March Events with Bridget Pitt

March will be a busy month for Eye Brother Horn author, Bridget Pitt. Not only will she be basking in the glow of her great reviews (the newest from World Literature Today calls it a “heartwarming—and wrenching—tale”), but she’ll be having two in-person event in South Africa.

Join her at the Book Lounge in Cape Town on March 16 at 6pm. She’ll be in conversation with literary critic, David Atwell. Visit the Book Lounge’s website to RSVP.

And on March 29, she heads to Johannesburg for a conversation with Pippa Smith, owner of The Book Revue. The event begins at 6:30pm and will be held at Glenshiel Mansion. Tickets are R150 all all profits will be donated to Friends of the Wild. Email pippa [at] thebookrevue.co.za to RSVP.

Eye Brother Horn, a sweeping tale of colonialism, identity, kinship, and atonement set in 1870s South Africa, is out now.

Q&A with Helen Brain

Helen Brain, photo by Patrick McKenna

Note: This post is originally from November 2019. We’re sharing it again because we’re excited to release the second book in Helen’s trilogy—The Rising Tide—on July 13, 2021. Learn more about the book, and order your copy here. You can also enter to win a copy of The Rising Tide at Goodreads. The giveaway runs through July 6.

We’re so excited to add more books for young readers to our catalog. It has always been a part of who we are. We recognize the importance of giving kids and young adults the tools they need to be readers for life. One of the most important tools is giving them books that speak to them and their experiences. Books that value their voices and their concerns. It’s one of the many reasons we’re so proud to publish The Thousand Steps by Helen Brain.

The Thousand Steps is the first in Helen’s futuristic Fiery Spiral trilogy, and is the story of 16-year-old Ebba who has lived her entire life in a bunker deep within Cape Town’s Table Mountain. When she is suddenly elevated from the bunker, she finds that everything she knew about her life, and the world “above,” was wrong. Now shouldering the immense responsibility of her new life, Ebba must fight to save her friends still trapped in the bunker and facing execution any day. Helen’s book deftly explores race, class, and climate change while telling a story that will captivate young readers. School Library Journal praised the book writing, “This novel will draw readers in with its high stakes and well-developed characters.”

We chatted with Helen about her work, why she loves science fiction, and her advice for young writers. The Thousand Steps is out January 3. Continue reading “Q&A with Helen Brain”

This Week in Literary News: Week of February 21

Our friends at the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative have welcomed a new writer on board. Please join us in welcoming their newest reviewer, South African author Lebohang Masango who joins the #WorldKidLit Wednesday team.

There’s a short Q&A at Africa in Words with Lizzy Attree. Among the many things she does, Lizzy is also the director of Short Story Day Africa (SSDA), and we’ll be working with her and her team this year as the US publisher for the SSDA anthology Disruption. Stay tuned for more information on that!

“On March 6, 1971, a group of some of the top musicians from the United States -– Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, and more -– boarded a plane bound for Ghana to perform in a musical celebration that was dubbed the “Soul to Soul Festival.”’ Afropop Worldwide revisits the festival on its 50th anniversary with musicologist John Collins, poet and scholar Tsitsi Ella Jaji (who, by the way, wrote a beautiful blurb for Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s The Theory of Flight), concert goers and more. They’ve also included a companion piece of selected readings and videos.

CAPE TOWN: A PLACE BETWEEN BY HENRY TROTTER

Africa is a Country radio explores the musical history of Cape Town with New School professor Sean Jacobs and filmmaker Dylan Valley. And after listening to this conversation, you want to dig into the complex and intersecting histories of the Mother City, be sure to pick up a copy of Henry Trotter’s Cape Town: A Place Between, the first book in our Intimate Geographies Series.

Submissions have opened for the Kendeka Prize for African Literature. The award honors unpublished fiction and non-fiction by African authors.

Black Women Radicals has put together a great list of 16 Black feminist archive projects. From hip-hop, to visual art, to Caribbean history, there are so many fantastic projects to explore.

“While the cost of living continues to rise and older generations of activists fade away — making it harder for free-spirited artistry to exist — we gather tightly to embrace Ferlinghetti’s cathedral in all its dusty homeliness and independent boldness on the corner of Columbus and Broadway.” The literary world is mourning the loss of poet, publisher, and founder of City Lights books, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Read remembrances from SF Gate, the New York Times, The Nation, and from his community at City Lights. And, of course, spend some time with his poetry.

The New York Times

KING SHAKA BY LUKE W. MOLVER

Black History Month may be coming to a close, but amazing books by Black authors and stories of Black heroes and history are important any time of year. CLMP has put together a reading list of books and magazines from small presses that celebrate this history. We’ve got two titles on the list— The Theory of Flight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, which uses fiction to explore the history of Zimbabwe, and King Shaka by Luke Molver, a graphic novel from our Story Press Africa imprint that explores the life of legendary Zulu leader King Shaka.

CrimeReads has a fantastic conversation with John Copenhaver, Cheryl Head, and Kristen Lepionka, the judges for Sisters in Crime’s Pride Award for Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writers, on the state of crime writing for the LGBTQIA+ community.

And finally, Tina Jordan at the New York Times looks at the history of literary games and puzzles in the paper’s pages. “In this era of crossword puzzles, Words With Friends and The Times’s own Spelling Bee, it’s fascinating to look back at just how long the paper has been printing word games and literary quizzes.” You can test your book knowledge with a quiz from 1989.

Introducing the Intimate Geographies Series

In January 2020, we’ll be releasing Cape Town: A Place Between by writer and scholar Henry Trotter, the first volume in our new Intimate Geographies Series. Henry, the author of Sugar Girls & Seamen: A Journey into the World of Dockside Prostitution in South Africa (Ohio University Press), will also be serving as the series editor going forward.

We’ve asked Henry to introduce readers to the series, its goals, and our plans for future Intimate Geographies titles. Cape Town: A Place Between releases on January 3, 2020; pre-orders are available now. Continue reading “Introducing the Intimate Geographies Series”