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!

Karina Author, Book, Interview

Dropping In to Power: Sheila Gallien interviews Melissa A. Volker

Listen to the podcast here:

‘Melissa Volker found a way to obsess about surfing in any conditions – by obsessing about writing about surfing! A mid-life blooming writer and water woman from South Africa, Melissa’s delicious fiction blends “surf noir” with “environmental romance suspense.” (Check out the addictive Shadow Flicker!) In our pod, we chat about the coastal topography and bathymetry of South Africa’s breaks (get out your pencils) and she indulges my obsession with South African sharks. (Did you know you can get a gig as a Shark Spotter in Cape Town?) The South African waters are wild and intimidating, and though she grew up learning to paddle on flat water in an estuary, the ocean felt menacing to her well into her 40s. She still considers herself one of the most frightened surfers in her lineup, but she has braved sharks, orcas (!!!) and kilometers of open water on paddleboards, SUP’s and longboards. She credits a community group focused on supporting women for getting her off the beach and into the lineup. She also finds inspiration, and courage, in books and courses on surfing, the ocean, and, yes, sharks. Recognizing how her own life has transformed from surfing, feeling “older, but stronger, happier, braver, and stoked” she created Saltwater Sisters with her BFF to share their love and stoke and to empower other women to experience the joy they have found themselves. Melissa wraps up with one of my fave pieces of advice so far: “Get to know the ocean, because not every day is your day.”’

Dropping In to Power
Karina Author, Book, Distribution

Karavan Press is the local distribution partner for FLUID: The Freedom to Be

THE BOOK
In these twenty short stories of inquiry, transgression, osmosis and transformation,
we embrace the fluid nature of humanity.

THE CONTRIBUTORS
The anthology’s contributors are largely established South African authors who
have a track record in the publishing industry, as well as exciting emerging writers. The writers include Peter-Adrian Altini, Diane Awerbuck, K. L. Bohle, Anna Hug, Kingsley Khobotlo, Yuwinn Kraukamp, Alex Latimer, Keith Oliver Lewis, Lerato Mahlangu, Shari Maluleke, David Medalie, Mabel Mnensa, Lerato Moletsane, Nadine Moonsamy, Shanice Ndlovu, Vuyokazi Ngemntu, Robyn Perros, Bridget Pitt, Lorraine Sithole, Jarred Thompson and Andrew Robert Wilson.

THE EDITORS
JOANNE HICHENS has to date edited seven highly praised anthologies of South African short stories, including Bad Company, Bloody Satisfied, Adults Only and Die Laughing. She has published several crime novels, including Divine Justice and Sweet Paradise, and a memoir, Death and the After Parties.

KARINA M. SZCZUREK is the (co)editor of, among others, Touch: Stories of Contact, Encounters with André Brink, Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa and Hair: Weaving and Unpicking Stories of Identity. She is also the author of Invisible Others and The Fifth Mrs Brink.

FOREWORD: Lorraine Sithole

ISBN/EAN: 978-0-9946805-7-0
PUBLICATION DATE: May 2023
PUBLISHER: Tattoo Press

TATTOO PRESS is an independent small publisher, specializing in contemporary South African short fiction.

READ THE WINNING STORY: “Blue Boy Lagoon” by Keith Oliver Lewis

If you are a bookseller, please contact BOOKSITE to order copies of FLUID: The Freedom to Be. If you are a reader, please ask your local bookshop to order the book for you via Booksite.

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Karavan Press at FLF 2023

Two Karavan Press authors are speaking about their work at this year’s edition of the Franschhoek Literary Festival (FLF): Lester Walbrugh and Lethokuhle Msimang.

Click on the images below to book your ticket for the individual sessions.

You can buy their books in advance of the festival via the FLF website (and Exclusive Books):

Two other Karavan Press authors – Joy Watson and Nancy Richards – are chairing a few sessions:

We look forward to seeing you in Franschhoek!

Karina Uncategorized

KARAVAN STORIES: WORKSHOP & ANTHOLOGY

Be part of the first Karavan Stories anthology! We will meet for a writing workshop at the end of April and together analyse what makes a good short story, read examples, go through a few writing exercises, begin exploring ideas for new stories and in the following months write, edit and compile an anthology of stories which will be published by Karavan Press.

Photo: Etienne Swanepoel | Unsplash

WORKSHOP DATE: Saturday, 22 April 2023, 9:00 – 15:00

VENUE: 6 Banksia Road, Rosebank, 7700 Cape Town

PUBLICATION DATE: November 2023

FEE: R3 900

To book your spot, contact: Karina @ Karavan Press

Includes: workshop, catering during the day of the workshop, guidance and feedback, editing, proofreading, 5 copies of the anthology and the option to submit your next manuscript to Karavan Press.

If you cannot afford the fee but would like to participate, please get in touch. Two places will be available to writers who require financial assistance.

Maximum number of participants: 12.

Participants not based in Cape Town can join via Skype (maximum two).

FACILITATOR / EDITOR:

Karina M. Szczurek is the author and (co)editor of a dozen works of fiction and non-fiction, most recently a memoir, The Fifth Mrs Brink, a collection of letters, You Make Me Possible: The Love Letters of Karina M. Szczurek and André Brink, and an anthology, Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa. She won the MML Literature Award in the Category English Drama in 2012 and received the Thomas Pringle Award for a portfolio of ad hoc reviews from the English Academy of Southern Africa in 2018. She is a board member of Short Story Day Africa. In 2019, she founded Karavan Press, an independent publishing house, and a year later, established the Philida Literary Award.

Karina Uncategorized

Karavan Press: 2022 in review

We are still here!

The year 2022 is coming to an end and, despite all the challenges we’ve faced, we have not only survived, but thrived. I can now confidently say that Karavan Press has a future.

The above mentioned challenges resulted in ‘only’ four books being published this year, but every single one of them has been a publisher’s dream. Thank you, Joy, Lester, Melissa and Stephen – it has been amazing to work with you on these special books. This brings us up to TWENTY published books since we began with Melissa A. Volker’s Shadow Flicker mid-2019.

We were also meant to publish Sipho Banda’s debut poetry collection in English, A Crowded Lonely Walk, but we ran out of time in 2022, so it will be the first title to go to print in 2023. Poetry lovers have a wonderful literary treat to look forward to in the new year.

In 2022, Karavan Press authors and books have been recognised with the following:

Let It Fall Where It Will by Lester Walbrugh was shortlisted for the HSS Awards in the Best Fiction Short Stories category while the Best Fiction Edited Volume category was won by Hauntings (edited by Niq Mhlongo and published by Jacana) – the anthology included short stories by Lester Walbrugh and Joanne Hichens.

An Island by Karen Jennings, A Hibiscus Coast by Nick Mulgrew, The Skipper’s Daughter by Nancy Richards and Boiling a Frog Slowly by Cathy Park Kelly were longlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Awards, with An Island making the shortlist in the Fiction category.

A Hibiscus Coast by Nick Mulgrew won the 2022 K. Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award. This is the second year in a row that a Karavan Press author was recognised with this award.

Thanks to Catrina Wessels, Wipf & Stock acquired the US rights to Conjectures by James Leatt, originally published by Karavan Press in 2021.

Dr Sindiwe Magona received her PhD in Creative Writing from UWC.

The Other Me by Joy Watson featured at number four on the 2022 top twenty bestselling books at The Book Lounge.

Congratulations to All!

The Karavan Press literary family is growing in other ways. This year, together with Protea Distribution, Karavan Press became local distribution partners for Gagman by Joanne and Dov Fedler and August House is Dead, Long Live August House! and Panya Routes by Kim Gurney.

In September, Catrina and I attended the Gothenburg Book Fair, where we met and exchanged ideas with publishers from around the world. I hope to explore and strengthen these connections in 2023.

None of this would have been possible without the dedication and kindness of the people I work with: the authors, book designers, printers, distributors, agents, other publishers, booksellers and, of course, readers! Thank you, All!

A special thank you to my Loved Ones (furry and otherwise) who have kept me and Karavan going when the path ahead looked dire. We are still here thanks to you!