Dear Readers,
Please join us for the second Karavan Press Literary Festival on Saturday, 3 December 2022, at Karavan Press’s headquarters (6 Banksia Road, Rosebank, Cape Town). Ticket numbers are limited, so please book early to avoid disappointment. Let’s talk books again!
Literary greetings, Karina
Read here about last year’s festival:
“When you live a life of reading, you live like a cat, you experience nine lives,” Premier Alan Winde said at the opening ceremony of the second Cape Flats Book Festival, and added: “There’s nothing like a good book, nothing.” Totally agreed!
And when you live a life of reading, you get to hang out with the coolest of people – readers and writers!
This weekend, readers and writers gathered at the West End Primary School in Mitchells Plain to celebrate the wealth and wonder of literature, and it was an honour to participate. According to the organisers, the festival is “an act of hope, an opportunity to dream beyond our circumstances.” Indeed. And every minute of it was literary delight.
Great vibes, great sessions, laughter and wisdom, lots of connecting and reconnecting and simple sharing – of experience, ideas and the love of books.
Karavan Press authors participating: Joy Watson, Nancy Richards, Lester Walbrugh, Cathy Park Kelly and Joanne Hichens.
The second day of the festival was a little bit quieter, but smaller audience create more intimate interactions and often strong bonds are forged not only between authors and their fans, but also between the authors themselves. Writing is mostly a solitary and often lonely occupation, and it is simply wonderful to encounter others in the same boat and feel slightly less alone in the world.
And when you are lucky, you get to hug Oaky 🙂
Thank you to everyone who made this fantastic event possible!
Hope to see everyone at the next Cape Flats Book Festival!
Please join us for the Cape Flats Book Festival 2022!
Karavan Press authors on the 2022 CFBF programme:
Saturday, 15 October
12:35-13:15 In Conversation (Adults): Sara-JayneMakwala King (Mad Bad Love) & JOY WATSON (The Other Me)
15:20-16:00 In Conversation (Adults): Colleen Higgs (my mother, my madness) & NANCY RICHARDS (The Skipper’s Daughter) moderated by Leslie Swartz (How I Lost My Mother)
Sunday, 16 October
10:55-11:35 In Conversation (Adults): Karina Szczurek (Disruption) & LESTER WALBRUGH (Elton Baaitjies)
11:50-12:30 Against the Odds (Adults): JOANNE HICHENS (Death & the After Parties) & CATHY PARK KELLY (Boiling a Frog Slowly)
We look forward to seeing you there!
THURSDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 14.00 – 15.00 So you want to write? How to start – how to continue: three writers give insight into their writing journeys and the genres they have explored Lester Walbrugh – Elton Baatjies & Let It Fall Where It Will Shameez Patel – The Last Feather Penny Haw – The Wilderness Between Us Moderator: SarahBelle Selig FRIDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 9.30 – 11.30 Writing workshop with Cathy Park Kelly and Máire Fisher (Library Hall) 14.00 – 15.00 What we know and what we learn – about ourselves, our families, our history Sara-Jayne Makwala King – Mad Bad Love Erika Bornman – Mission of Malice Cathy Park Kelly – Boiling a Frog Slowly Moderator: Karina Szczurek 16.00 – 17.00 The stories we choose to tell – memoir, biography and the fictions between Colleen Higgs – My Mother My Madness Nancy Richards – The Skipper’s Daughter Hedi Lampert – The Trouble With My Aunt Moderator: Cathy Park Kelly SATURDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 16.00 – 17.00 Personal, social, political – stories that create the fabric of our country Sindiwe Magona – Theatre Road In Our Own Words: Nurses on the Front Line Nick Dall and Matthew Blackman – Spoilt Ballots Moderator: Tracey Farren
For the full programme, click here:
The Life Righting Collective has been running powerful workshops for a number of years and those who have attended any of them can attest to their ability to transform how one understands one’s own story. Dawn Garisch will facilitate two full day workshops on the 26th and 27th of July. Please note that these two workshops are not connected. If you would like to attend both, you will need to complete two bookings.
Have a look at other Open Book Festival workshops here: Open Book Workshop Programme
Cathy Park Kelly, Penny Haw and Karen Jennings will be participating in this year’s Kingsmead Book Fair. Hope to see you there on 21 May 2022:
Click here to see the full programme and to buy tickets: #KBF22
Karen Jennings will be at this year’s Franschhoek Literary Festival. She is participating in two events: the first [12] LIGHT & SHADE is already sold out, but you can still get tickets for [34] LIT GRIT (click on the image below):
It was smaller, more intimate, but simply fabulous; and the new venue – Bertha House – with its beautiful spaces and light, is a great hit. The conversation were engaging and inspiring. Books were acquired, signed and eagerly dipped into. I think we all were feeling re-energised by these two days of listening to our literary heroes and discovering new voices.
It was fantastic to hear Joy Watson talk in public about her debut novel – The Other Me – for the first time and to see her signing copies of the book afterwards. And Nancy Richards told more beautiful stories about her memoir – or ‘mumoir’, as she call the memoir about her mum, The Skipper’s Daughter.
The festival offered a few workshops in the runup to the main event and Karavan Press authors Melissa A. Volker and Lester Walbrugh participated in the non-fiction and script writing workshops respectively.
Thank you to Vasti, Frankie, Mervyn and the entire Book Lounge team, all the sponsors, the Bertha House and all the amazing authors for these few days of literary magic!
We are all looking forward to the next one – pandemic etc. allowing – in September!
Open Book Festival is back! Different season (autumn), different venue (Bertha House), different format (no parallel events and Covid-19-protocol-limited seats), different wine sponsor (Farm Boy) – but same old great stories to be told. It’s a miracle that it is happening at all. Most of us realise how hard everyone involved had to work in order to make this a reality and we are immensely grateful. We can’t wait! The opening bash was small and intimate, but absolutely inspiring, as always. Karavan Press will be launching a new title at the festival – this is where the first copies of Joy Watson’s debut novel The Other Me will be available for the first time to the general public, so grab one while you can, because one never knows when a first edition might become a true collector’s item 🙂 And Nancy Richards will be there, her memoir, The Skipper’s Daughter, sailing the literary world and taking it by storm.
Looking forward to a weekend of engaging conversations and lots of literary fun!
karavanpress.com 