Karina Festival

Karavan Press Literary Festival 2025

We are delighted to announce that the fourth KARAVAN PRESS LITERARY FESTIVAL is going to take place on Saturday, 12 April 2025, at the wonderful South African Centre for the Netherlands and Flanders – SASNEV – 4 Central Square, Pinelands, Cape Town, 7405. Thank you to Eureka Barnard and the Staff of SASNEV for hosting us!

As part of the festival, Penny Haw, winner of the 2024 Philida Literary Award, will deliver the André Brink Memorial Lecture – 6 February 2025 was the 10th anniversary of André’s death, and on 29 May 2025, he would have turned 90. We will remember and celebrate together!

Also as part of the festival, Qarnita Loxton and Amy Heydenrych are offering a Creative Writing Workshop. For all details, please see below.

EVENT 1 09:30-10:15  LIFE AND LAUGHTER

Diane Awerbuck, Lisa Tredoux and Gail Gilbride speak to Nick Clelland about how to use humour in literature across the genres to address important themes that are not necessarily always funny.

EVENT 2 10:30-11:15  FINDING ONESELF

Sarah Isaacs, Anna Stroud, Kharys Ateh Laue and Lester Walbrugh talk to John Maytham about their young characters’ search for who they are and how they want to be in the world when the world is unwilling to cooperate.

COFFEE / TEA BREAK

EVENT 3 12:00-12:45  SECOND CHANCES

“Sometimes the only thing you can do to change is to leave.” (Qarnita Loxton)

Amy Heydenrych, Stephen Symons & Alex Latimer talk to Karina M. Szczurek about their characters’ opportunities for change.

EVENT 4 13:00-13:45 

ANDRÉ BRINK MEMORIAL LECTURE

“Influences and Legacies” – PENNY HAW, winner of the 2024 Philida Literary Award

FREE ENTRY TO ALL EVENTS AT SASNEV!

~ ~ ~

WORKSHOP 15:30-17:30

6 Banksia Road, Rosebank, 7700 Cape Town

(Please note change of venue for the workshop!)

OPENING THE DOOR TO YOUR STORY 

Join authors and collaborators – QARNITA LOXTON and AMY HEYDENRYCH – for an intimate, nurturing creative writing workshop. Get to the heart of your story, uncover the theme of your writing project and work through any potential blocks to your creative writing process in a quiet, encouraging setting.

Snacks and drinks will be served.

The workshop is open to writers of all levels, including beginners. Only 10 spots available. Please book early to avoid disappointment.

To book your spot for the workshop, please contact Karina: karavanpressfestival@outlook.com

WORKSHOP FEE R300

Books will be available for sale at great prices throughout the festival!

Karina Interview

Love Letter: A refuge for books – Karin Schimke interviews Karina Szczurek

Books are asylum

To say that Karina Szczurek finds refuge in books is to understate the matter. Books held her together through dispossession, flight and years of being a refugee. Certain books have travelled with her across three continents and four countries, through languages, and through love and loss.

For a long time, her mornings have begun with books – two to three hours of reading before the day begins. She has written, studied, translated and edited books.

Now she publishes them. The story of her publishing house – which has published a long string of disparate and often unusual books, and has accumulated several prizes in just six years of existence – is also a story of refuge …

Continue reading:

LOVE LETTER by Karin Schimke

Karina Author, Book, Event, Festival

Cape Flats Book Festival 2025

The first book festival of 2025 is just around the corner – Cape Flats Book Festival – and we are delighted to announce the following events featuring Karavan Press authors:

SATURDAY, 1 February, 10:45-11:25 | IN OTHER STORIES

SATURDAY, 1 February, 11:40-12:20 | STORYTELLING FOR CHILDREN

SATURDAY, 1 February, 12:35-13:15 | COURAGEOUS SURVIVORS: OVERCOMING A TRAUMATIC PAST

SATURDAY, 1 February, 15:20-16:00 | TRIBUTE TO POET IN EXILE: ATHOL WILLIAMS

Lester Walbrugh will also be at the Festival, speaking about the book he co-wrote with Karin Kortje – not to be missed!

SUNDAY, 2 February, 12:45-13:25 | DIE HELE STORIE / THE WHOLE STORY

For details about other events, please see:

Cape Flats Book Festival

Please join us for these two days of literary wonder!

Karina Author, Book

TEMPERATURE: Karavan Stories 2024

Temperature is the result of the Karavan Stories Workshop & Anthology project, now in its second year.

Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All the contributors gathered for a writing workshop at the end of April. Together, we discussed the intricacies of the short story, went through several writing exercises, decided on a theme for our anthology and began exploring ideas for individual stories. In the following months, we kept in touch, drafting and redrafting, until the book took shape.

The theme – temperature – was inspired by global and intimate, personal developments. Climate change continues to dominate our weather and news cycles. Heated international debates require cool and collected thinking for the sake of all our futures around the world. It has been an exceptionally difficult year for many – what allows us to survive, and thrive, is the warmth and kindness of our connections. Temperature is testimony to this simple truth.

Contributors could work with the theme in any way they wished, either reimagine it, see it as a springboard or a metaphor, or let their imaginations soar. The stories which emerged interpret ‘temperature’ in the most innovative ways, but they have one thing in common: hot off the press, they inspire reflections on interdependence – between individuals, communities and continents, as well as between humanity and our environment.

I would like to thank all contributing authors for embarking on this journey with Karavan Press: your stories are a cooling balm for a scorching reality. A big thank you to Monique Cleghorn for the exquisite design of our anthology. To our readers: enjoy!

Karina M. Szczurek
Cape Town, December 2024

Contributors: Sue Brown, Christine Coates, Gail Gilbride, Kerry Hammerton, Karen Horn, Karin Lijnes, Ciaran R. Maidwell, Firdose Moonda, Consuelo Roland, Anne Schlebusch, Joëlle Searle, Philisiwe Twijnstra, Alexandra Wood

Cover artwork: Hannes Meiring

Publisher: Karavan Press

Publication date: December 2024

ISBN: 978-1-0672224-3-7

The book will be available in all good bookshops in the new year. Please contact Karavan Press directly if you would like to get copies of the book earlier.

Karina Author, Book, Festival

Karavan Press at Madibaland @ BookBedonnerd Literary Festival, Richmond Book Town

The Karavan is hitting the road and celebrating all things literary in the wonderful Book Town of Richmond at the end of October/beginning of November. It is time for Madibaland @ BookBedonnerd Literary Festival again and we hope to see many of your there.

Karavan Press titles on the programme:

THURSDAY, 31 OCTOBER 2024

08h00 – 08h55COFFEE & WRITING WORKSHOP WITH KARINA M. SZCZUREK
12h10 – 12h35Michael Boyd, The Weight of Shade
12h35 – 13h00Thobeka Yose, In Silence my Heart Speaks

FRIDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2024

08h00 – 08h55COFFEE & WRITING WORKSHOP WITH KARINA M. SZCZUREK

SATURDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2024

14h00 – 14h30C. J. Driver, Dayspring
14h30 – 15h00Gail Gilbride, Cat Therapy

To see the exciting list of all participants, click here: Authors

For the full programme, click here: BookBedonnerd Literary Festival

Karina Author, Book, Event

The Smell of Blood & Other Stories by Caitlin Stobie and Kharys Ateh Laue launched at EB Cavendish

We launched The Smell Of Blood & Other Stories by Caitlin Stobie & Kharys Ateh Laue at Exclusive Books Cavendish last night. We spoke about storytelling in general and the short story in particular, about the creative process involved in collaborating on a collection of this nature, and the challenges and joys of writing about intimacy, sexuality, violence and coming of age in a country as complex and fascinating as South Africa of the eighties and nineties.

Thank you to the authors (you are remarkable!) and to everyone who shared this special moment with us (so great to engage).

A special thank you to Linda and the EB Cavendish team. Thank you for all your kind words and for championing our stories. We are deeply grateful for the support.