Nondwe Mpuma and Melissa Sussens will be reading to us at The Commons on Wednesday, 11 November at 19:30 SAST.
Nondwe Mpuma is a lecturer and PhD candidate in the English department at the University of the Western Cape. Her research interests include creative writing pedagogies, writing about writing, speculative fiction and contemporary South African writing. Her debut collection Peach Country was published in 2022. She is the winner of the 2017 Patricia Schonstein Poetry in McGregor Award and has been published widely in South Africa and abroad. Her collection was named as one of Brittle Paper’s Notable African books of 2022, Griot Global’s 100 Notable African Books of 2022 and the collection was shortlisted for the Humanities and Social Sciences Award 2023 for Best Fiction: Poetry.
Melissa Sussens is a queer veterinarian and poet. Her debut collection, Slaughterhouse (Karavan Press, 2022), was a finalist for the 2024 HSS Awards and was shortlisted for The Ingrid Jonker Prize 2024. She placed 2nd in the 2020 New Contrast National Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the 2022 prize. Melissa was also shortlisted for the 2024 Isele Poetry Prize and her work has appeared in many publications, both locally and internationally. She has performed at the Poetry In McGregor festival, The Commons and The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Collective. She spent years as a teaching assistant for Megan Falley’s international writing course, Poems That Don’t Suck and her favourite part of writing is editing. Melissa lives in Cape Town with her wife and their two dogs. Find her at melissasussens.com or @melissasussens.
Please note that a film screening will also be taking place on the same night in the main room at The Commons, so the Red Wheelbarrow has been asked to relay that anyone attending the reading who’d like to place an order from the bar please do so before 19:45. Thank you.
As always, the reading by the featured poet will be followed by an open mic session for poets from the audience. Poets are welcome to read from their own work as well as from the work of a favourite poet.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Date & time: Wednesday, 11 November 2026, 19:30
Venue: The Commons, Surfer’s Corner, Beach Rd, Muizenberg, Cape Town, 7970
Phone: 083 799 8294
For more info, including the link to The Red Wheelbarrow’s complete poetry archive, visit their website. Recordings of their weekly Zoom readings are on their YouTube channel.
