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The Spark: The #ReadingAfrica Edition

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#ReadingAfrica Week 2022 is officially here! Kicking off this Sunday, December 4, our sixth annual celebration of all things African literature is shaping up to be our biggest and best yet. We’ve worked so hard to bring together an amazing line-up for you all, including three virtual events, several written roundtables, guest blogs, daily social media challenges, and more!

This year’s live virtual events are:

Sunday December 4th at 2pm EST — Who is African: Place, identity, and belonging in literature, co-hosted with LitNet
Tuesday December 6th at 2pm EST– Behind the Scenes: African filmmakers & writers on interplay and adaptation, co-hosted with the James Currey Society
Saturday December 10th at 2pm EST– The young reader: African children’s literature, co-hosted with World Kid Lit

You can register here for these three amazing events and download our social media challenges here. And make sure you follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to stay in the know about all things #ReadingAfrica! And don’t forget to use the hashtags #ReadingAfrica and #ReadingAfricaWeek all week long December 4-10 to highlight your favorite African reads. You can also find books from several of our panelists at our Bookshop.org shop. For authors whose work isn’t available in the US, be sure to check out African Books Collective!

In other Catalyst news, we’re thrilled to see two of our books on this year’s 100 Notable African Books list from Brittle Paper! Huge congrats to the creators of All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa and Niki Daly of On My Papa’s Shoulders for the huge honor. And another huge congratulations to Yewande Omotoso, whose novel An Unusual Grief also made the list. We’re proud to be the US publisher for Yewande’s novel Bom Boy.

Niki Daly is on fire! On top of that Brittle Paper honor, Fly High, Lolo, the fourth book in Niki’s beloved Lolo series, was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by School Library Journal, and On My Papa’s Shoulders was awarded a South African Literary Award for Children’s Literature!

The reviews have also been rolling in for our upcoming middle grade novel Pearl of the Sea. Publishers Weekly calls it “a winning story of friendship, nature, and trust,” Foreword Reviews says it’s a “vibrant coastal coming-of-age story with secrets, monsters, and thrills throughout” and Kirkus dubbed it “a heartfelt tale.” Check it some sample pages and pre-order here. Pearl of the Sea is available January 31 in North America and March 1 in South Africa.

And ICYMI, read this great feature from Open Country Mag about Pearl of the Sea and our other forthcoming graphic novel, KARIBA, available in June.

The Spark: The “Have I Run Out of Cute Titles?” Edition

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Huge congratulations to Futhi Ntshingila and her new novel They Got To You Too, awarded the Sharjah International Book Fair Prize 2022 this week! Futhi is the author of the novel We Kiss Them With Rain, which we published in 2018 and you can check out below in the “From the Backlist” section. We’re so proud of you, Futhi!

We’re gearing up for #ReadingAfrica 2022, this year from Sunday December 4^th through Saturday December 10^th! All week long, make sure to share your favorite African reads and tell us why you’re #ReadingAfrica by sharing the #ReadingAfrica and #ReadingAfricaWeek hashtags on all of your social media platforms. And as part of the celebration, we’re lining up an amazing virtual events program and we’ll be announcing the events over our socials in the next two weeks, so make sure to give us a follow on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages. Read more about #ReadingAfrica here, and a very special shoutout to Squid Mag for featuring #ReadingAfrica this week! Continue reading “The Spark: The “Have I Run Out of Cute Titles?” Edition”

The Spark: The Week of Big News Edition

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Happy pub week to The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap! This is the second middle-grade novel from South African author Bridget Krone that we’ve had the privilege to publish (we published Small Mercies in 2020) and we’re so excited to share it with you. Kirkus Reviews called it “a compelling look at friendship and community uplift under harsh circumstances.” Congrats, Bridget!

We’re so thrilled to have been named one of five finalists for the Amber Grant for Women’s September grant! This amazing organization gives $10,000 to a women-owned small business every single month, and we’re very grateful for their recognition and support. [Ed note: We, unfortunately, weren’t awarded the Amber grant, but we are so proud to be part of this amazing group of women entrepreneurs! And we extend our huge congratulations to grantee Brandy Witherow, owner of Lemon Island Seafood, and all of the Amber Grant finalists!]

Two authors from Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa, Innocent Chizaram Ilo and Caine Prize winner Idza Luhumyo, are featured in this great article from Afrocritik highlighting “15 emerging and gifted voices amplifying African literature”. Disruption, which we co-published last year with the South African non-profit Short Story Day Africa, features stories from Innocent, Idza, and 19 other emerging authors from Africa.

And last up, don’t miss the virtual awards ceremony for this year’s Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, happening Thursday October 27^th at 6pm EST. We’re so thrilled that Sifiso Mzobe and his debut novel Young Blood were selected as a finalist for this year’s award. We’re rooting for you, Sifiso!

Continue reading “The Spark: The Week of Big News Edition”

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”

Introducing Panel & Page

We love the written word here. I mean, you don’t publish as many books as we have, over as many years, without loving words. But from the very start, we’ve also loved images. Whether they are the whimsical black and white drawings found in books by Niki Daly or Bridget Krone, or the explosion of color in our first graphic novel release, Shaka Rising by Luke Molver, words and images together have also been a vital part of the stories we want to share. With Shaka Rising and its sequel King Shaka, we introduced the world to the African Graphic Novel Series, a collaboration with Jive Media Africa through our joint imprint Story Press Africa.

The Series gave us a way to tell rich, nuanced African histories through the pens and paintbrushes of African creators. We’re so proud of that work. “Wait,” you’re thinking. “Are you not doing graphic novels anymore?” No, nothing like that! The African Graphic Novel Series isn’t going anywhere. We hope that in the future we’ll be able to present more of those stories under that umbrella.

“So what’s this post all about, then?” is probably what you’re asking. Great question! This post is to introduce a sort-of sibling to the African Graphic Novel Series. Say hello to Panel & Page!

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 “We ❤️ Libraries” Edition

It’s a fairly quiet week. This is partly because here in the US we’re in the last throes of summer, when the pace slows down just a bit, and everyone soaks up the last bit of summer fun they can. The other part is that I was on a very long vacation, and leaving the vacation world and coming back to the book world has been, let’s say, not the easiest transition. So this is a light load, but still full of exciting news.

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Another great review for All Rise! This time, from one of our favorite places— the library! Kate Brittian, the Teen Librarian at the Wilson County Public Library in North Carolina, reviewed All Rise as part of the library’s weekly Teen Book Review.

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.