Tag: Caroline Kurtz | CatalystPress

The Spark: The Graphic Novel Edition

Hot from the Press

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

Hot from the Press

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

Hot from the Press

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 Long Weekend Edition

Hot from the Press

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”

The Spark: Week of March 20

Hot from the Press

We’re so excited to have officially launched our GlobalComix page last week! GlobalComix is a platform for comics readers and creatives anywhere in the world to discover, read and publish comics and graphic novels online. You can check out our publisher page to read all of our graphic novels from your phone or computer, and be sure to give us a follow to be the first to access our upcoming releases!

Get out your calendars, because our authors have some amazing events coming up! This coming Tuesday March 29 at 6:30pm Pacific Time, Catalyst authors Richard Conyngham (All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa – A Graphic History) and Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (The History of Man) will be appearing at PubWest Live, a virtual event hosted by PubWest and Massy Arts. The event also features Christopher Chávez, author of The Sound of Exclusion: NPR and the Latinx Public. Register here!

And on April 5 at 7pm Pacific Time, join author Caroline Kurtz for a livestreamed reading and discussion of her new book Today is Tomorrow with Annie Bloom’s Books–and get a signed copy if you pre-order from Annie Bloom’s!

The Spark: Events Edition

Our authors are busy these days, and it looks like they’re mostly busy with events— lots of events! So this edition of The Spark will put them all in one handy place, so that you can fill your month with literary goodness.

Wednesday, March 16 at 3:00pm South African Time: Joanne Hichens (Divine Justice) appears on the panel, “Beyond the Words in Shorts Stories,“ as part of the Time of the Writer Festival, a virtual festival sponsored by The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts. The panel will discuss how their work answers the question: what does being haunted and hauntings mean in our southern African world, in the past, the present and the future?

Tuesday, March 29, at 6:30pm PT: Authors Richard Conyngham (All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa) and Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (The History of Man) will be appearing at PubWest Live, a virtual event hosted by PubWest and Massy Arts. The event also features Christopher Chávez, author of The Sound of Exclusion: NPR and the Latinx Public (University of Arizona Press). Register here

Tuesday, April 5, 7:00pm PT: Caroline Kurtz celebrates the release of her new memoir Today is Tomorrow with a virtual reading and discussion at Annie Bloom’s Books. And if you pre-order from Annie Bloom’s you can get a signed copy! More info and registration here

Friday, April 15, 12:00pm ET: Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu will be in conversation with Johns Hopkins University World Literature professor, Jeanne-Marie Jackson. Register here

What’s New in 2022

Fall is in the air here (translation: I’m already cold). As the calendar pages start falling away on 2021, we thought it’d be a good time to give you all a little sneak peek at our upcoming titles— many of which are available for pre-order.

We’re excited to add more books from one of our favorite children’s authors, Niki Daly, our very first young adult book in translation, and a new addition to our growing list of graphic novels. In addition to those, we think there’s something for just about every kind of reader in our 2022 catalog. Continue reading “What’s New in 2022”

Today is Tomorrow

Continue reading “Today is Tomorrow”

This Week in Literary News, Week of November 15

Another week, another selection of some of the week’s news! (News here being defined as book and book-related. I’m not sure I have the strength to recap the news at-large).

Yewande Omotoso | photo by Victor Dlamini

Over at The New Internationalist, there’s a lovely short essay by Yewande Omotoso on why she’s filled her house with plants. Yewande is a regular contributor there, so be sure to check out more of her work— they are all just as lovely. You can also pick up her fantastic novel, Bom Boy, of which we are proud to be the US publisher.

There are two great pieces at LitHub. The first, from Rebecca Solnit asks readers to seriously consider what it being asked of them with post-election calls to bridge divides: “[T]he truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?” The second is a reprint of Walter Moseley’s speech from the National Book Awards where he was honored with The Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters: “There’s a great weight hanging over the reception of an award when the underlying subject is, the first Black man to receive… We the people who are darker than blue, we have been here, on this continent, in this storm for 400 years. […] Is this a dying gasp or a first breath? Is today different from any other day over the past 400 years? I prefer to believe that we are on the threshold of a new day, that this evening is but one of ten thousand steps being taken to recognize the potential of this nation.” And congratulations to all of the NBA winners! You can see a list of honorees here.

Continue reading “This Week in Literary News, Week of November 15”

This Week in Literary News, Week of July 12

Literary news, world news, and life news was all a lot last week, which is why you didn’t see one of these posts last week. But we’re back, refreshed (sort of) and ready to bring you all of the bookish news you can handle!

“We all want wellness. I believe racism is a disease, and that healing can begin by reading to the kids in our lives, starting with children of the youngest ages.” Author Andrea Davis Pinkney writes about the power Black stories for NPR Books. Pinkey is also one of the judges for NPR’s Summer Reader’s Poll, which will create a list of 100 kids’ books based on readers’ suggestions. While the poll is closed now, be sure to check back to see the final list.

Language is always evolving, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise when new words are added to the lexicon. However, Merriam-Webster‘s recent addition of irregardless, has been the subject of a lot of debate. However, as Merriam-Webster pointed out on their blog, The Words of the Week, the word has been “in widespread and near-constant use since 1795. […] We do not make the English language, we merely record it.”

Last week’s issue of the New York Times‘ magazine was a fiction issue featuring short stories from 29 authors, each speaking to our current moment. Called “The Decameron Project,” the issue was “inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s “The Decameron,” written as the plague ravaged Florence in the 14th century.” The issue features stories by Uzodinma Iweala (Beasts of No Nation), Leila Slimani (The Perfect Nanny), and Dinaw Mengestu (All Our Names), among others. Continue reading “This Week in Literary News, Week of July 12”