Tag: Max Annas

This Week in Literary News

Our weekly round-up of literary news here at Catalyst and beyond, is brought to you by our intern Naomi Valenzuela. Naomi is from Phoenix, Arizona and El Paso, Texas, and is majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in English & American Literature at the University of Texas, El Paso, with plans of working in the publishing business after graduation.

Over at NPR, there’s an article with author L.L. McKinney about Barnes & Noble’s controversial campaign for Black History Month. Read and listen about why people have taken an issue with it, and ways it could have been better.

Get in the Valentine’s Day spirit at the Washington Post with this list of authors dedicating their books to their loved ones.

Our own Caroline Kurtz (A Road Called Down on Both Sides) is working the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association to help bring electricity to Maji, a town in Ethiopia she considers her second home. Read all about this effort at NRECA International

We are also pleased to announce Max Annas’ (The Wall, The Farm) book tour this month! You can find out more information about places and dates here.

Take a different perspective into this everyday act of many South Africans on Okayafrica. Artist and photographer Luxolo Witvoet has a photo series on Cape Town’s frustrations and dependencies on their train system.

Oscar season may be over but on LitHub there is this year’s, Book Oscars. Here Emily Temple narrows down the best of recent literature’s setting, literary citizens, and much more.

Need to kill some time? Check out these super short flash fiction stories that have a lot to say over on Electric Lit.

Also on Electric Lit, recommendations for readers looking to step outside comfort zones and into the bizarre and sometimes unsettling. Author Sean Adams recommends these seven books with reality-bending settings.

Book Tour: Max Annas

This month, author Max Annas (The Wall, The Farm) is heading South. Through a collaboration with Goethe-Institut, an organization promoting German cultural exchange abroad, Max will be appearing at various locations in South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. Times and locations are still being finalized, so check back for updates!

 

 

Monday, February 17: Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC
Monday, February 17: Hub City Books, Spartanburg, SC
Wednesday, February 19: University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
Thursday, February 20: Auburn University, Auburn, AL
Saturday, February 22: Goethe-Zentrum, Atlanta, GA

Coming in 2020: Upcoming Releases Part 2

A few months ago, we covered what you’ll be seeing from us in the first half of 2020. And if we did the math right, that means we owe you news about six more months of releases. So here it is! We think we’ve got something for every kind of reader — from those reading their very first books, to those who’ve been reading for just a little bit longer. Many of these books are available for pre-order now. Continue reading “Coming in 2020: Upcoming Releases Part 2”

From the Editor’s Desk…

A few months ago, we introduced a semi-regular feature in our newsletter called From the Editor’s Desk, in which our intrepid founder/editor/publisher/almost everything else-r, Jessica, gives our subscribers an update on all of the Catalyst Press goings-on. Since we’d like as many people as possible to stay up-to-date on our new and upcoming releases, we’ve decided to repost them here beginning with the installment that appeared in our July newsletter. These will be posted after they appear in the newsletter, so if you want to find out what’s going on before they make their way here, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter!

This summer has felt a bit like getting hit by a truck. (This actually happened to me 13 years ago, so it’s not entirely a specious comment.) My husband took the position of Dean of Language Arts at the college where I teach, which meant my 10 year teaching career at that particular college was now over. (The college has certain rules against professors sleeping with the dean.) (And no, it didn’t matter that I had taught there for 10 years prior to his becoming a dean.) (Do I sound bitter? It’s OK. I’ll miss teaching but I love my job at Catalyst.) (Aaannnd….that’s probably enough parentheses….) This led to our putting our house up for sale. We got it ready in a month and sold it in one day, all of which has left us exhausted. We are now moving and will be doing the apartment thing for awhile. It’s a whole new life in foggy California, right beside the ocean, right along the San Andreas fault.

Continue reading “From the Editor’s Desk…”

Excerpt of The Wall at CrimeReads

It’s official! Max Annas’ new thriller The Wall (translated by Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds) has made its North American debut in both paperback and audio versions! You can order here. The German edition of Max’s taut thriller earned him the 2017 German Crime Writing Prize, and we’re excited to bring this story to English-language readers.

In The Wall, we meet Moses. All he wants to do is get home to his girlfriend and enjoy a cold beer on a hot day. When his car breaks down outside of an exclusive gated community in East London, South Africa, Moses hops the fence seeking help from an acquaintance inside. What follows next are tense hours of mistaken identity, fear, and violence as Moses discovers that the walls that were meant to keep the residents safe are now his biggest danger. Head over to CrimeReads to read an excerpt from the novel:

The metallic clang of the gate was still echoing in Moses’ head as he started to question his decision. They all looked the same, these gated communities. Houses facing each other, curving or angular streets, walls on the distant horizon. But he really thought he remembered this place. The six streets that curved away in identical arcs from the wall at the entrance. The houses carefully placed so they didn’t sit directly across from each other. The gently sloping site. To the right, beyond the outer wall, a hilly terrain, quite high at certain points. To the left, the road along which he had just come. Moses had a good visual memory. Yes, this was the subdivision he had visited last year. But where did that classmate live? Danie? Or Janie after all? And what would be the best way for him to try to find him?

Three of the streets started to his right, three to his left, all of them running in similarly soft continuous curves to the left. The houses within sight of the entrance were all one-storied. He could see the two-storied ones starting much further back in the enclave. And behind those flowed the river, if he recalled rightly. The Nahoon River, beyond the back wall. He hadn’t gone back that far last time. Or had he? But how far was that?

“Remember,” Moses said to himself. He walked a few meters to the left and stared down one of the streets, then in the other direction. Decided to start with the rightmost street, tackle things systematically. He’d remember when he saw the house.

Read the rest at CrimeReads

Q&A with Max Annas

The residents of The Pines, a community in East London, South Africa, put up walls and gates to protect themselves from the dangers of the outside world. But what happens when the thing that’s meant to keep people safe, becomes someone’s biggest threat? That’s the question posed in Max Annas’ upcoming release The Wall, out on May 21 (paperback, digital, and audio versions). In this taut, fast-paced thriller, Max tackles issues of race, class, exclusion, and violence, but with a light touch that makes The Wall a surprisingly humorous book. This is Max’s first book in English (and you can learn more about Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds, the book’s translator, here).

We chatted with Max about his influences, The Wall, and the magic of seeing his book “living in another language.” Pre-order your copy of The Wall through IndieBound. This Q&A first appeared in our monthly newsletter. If you want to be the first-to-know about events, sales, and fun extras like these author Q&As, be sure to subscribe! Continue reading “Q&A with Max Annas”

From the Editor’s Desk: 2018 Reflections

This comes from our newsletter series, From the Editor’s Desk, where Catalyst founder/publisher, Jessica, gives you a peek behind the Catalyst curtain. Subscribe to our newsletter to get more looks inside Catalyst HQ, author Q&As, giveaways, and more!

I have to tell you the truth, I’m feeling kind of tired. But it’s a good tired! 2018 was a whirlwind year (following 2017, its own kind of whirlwind) and included many firsts. For this Editor‘s Desk column, I thought I’d tell you what some of those firsts were–all of them worthy of celebration. And hopefully I’ll find some time to do just that this month–celebrate all the firsts of 2018. Continue reading “From the Editor’s Desk: 2018 Reflections”

Coming Attractions

We’ve had a good year so far. Since January, we’ve released four books making our current catalog six books deep. We’re really proud of the work we’ve been able to do since we’ve launched, and we’re excited about what the future holds.

Let’s talk about the future.

We can’t wait for you to read our next releases. There are kid’s books, thrillers, sci-fi, graphic novels, memoirs, fiction, non-fiction, you name it. We thought we’d share some of the great Catalyst titles coming to bookstores in the next year. Some are available for pre-order right now, if that’s your thing (we hope it’s your thing). And if you’re looking for any of our current titles, they are for sale right here on this very site, if that’s your thing (we hope that’s your thing, too). You can keep up with us as we share more news about these releases by signing up for our newsletter. Continue reading “Coming Attractions”