Programme Parked 2

Don’t miss out on all the fun and games with the amazing storyteller, Lwandiso Ntanga.

He is reading from The Day Mandela Came to Class.

Don’t miss the always awesome Bianca Flanders when she reads from her latest book, Pumpkin and the Hidden Heroes.

This will be followed by an activity session!

Please note that Bianca is no longer able to make this event and instead the amazing Buhle Ngaba will be reading the story!

Join the amazing Martinus van Tee for a storytime and activity session that explores The Witching Kitchen.

If you’re lucky he may also draw your portrait!

Upile Bongco is a household name and she’s coming to visit!

Join her to listen to Hard Shoes to Fill, followed by an activity session.

Join Zingisa Mase to find out why our names are so important.

She is reading from her book, We are our Names. The reading is followed by an activity session.

Don’t miss the always awesome Bianca Flanders when she reads from her latest book, Pumpkin and the Hidden Heroes.

This will be followed by an activity session!

Don’t miss out on all the fun and games with amazing storyteller, Lwandiso Ntanga!

He is reading from The Day Mandela Came to Class.

Join poet, event curator and creative worker, Zizipho Bam, for a workshop designed to build young poets’ performance skills behind the mic.

Don’t miss this opportunity to meet Upile, and listen to her read Big Shoes to Fill.

This storytime is followed by an activity session.

Calling all young poets and supporters of poetry!

Don’t miss this opportunity to get behind a mic and show your skills, or to support the people up on stage.

Hosted by Zizipho Bam and joined by headliners Amy ‘Brown’ Hendrickse and Yanga Gceya, this session is not to be missed!

Free Entrance but booking is essential.

If you want to perform RVSP to bamzizipho@gmail.com by 16 March.

Don’t miss this fun filled hour of stories and activities with Sino Hashe from Little Zebra Books!

The Writing Room is a monthly co-writing space in the heart of Athlone. Through yoga, guided visualisation and spacious writing time, we create an intimate community for writers who are working on long-term projects such as novels, poetry or short story collections, theatre or film scripts, memoir or academic theses.

Through yoga we connect deeply with the body, and breath. Then we offer a guided visualisation that deepens one’s awareness with the body and where and how the story one is working on, may be living and moving in their body. From this place of deep connection to the body and the story itself, writers then quietly work on their respective projects for an extended period of time.

During Open Book Workshop Week, we invite writers who are starting or working on long-term projects to join us, for a 4-hour session to experience The Writing Room for yourselves.

Please be sure to wear comfortable clothing.

Write a letter to the future while grounding your imaginings in action for the present! Join the Climate Lounge team, who will guide you through a process of crafting a letter to someone in the future, through a combination of imagining, writing and somatic embodiment. The workshop will give you the opportunity to connect with yourself and a radical hope for the future while being part of DearTomorrow’s global storytelling project, using the power of words to create the conditions for change. You will also have the option of your letter to be featured in the upcoming Letters to the Future installation at Open Book’s main festival in September.

Join Sindiswa Busuku for a session that centres writing and subversion. Bring your favourite fairytale, myth or folktale and be prepared to unpick it and sew it back together again in a way that resonates with our African present.

Please note that this is a two session workshop and you must be available to attend both sessions.

Session Two

When the world feels broken, imagination is more necessary than ever. But what happens when even our imaginations are saturated with collapse and catastrophe?
Join Climate Lounge for a writing workshop that aims to move beyond the familiar grammar of dystopia and into the work of imagining liveable, just, and ecologically alive futures. The workshop will draw on the visionary fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, the Solarpunk movement, and the African Speculative Fiction anthology Our Move Next that imagines into being, Pan-African visions of a post-Capitalist world. Together, we will explore how fiction can not only warn but also dream, design, and plant seeds for futures that transcend doomerism and dystopia.
The workshop will include a discussion on craft, close reading, and generative writing exercises, that will leave you with an expanded sense of what speculative fiction can be.

Join Sindiswa Busuku for a session that centres writing and subversion. Bring your favourite fairytale, myth or folktale and be prepared to unpick it and sew it back together again in a way that resonates with our African present.

Please note that this is a two session workshop and you must be available to attend both sessions.

Session One

The history of Cape Town exists in our living libraries — our elders that have grown up before us. And, if we don’t ask them about the everyday stories that shaped their view of this place, how do we continue to make sense of it as the next generation?
This intergenerational storytelling exchange invites young people (18–35) to bring an elder they admire — a grandparent, an aunt, a neighbour, a mentor — and sit down together to talk over tea. Drawing on South Africa’s long tradition of oral storytelling, the workshop creates a structured but intimate space for the kinds of intergenerational conversations that don’t usually happen in the rush of everyday life.
This is an event about archiving the ordinary. The everyday memories, domestic rituals, and personal histories that don’t make it into the history books, but that are the real texture of this city.
This session is facilitated by Natalie Sifuma and Stell Hertantyo, who are joined by Nadia Kamies and André Marais.

Creativity has long been an expressive, healing and transformative practice for queer people. Come celebrate your story – your courage and creativity, your raunch and resilience, your wisdom and wit, your authenticity and hope. Join Giles Griffin and guests for a supported two-day exploration of writing ourselves right, out and proud! Writers of all levels (including beginners) welcome!
We will provide basic materials, but please do bring your own pens and journals.

Please note this is a two session workshop and you will need to be available for both.

Session 2

Join award-winning performer and theatre-maker, Rehane Abrahams, for a two part workshop that centres our complex relationship with the sea. Through embodied experience, she will guide you in an excavation of text from the body, reconnecting you with your deep emotional self.
Please wear comfortable clothing and be sure to bring a yoga mat, pillow and any writing or drawing materials.

Please note that this is a two session workshop you will need to be available for both sessions.

Session 2

This interactive workshop is designed for all creatives interested in modern storytelling across multiple formats.
Using a curated excerpt from Belgrado – an original digital series – participants will explore how written narratives can be transformed into visual and digital experiences.
Participants will work with a short excerpt from the Belgrado ebooks whether it’s a scene or character design information. By the end of the session, participants will understand how stories can move beyond the page into visual formats, gain practical experience in adapting written ideas into visual concepts, and develop confidence in their own creative interpretation and storytelling voice.

This workshop is brought to you by Celio Entertainment.

Join the acclaimed Mohale Mashigo for a workshop aimed at emerging writers. Touching on everything from how to get started, to integrating writing into your day, and ways to work through writing blocks, this session is not to be missed.

We will provide paper and pens, but please bring any of your own preferred writing tools

Creativity has long been an expressive, healing and transformative practice for queer people. Come celebrate your story – your courage and creativity, your raunch and resilience, your wisdom and wit, your authenticity and hope. Join Giles Griffin and guests for a supported two-day exploration of writing ourselves right, out and proud! Writers of all levels (including beginners) welcome!
We will provide basic materials, but please do bring your own pens and journals.

Please note this is a two session workshop and you will need to be available for both.

Session 1

Join award-winning performer and theatre-maker, Rehane Abrahams, for a two part workshop that centres our complex relationship with the sea. Through embodied experience, she will guide you in an excavation of text from the body, reconnecting you with your deep emotional self.
Please wear comfortable clothing and be sure to bring a yoga mat, pillow and any writing or drawing materials.

Please note that this is a two session workshop you will need to be available for both sessions.

Session 1

How do we navigate fear and uncertainty in ourselves and in our work in this time?

Facilitated by Siphokazi Jonas, this workshop is open to all writers and will create space and time to look inwards and see what has shifted. To ask what kind of creatives we have been and who we intend to be in this time. To ask how we can show up for each other and the world in our writing.

Join Robyn Paterson and Shane van der Hoven from the New Contrast team for a session that highlights some common errors they have noticed come up regularly when reviewing submissions. This interactive workshop focuses specifically on the submission process providing writers with tools and practical knowledge that will help give them the best chance at getting published. You will leave the session with clear knowledge of how to understand and read a submission call, what kind of writing editors are looking for, the difference between a draft and final submission piece, structuring a submission and what information to include/not include, submission no-nos and etiquette, and crafting a compelling cover letter and bio.

Brought to you by New Contrast.