Karina Competition

WIN A FIVE-DAY FIVE-STAR WRITING RETREAT

STUNNING NATURE & ART LOCATION | ULTRA-MODERN DESIGNER ACCOMMODATION

Dear Writer,

You haven’t seen anything like this before.

Imagine having five heavenly days to write and write and write in the heart of the wilderness yet with all the modern amenities available to you. Not only that, you’re a step away from an amazing outdoor art exhibition in the NIROX Sculpture Park that you can visit at any time. Located in the Cradle of Humankind, all this could be yours for just R100 entry ticket for this Life Righting Collective lucky draw competition.

Huge thanks to LRC friend Clara Cruz-Almeida for offering this special place as a writing retreat micro-home pod for our LRC fundraiser!

WHERE?
 
The POD is located inside the NIROX Sculpture Park in the Cradle of Humankind on the R540, 20 minutes from Lanseria Airport; 45 minutes from Johannesburg & Pretoria. Entry to the park is free for dwellers of the POD.  A very safe and protected area, the property has guards who inspect the fences at night.
 
PLEASE NOTE: Travel costs to and from the POD location are for the winner’s account. 

A beautifully fitted kitchen has a two-plate gas hob, fridge but no oven or microwave.  There’s a braai grille but please bring your own wood, coal and firelighters; you can pick up kindling in the forest. All the necessary cutlery, pots and plates are provided.

A mezzanine bedroom is accessed via a built-in ladder, sleeps two and all linen and towels are provided.

WHEN?
 
DATES: Monday 1 Nov to Friday 5 November 2021. Check-in is from midday 1 Nov and checkout by 11:00 am on 5 Nov.
  
WEATHER
 
Weather is a bit colder in the evenings than Joburg, with lots of dew and spider diamond webs in the early morning before humans move around. It is close to the Bloubankspruit river.


WHAT TO BRING

Bring clothes, warm layers and a T-shirt or two; also an extra blanket to wrap yourself in so that you can enjoy the braai in the evening. Bring a torch so you can take walks in the park at night to scare away the snakes. Yes, there are snakes. It is the wilderness. And boots, as the dew on the grass wets your trainers at sunrise. Bring your own food and drink, firelighters and wood; the restaurant “and then there was fire” is open but booked weeks in advance (you could try and book ahead). There is a bar /sandwich service you can access if you haven’t booked. NOTE: Please keep the POD locked and all openings closed when you go for a walk as a troupe of monkeys can create havoc. You can practise your aim at the monkeys with the slingshot there, and reconnect with your childhood naughty self. 

YOUR ONLY OBLIGATION, APART FROM WRITING
 
If you post on social media about your stay, please hashtag #podidladla and #liferightingcollective or check-in on Facebook, or send Clara a review of your stay that she can quote you on!
 
HOW TO ENTER
 
All you have to do is purchase a lucky draw ticket by paying R100 to the LRC Banking account:

ABSA
Life Righting Collective
Cheque account number: 40 9382 6013
Branch code number 632005.
Please include your full name as reference.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Send your POP to terry@liferighting.com with your name and contact details: email and phone number please, so we can contact you if you’re the lucky winner. All proceeds will go towards supporting the LRC. You’re very welcome to purchase more than one ticket and increase your chances of winning!

Members of the Life Righting Collective EXCO are excluded from the competition. The winner will be decided by drawing a random name and will be contacted to make booking arrangements directly with Clara.
The competition is now open and will end on 13 October 2021. The winner will be announced on the 15 October 2021.
 
Please share and forward this to anyone who might be interested in buying tickets for this fabulous writing retreat.  

You could be a winner! And whatever happens, you’re supporting a winning cause… 🙂

Love 
And the LRC EXCO team

Dawn Garisch

PS: We’d be so grateful if you would consider joining 24 other LRC supporters and become a Patreon member of the LRC for as little as R95 a month. Click on the button below.

BECOME A MEMBER OF THE LRC PATREON CAMPAIGN

Karina Author

Lester Walbrugh stars in 2 THIRDS OF A MAN

2 THIRDS OF A MAN explores the coming-of-age story of Justin, a talented but guarded teenager returning to Cape Town to navigate unique challenges as a first-year student at Rocklands University.

Look closely and you will see a familiar name among the cast/crew members: Lester Walbrugh, the author of Let It Fall Where It Will. Lester is one of the producers and stars in the film.

Watch the official trailer: 2 THIRDS OF A MAN

Karina Book, Competition, Prize

THE ISLAND PRIZE: Call for submissions!

“As African writers, we are often faced with a double dose of challenges. Firstly, getting published within African countries can be incredibly difficult because local publishers are often constrained by finances. Secondly, for many writers getting published overseas is almost impossible because the rest of the world has certain ideas of what an African story should be. Having experienced these challenges first-hand – being told that a novel is ‘too African’ or ‘not African enough’ – I know how important it is that stories from Africa be given a wide variety of platforms so that they can be shared at home and abroad without the need to fit certain moulds. I am proud to be part of The Island Prize for a Debut Novel from Africa – a competition where the judges are African and where the winners have an opportunity of being published both in the UK and in South Africa. This is one step towards bridging the gap between here and there, us and them. In fact, it is through prizes like these that authors across the continent can gain the confidence to tell stories as they wish. The hope is that, with time, such stories will become appreciated across the globe, without first being labelled as an exception or a surprise.”

— Karen Jennings

THE ISLAND PRIZE JUDGES

Hilda J. Twongyeirwe, Karen Jennings and Obinna Udenwe

For more details and the submission form, please see:

THE ISLAND PRIZE FOR A DEBUT NOVEL FROM AFRICA

Good luck!

Karina Author, Book, Interview, Prize, Review

‘It took the Booker to introduce South Africans to their own Karen Jennings’, writes Jean Meiring

This year’s discovery, though, is Jennings (born 1982), who, in spite of having produced several excellent earlier books, has not been afforded the acclaim in South Africa that she deserves. The truth of the hoary adage that a prophet is rarely hallowed in her own land rings especially true, it would seem, of South Africans who write literary fiction in English.

[…]

Whether Jennings’ name appears on the shortlist that will be announced in London tomorrow afternoon or not, one can only hope that her longlisting will have changed the trajectory of her career: that she will never again have to make out a case to be published. And never again be published in print runs of only 500.

LitNet
Karina Author, Book, Review

Hephzibah Anderson reviews AN ISLAND by Karen Jennings for the Observer

Karen Jennings’s taut, tenebrous novel describes what happens when Samuel, a septuagenarian lighthouse keeper and the sole inhabitant of a small island off the coast of an unnamed African country, acquires an uninvited houseguest. 

[…]

An Island is the only small-press published novel on this year’s Booker prize longlist, and if its chances of making the final cut feel slender, its deft execution and the seriousness of its political engagement serve as a potent reminder of all that such titles add to the literary ecosystem. Those same qualities should also win it readers well beyond awards season.

The Observer