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The Spark: The Graphic Novel Edition

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We are so excited to announce the launch of our newest series, Panel & Page! The new series is where we’ll be publishing most of our upcoming graphic novels, and we’re so excited to use this announcement to officially tell you about all of the amazing graphic novels you can expect in 2023. You can find out more about Pearl of the Sea and KARIBA—our two upcoming releases from South Africa—and how they’re connected to the award-winning animation studio Triggerfish in this awesome mention here. And speaking of graphic novels, many thanks to World Kit Lit’s Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp for highlighting Shaka Rising—our very first graphic novel release— as one of her top 12 global children’s books for history lovers this week on Words Without Borders!

Lots of events on the way! Caroline Kurtz, author of the award-winning memoir A Road Called Down on Both Sides and the recently-released Today is Tomorrow, visits Chapters Books in Newberg, OR on October 7^th as part of the city’s First Friday Artwalk. Also be sure to mark your calendars for Thursday October 27^th at 6pm EST for the virtual 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards ceremony, where Young Blood author Sifiso Mzobe is being honored alongside the other shortlisted authors! And last up, we’re so excited that four Catalyst authors will be taking part in this amazing South African book tour hosted by Atlas Book Club founder Bunmi Emenanjo, where she’ll be bringing overseas visitors to South Africa to explore the country’s incredible beauty and wonderfully diverse literary scene.

Continue reading “The Spark: The Graphic Novel Edition”

The Spark: The “Wow, September is a big month” Edition

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September is both #NationalTranslationMonth and #WorldKidLitMonth, and to celebrate both at once, here’s an amazing reading of his YA novel Halley’s Comet by author and translator Hannes Barnard, as part of Translators Aloud’s month long celebration.

Caroline Kurtz, author of the memoirs A Road Called Down on Both Sides and recently released Today is Tomorrow, is giving a reading at Wordfest in Longview, Washington this coming Tuesday at 6pm PST, and Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Windham Campbell Prize winning author of The Theory of Flight and The History of Man, got a nice mention in Lizzy Attree’s LA Times review of Glory, NoViolet Bulawayo’s Booker Prize shortlisted novel.

And finally, ICYMI, check out the announcement for Panel & Page, our newly launched graphic novel series which kicks off with the 2023 releases of Pearl of the Sea and KARIBA. Pre-orders available now

Continue reading “The Spark: The “Wow, September is a big month” Edition”

The Spark: The “Way to Go, Sifiso!” Edition

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Late last week, we received the amazing news that Young Blood, Sifiso Mzobe’s crime novel set in Durban’s Umlazi township, was shortlisted for the 2022 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award! The winner will be announced on October 27^th, but we’re so thrilled to see Sifiso on this incredible list of finalists. Read more about the book at the end of this post!

Huge congrats to Bridget Krone, the award-winning author of Small Mercies, for the launch of her newest middle grade novel, The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap! To celebrate her South African pub date last week (don’t worry, USA readers! The book is available in North America and worldwide in just a few weeks), Top Class Books in Hilton, South Africa hosted a marvelous launch with almost 100 attendees. Bridget will spend the next few weeks touring schools in Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg, as well as attending book signings and readings.

Also this week, Today is Tomorrow author Caroline Kurtz was honored alongside her sister Jane and the Reverend Bill Chadwick during a virtual event hosted by the Presbyterian Writers Guild. Caroline’s first memoir, The Road Called Down on Both Sides: Growing Up in Ethiopia and America was awarded the Presbyterian Writers Guild’s Best First Book Award. You can read more about the event, and Caroline’s response to the award, here

And finally, The History of Man author Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu and Bom Boy author Yewande Omotoso will both be taking part as panelists at the 2022 Open Book Festival in Cape Town, September 2-4!

Continue reading “The Spark: The “Way to Go, Sifiso!” Edition”

The Spark: The “A bit short but packed with news!” Edition

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Tune in to two Catalyst author chats! This week, Lolo series author and illustrator Niki Daly chatted on South Africa’s CapeTalk radio with Lester Kiewit about his work. Give it a listen, and find out more about the Lolo series here. And mark your calendars for Friday August 12^th for the launch of Small Mercies author Bridget Krone’s newest middle-grade book, The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap, hosted in Bridget’s hometown of Hilton, South Africa! If you can’t make it in person (it’s a bit of a long flight from the USA), the event will be livestreamed here at 12pm EST, Friday August 12^th.

The week in review

The shortlist for the inaugural Ursula K. Le Guin Prize were announced this week, the Center for Fiction announced its longlist for the First Novel Prize, and a new translation prize for South Asian literature was announced. The New York Times has a new books editor, Gillian Flynn is going to murder someone on a cruise, and Barack Obama released his 2022 summer reading list.

July is Disability Pride month, and we’ve been celebrating all month long! Here’s a great reading list to introduce you to disability literature, seven nonfiction audiobooks by disabled authors and fiction audiobooks with disabled protagonists. Get reading!

For thought provoking pieces, Felice Arenas writes about childless woman tropes, Lio Min explores gender and sexuality in anime, Oscar Hokeah chronicles Native American lives, and Helen Kapstein reports on what Americans can learn from South Africa’s Apartheid-era book banning. Jonny Diamond shared his thoughts on BookToken, the new NFT system for ebooks, and CNN investigates Joyce Carol Oates’ claims on Twitter that young white men are being “shut out” of publishing [Editor’s note: LOL, JCO]

The Spark: The “Hey, that’s a lot of news” Edition

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Congratulations to Bridget Krone who was named a 2022 Skipping Stones Honor Award winner this week, for her debut novel Small Mercies! We are honored to publish both Small Mercies and Bridget’s second middle grade novel, The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap, which comes out this September. Pre-order your copy now!

Also this week, The History of Man author Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu was featured in this amazing interview with The Rumpus to discuss the book’s complicated main character, Zimbabwean writers, Siphiwe’s literary influences, and more. And don’t miss this interview with our Catalyst Press staff on The Mystery of Writing!

This Wednesday July 13^th at 12pm EST, tune in to this virtual event with the 2022 AKO Caine Prize shortlisted authors, including our very own Idza Luhumyo, whose short story “Five Years Next Sunday” is featured in Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa. Register here, and while you’re at it, check out this great feature of Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa on Brittle Paper!

Visit Women Writers, Women’s Books to read a new essay from Today is Tomorrow author, Caroline Kurtz on the difficulties and rewards of writing memoir.

And lastly, huge congrats to Futhi Ntshingila for being longlisted for the 2022 Sunday Times Literary Awards, announced this week! We were lucky enough to publish Futhi’s novel We Kiss Them With Rain back in 2018.

The Spark

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Halley’s Comet by Hannes Barnard got a great mention in this article about representative YA literature, On My Papa’s Shoulders is a staff pick at the LA County Library, and in case you missed the big news from last week: Idza Luhumyo’s short story “Five Years Next Sunday”, featured in Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa, was awarded the 2022 Caine Prize alongside a record setting shortlist!

Awards News

The Miles Franklin Award pulled John Hughes’ The Dogs from its 2022 longlist after Hughes admitted to plagiarizing Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War. But people are now drawing similarities to other works of classic literature, including The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, and All is Quiet on the Western Front.

Announced this week: the winners of the 2022 Lambda Literary Awards, which celebrate LGBTQ+ literature; Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness takes home the Women’s Prize for Fiction; and The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan and translated from Ukrainian by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler wins the 2022 EBRD Literature Prize.

Costa announced unexpectedly that the 2021 Costa Book Awards were its last, and the Society of Authors announced a new prize, the ACDI Literary Prize, which will celebrate positive representation of disability in literature.

The Spark: Award Season Edition

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We got some wonderful awards news this week for one of the authors from Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa! Mbozi Haimbre was named a finalist for the African Speculative Fiction Society’s Nommo Award for Best Short Story for her story, “Shelter.” We are so thrilled for Mbozi, and hope you will join us in celebrating! Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa is the 2021 anthology from Short Story Day Africa, a nonprofit based in Cape Town, South Africa on a mission to elevate new and emerging African authors. And it’s available now worldwide!

This week, we celebrated World Bee Day with (buzz-worthy!) excerpts from two Catalyst titles on our site, and LitNet posted this amazing interview with Hannes Barnard, Halley’s Comet author and translator. And ICYMI, two Catalyst authors participated in great events this week that you can catch up on now. First, All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion author Richard Conyngham and illustrator Tumi Mamabolo took part in a virtual event with Interference Archive, moderated by our very own Catalyst Press publicist Ashawnta Jackson. And later in the week, The Theory of Flight and The History of Man author (and recent Windham Campbell Prize winner!) Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu was hosted by the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign as part of their Contemporary African Voices series.

Continue reading “The Spark: Award Season Edition”

The Spark: The “It’s May!” Edition

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Two Catalyst author events we’ve been waiting for have almost arrived! On Sunday May 22 at 1pm EST, join Richard Conyngham and Tumi Mamabolo, the author and one of the illustrators behind All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa, for “Archives and Storytelling,” a virtual event hosted by Interference Archive. The pair will be discussing how archives can be an important tool for creative storytelling, and how they used them to bring the stories in All Rise to life. The event is free, but registration is required. Sign up here, and don’t forget to pre-order your copy of the book which hits shelves next week!

To learn more about the creation of All Rise, check out this Q&A with the author, just released this week.

Continue reading “The Spark: The “It’s May!” Edition”

Author Q&A: Richard Conyngham

We’re so excited for the upcoming release of All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa, a graphic history of six untold legal cases that shaped the civil rights history of South Africa. Set during the pre-apartheid years, the acts of resistance and rebellion brought to life in All Rise were spearheaded by ordinary citizens from marginalized communities on a mission to improve the safety and freedoms of themselves and their loved ones. Each story is illustrated by a different South African illustrator, creating a visually arresting anthology representative of the vast beauty and complex multicultural history of the “Rainbow Nation”.

I’ve been an observer of this project from afar for many years, so it’s thrilling to see it all come together in print. And today I have the privilege of chatting with the author and historian behind the anthology, Richard Conyngham. Born and raised in South Africa and now living in Mexico City, Richard has degrees from the University of Cape Town and Cambridge University and many years of education and literary work under his belt, having worked with organizations like Equal Education, The Bookery, the London publisher Slightly Foxed, and the edtech organization MakeTomorrow. Back in 2016, he collaborated on his first graphic history with the Trantaal Brothers, an artist duo out of Cape Town (who also illustrated a chapter of All Rise), to create an illustrated companion to the O’Regan-Pikoli Commission of Inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha.

Richard spent the last six years researching and creating All Rise, and all that hard work has paid off to create a truly amazing end result. The collection is getting all sorts of hype from big names in the literary, comics and history worlds alike–including a Starred (!!) review from Kirkus–and we can’t wait to share the book with you when it hits the shelves on May 17th.

The Spark: The Long Weekend Edition

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Catch up on two great Catalyst author events:

Caroline Kurtz did a virtual reading with Annie Bloom’s Bookshop from her new book, Today is Tomorrow, a follow up to her award-winning memoir A Road Called Down on Both Sides: Growing up in Ethiopia and America. Today is Tomorrow, which reflects on the years Caroline and her husband spent working with war refugees in South Sudan and Kenya, is on sale April 19. Happy pub week, Caroline!

And on Friday, Johns Hopkins’ Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences hosted a great conversation with Windham-Campbell Prize winner Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu. We’re proud to be the North American publisher for Siphiwe’s The Theory of Flight and The History of Man, both available now!

And finally, the fourth book in Niki Daly’s beloved Lolo series, Fly High, Lolo, just received a starred review from School Library Journal! SLJ called the book “a beautiful addition to the series, and a worthy addition to library shelves.” Fly High, Lolo, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, is available for pre-order now. Continue reading “The Spark: The Long Weekend Edition”