitous but anonymous working class, and restores dignity to those whose lived experiences so often go overlooked. – Belinda

Glass Tower by Sarah Isaacs ~ Glass Tower is the winner of the inaugural Island Prize for debut fiction from Africa.

Inside your body there are flowers by Diane Awerbuck ~ an incredibly versatile writer who returns to the genre for which she is best known – the short story – in this new collection which is nothing short of superb.

The Bitterness of Olives is set in Gaza and Israel and is Andrew’s finest novel. Empathetic, thought provoking, beautifully written with the pace of a thriller. – Mervyn

Striving for Social Equity edited by Joy Watson and Ogochuku Nzewi ~ an invaluable gathering of voices touching on the very real challenges facing South Africans today.

What Remains by Dawn Garisch ~ new collection of stories from one of our best-loved writers that deals with relationships, ageing and so much more.

Karina will be participating in a discussion about the future of publishing.

The Book Lounge

We are immensely grateful for the encouragement and support! And this is how we will be “punching” at Open Book Festival 2023:

Open Book Festival 2023 Programme

Watch out for Karavan Press authors and Friends (we are lucky distribution partners for Glass Tower by Sarah Isaacs and Cat Therapy by Gail Gilbride):

Book your tickets here:

Open Book Festival – Webtickets

Karina Author, Book, Event, Festival

Lethokuhle Msimang at the Durban International Book Fair, 9-13 August 2023

The Durban International Book Fair is taking place between 9 and 13 August, and Lethokuhle Msimang will be returning to her hometown to speak about The Frightened.

9 August:

12:00-13:00 | Lethokuhle Msimang The Frightened (Alan Paton Stage)

16:00-17:00 | Black women in the arts: challenging the notion of subservience, with Gcina Mhlophe, LethokuhleMsimang and Mbali Malimela (Phyllis Naidoo Stage)

Click here for the full programme: DIBF 2023

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Kingsmead Book Fair 2023

Another highly successful Kingsmead Book Fair (KBF) is behind us. And we had so much literary fun! Joanne Hichens, Lester Walbrugh and I were on the same flight going up to Johannesburg. We all spoke at the festival – Lester and I about Elton Baatjies, and Joanne and I about Fluid: The Freedom to Be.

We ‘met’ Joy Watson and Lethokuhle Msimang at the airport on the bookshelves of Exclusive Books.

What is the best way of passing flight time? Reading, of course.

We joined Joy on the morning of the book fair and dived into the busy, amazing programme of this year’s KBF that had something to offer for EVERYONE.

Authors met up in the Green Room for refreshments and a bit of rest between the fascinating sessions.

Exclusive Books pop-up shop at the KBF. Two of our titles sold out at the book fair!

It was wonderful to meet Jarred Thompson and Lerato Moletsane in person – both contributed to Fluid: The Freedom to Be.

Thank you to the organisers of the book fair, to everyone who came to listen to us, to all who bought books and made the KBF 2023 such a joyous book fair. Already counting the days until KBF 2024!

Happy reading!