Registration Opens For #ReadingAfrica 2025 Live Panels!

Thank you for your support and enthusiasm. Get ready for our biggest and best #ReadingAfrica yet! 

As we gear up for #ReadingAfrica 2025 (December 7-13), we will post sneak previews and re-share classic moments from past #ReadingAfrica weeks. Stay tuned to our Facebook, X, Instagram, and Threads. As promised in our sneak peeks, we will host three live panels, all linked to our theme of Open Horizons, Creating Connections Across Continents. We also have a number of articles and interviews that will be published in LitHub, Brittle Paper, and Maverick Independent Book Reviews. 

Basic details and links to register for the live events are below, but please reach out to lora@catalystpress.org with any questions.

African Life-Writing: Mapping Lives, Making Meaning

The Life-writing panel brings together authors who tell true stories from their own lives or from the lives of others. Their books explore themes such as identity, family, and belonging. Linked to this year’s Open Horizons theme, the panel looks at how writing about personal experiences can help readers understand others and see how individual stories connect to wider histories/lived experiences.

Moderated by Brooke Warner, publisher of She Writes Press and Spark Press and Chief Operations Officer of The Stable Group. Brooke will moderate a discussion between authors Sahra Noor (Salt in the Snow: A Somali Immigrant Story), Colleen Higgs (my mother, my madness), Patrice Nganang (Scale Boy: An African Childhood), and Joanne Bloch (Unseen: Listening to Visually Impaired South Africans).

These books (about growing up in Cameroon, a mother–daughter relationship in Cape Town, migrating from Somalia to the United States, and the lives of visually impaired South Africans) invite readers to read across borders of culture, place and experience, expanding our idea of what African life-writing is/can be.

Date: December 9

11AM EST | 8AM PST | 6PM SAST

Cost: Free

Link to Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/fcc6kqSKTdiozfJE-jaVWQ 

Live It. Write It. Draw It: One Page, One Hour, One Mini Graphic Memoir Workshop

In this hour-long workshop, with an additional half hour for Q&A, you will create your own mini graphic memoir under the tutelage of Karen Vermeulen, author of Good Luck to Us All: A Graphic Memoir of Sorts. You might even catch a glimpse of her fluffy muse, Sir Henry. 

No previous artistic experience required.

Materials needed: Paper and pen or pencil

Date: December 10

Time: 11AM EST | 8AM PT | 6PM SAST

Cost: $5

Link to Register: https://www.karenvermeulen.com/product/live-it-write-it-draw-it-online-mini-graphic-memoir-workshop/

Linguistic Landscapes: Francophone African Literature

This hour-long panel explores the state of African literature written in French. Moderated by Raphaël Thierry, literary agent and specialist in African literatures and the African book industry, this intimate panel includes Ivorian writer, publisher, and scholar Serge Agnessan (University of Bristol); novelist and Francophone literature scholar Khalid Lyamlahy (University of Chicago); and Francophone literature scholar Madu Krishnan (University of Bristol), whose work emphasizes “contours of literary production and reception” as well as literary activism in Africa.

Date: December 11

10AM EST | 7AM PT | 5PM SAST

Cost: Free

Link to Register:  https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/hC15Dh5_SNqgjXKv2HK-Ew

Bridging the Divide: African Booksellers on Sharing African Stories with the World

Booksellers are a vital bridge between the stories written by writers from Africa and readers. This panel aims to explore the unique challenges and opportunities in distributing African literature both within the continent and internationally. Join Wendy Njoroge (Somanami Books, Nairobi), Griffin Shea (Bridge Books, Johannesburg), Dewald van Wyk (Nielsen Bookdata), and Stephanie Kitchen (African Books Collective, UK). South African novelist and founder of the Good Book Appreciation Society Paige Nick will be moderating this hour-long panel.

Date: December 13

10AM EST | 7AM PT | 5PM SAST

Cost: Free

Link to Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/qEI9yvhhRMSFX4JWIlJAOg