Today is Earth Day, an annual event that encourages us to not just acknowledge this beautiful spinning rock we call home, but to think deeply about the ways that our actions— big and small— affect it. As big and vast as the planet is, it still needs our protection, our care, and our concern.
Though reading isn’t the same as activism, it is a powerful first step to help us make sense of the world we live in and why it’s so important to protect. With that in mind, here are nine books from our catalog that examine some of the perils of climate change, the diversity of plant and animal life, the effects of colonialism on the environment, and more. From fantasy/sci-fi, to graphic novels, to essays, these Catalyst books will help you connect to our precious planet. You can purchase all of our titles at our IndiePubs site!
While our authors make us special, without SarahBelle Selig and Izak de Vries as part of our team, Catalyst Press would be missing a huge part of its heart and soul. While our U.S. team members keep things humming a world away, these two have made us a truly international company. Whether through their connections with South Africa’s literary community, or with the kind of personal touch that only comes from a face-to-face meeting, they have helped build Catalyst South Africa into, what we hope, is a part of the local reading scene. We couldn’t do any of this without them. Ashawnta Jackson, a U.S.-based Catalyst team member, chatted to the pair about their work.
SarahBelle Selig and Izak de Vries
SarahBelle, can you tell us a bit about your role at Catalyst? What is the South African branch up to?
Specifically in South Africa, I’ve got a bit of a liaison role, which means I’m working face to face with our local authors, our South African distributor, and the many great booksellers and educators we’re connected with here. Izak and I also tag team our local publicity: everything from getting reviews for our authors in South African media, to getting them on panels at festivals.
We’re having so much fun at Catalyst South Africa these days! We’ve ramped up our events, from book launches and comics workshops, to author readings at local school libraries and even a beach cleanup. We hosted a booth at the inaugural Comic Con Cape Town to show off our amazing line up of African graphic novels and to connect with readers. We’re busy prepping the release of our first ever Afrikaans book for kids, and we’re actively building out our relationships with local nonprofits, bookstores, and schools. The Catalyst office is definitely the most active here that it’s ever been, I’d say.
Moses, a Zulu baby discovered on a riverbank, and Daniel, the son of white missionaries, are raised as brothers on the Umzinyathi mission in 19th century Zululand, South Africa. As an infant, Daniel narrowly escapes an attack by a rhino and develops an intense corporeal connection to animals which challenges the religious dogma on which he is raised. Despite efforts by his adoptive mother to raise the boys as equals, Moses feels like an outsider to both white and Zulu society, and seeks certainty in astronomy and science. Only through each other do the brothers find a sense of belonging.
Since her mother left, Pearl has spent more and more time in the ocean, fishing to help her father pay the bills. But when she gets mixed up with a group of illegal abalone poachers and starts diving near a restricted wreck, Pearl meets an ancient sea monster named Otto—who isn’t quite as monstrous as she thought. a South African adventure story exploring how we are both bound to and freed by nature, seen through the eyes of a tough teen-aged heroine determined to live life by her own rules.
Happy new year, Catalyst family! After a wonderful holiday season, we are rested and ready for a big year here at the press—with eight (!!) titles in store for you all in 2023. First up are our two January arrivals, Eye Brother Hornand Pearl of the Sea, which you’ll be hearing lots about on our socials leading up to their simultaneous releases on Tuesday, January 31st. We can’t wait to share these amazing books with you.
This has been quite a year for us! You can read all about it in this wrap-up from Catalyst Press founder/publisher, Jessica Powers. And though we’re nearing the end of the year, there’s still time to support Catalyst and the books and authors you love!
All of our books are 30% when you buy from our website. Just use the code READING at check out. You can also support us through our Bookshop.org shop, which features our books plus our special #ReadingAfrica Week book lists featuring some of our favorites and books from the authors who graced the virtual stage for our #ReadingAfrica panels.
You can also support us with a one-time or recurring tax-deductible donation through Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3) arts organization that has offered us fiscal sponsorship.
We’re going to be hanging up our “Gone Reading” sign for the rest of the month, so things will be a little quiet while the Catalyst team gets some much-needed rest. We’ll see you in 2023!
This has been an astonishing year for Catalyst Press. We have now been publishing for six years! Our first books—Dark Traces by Martin Steyn and Sacrificed by Chanette Paul, both translations from Afrikaans into English—came out in November 2017. I’m honored to have started with those two stellar books, and honored by how far we’ve come.
This year marked milestone after milestone for us. From Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, whose critically-acclaimed and award-winning books we’re proud to publish, being named a Windham-Campbell Prize Winner, to finally getting a review in the New York Times Sunday Book section, to most of our children’s books being selected as Junior Library Guild honor books, to publishing this year’s Caine Prize winner, to starred reviews, to other honors, to other awards, to books being named to important lists… It’s been an incredible year. As I keep saying to people when they ask, “It’s all amazing…and now, if the press can just start making money!”
First things first: whew! This year’s event was a huge one. We had three live panels, two written round-tables, two guest posts, a playlist, and one pre-recorded panel. We had a week-long #ReadingAfrica challenge, announced a new book, had two booklists on Bookshop.org (including one that was featured on the site’s front page) and even saw a #ReadingAfrica in-store bookstore display. This may have been our biggest one yet. Seriousl, look at all of this:
When we started #ReadingAfrica Week, we thought small. We were small, after all. We’d just unfurled our “Open for Business” banner earlier that year, and the idea was simple. We just wanted a way to announce ourselves and to shine a spotlight on our colleagues in indie publishing who were doing some of the same work we were. We couldn’t have imagined that six #ReadingAfrica Weeks later, we’d have formed incredible partnerships, built a reading community, gathered together writers and publishers, and because we’re readers too, we’ve also been excited to discover even more books and writers and publishers to love. This has been a great event.
In this post, we’re going to point you to everything we did this year, plus share one new bit of fun. We asked our panelists from our live events to share some of their favorite reads, and we’d like to share those with you. And don’t forget, you can find many of our panelists’ books in this booklist. The best way to support authors you love is to buy their books.
Hi everyone, happy #ReadingAfrica Week 2022! As part of our week-long celebration, we have the privilege of posting this exclusive guest post from literary agents Raphaël Thierry and Emma Shercliff, a transcript of their recent conversation about all things African literature. The conversation is split into two parts—the first published below, and Part 2 to be published tomorrow!
Over the past several years, we’ve received many amazing manuscripts by African writers from both Raphaël and Emma, and it’s with great excitement that we officially introduce them to our Catalyst Press community today. We hope you enjoy this fascinating conversation between two very well-established professionals in the African publishing space, where they discuss everything from translations and authors rights, to exciting new projects and big trends in the industry (and one very special announcement!).
Let’s get started.
Emma Shercliff
Raphaël Thierry
Emma Shercliff
Hello, Raphaël. Nice to see you.
Raphaël Thierry
Hello Emma. Nice to see you, too. How are you doing? Long time no see. I think last time we met was in Geneva, in Switzerland, right?
Emma Shercliff
Yes, many years ago, at the Salon du Livre, in a pre-COVID existence.
Raphaël Thierry
Absolutely. Which made our lives so challenging and at the same time so exciting, especially as agents. And I think that’s a key part of this discussion we are having together today thanks to Catalyst and this exciting reading project. And hopefully, we can give some good updates about our work and I’m very happy that we can share this moment together.
Emma Shercliff
Yes, it’s a great opportunity to have a chance to catch up. So I’m delighted to see you.
Raphaël Thierry
So maybe we can start with just simply presenting who we are? And so you are Emma Shercliff, the literary agent, but also Emma Shercliff, if I’m correct, a former researcher. And I would be very curious to hear more about your journey.
We loved working with Short Story Day Africa to release the anthology,Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa last year. This collection brought together writers from across Africa, each writing about the many ways that we grow, adapt, and survive in the face of our ever-changing global realities. Short Story Day Africa as long been a force in the African writing community. Through their writing and editing workshops and the Short Story Day Africa Prize, they have nurtured dozens of writers and editors, and brought many to international attention. This year, one of the writers featured in Disruption took home the prestigious Caine Prize, and we don’t see this momentum stopping anytime soon.
We were proud to partner with them on Disruption, and are excited to work with them again on their newest anthology. These stories will come from the writers of Inkubator, an intensive, three-month, online seminar designed by Short Story Day Africa and Laxfield Literary Associates. Through this program, writers develop, grow and hone their fiction writing and self-editing skills. The twelve writers chosen for the seminar are mentored by a distinguished group of writers, editors, and publishing professionals, and their final works will be compiled into an anthology.
#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
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.
We’re getting so close to #ReadingAfrica Week! We’ve reached out to bookstores, libraries, publishers, and other literary organizations to spread the word about our annual celebration of African literature. But maybe the best advertisement is introducing you to the amazing group of storytellers and creatives that will be appearing on our live panels this week. All panels begin at 1PM New York| 6PM London| 8PM South Africa, andyou can register for them here. We created a booklist on Bookshop.org featuring some of the works from our panelists. For those who’s work isn’t available in the US, be sure to check out African Books Collective.
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 4th through Saturday December 10th! 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”
