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PROFILES K-L
Karabo Kgoleng hosts a literature programme on the national radio station SAfm and also presents the weekday Afternoon Talk show, where she engages audiences with unique passion and energy. She tries to write sometimes but would rather leave it to the professionals, whose ways with the word inspire her to spread the message to the rest of the world. She’s a Francophile who serves as Secretary General on the board of Alliance Francaise, Johannesburg, a French language and culture institution. Karabo is in the Mail & Guardian Book of South African Women for her role in promoting the arts through media. This will be her 3rd
time as host at FLF, one of her favourite events on the books calendar!
Karin Schimke is a journalist , columnist, writer and poet, and is widely published in all genres. She is also a writing mentor and tutor, a book reviewer, and host of the Monday night Off-The-Wall poetry gig in Obz. She lives in Cape Town with her two children.
Kei Miller is a poet and novelist from Jamaica. He has written three books of fiction and three collections of poetry, most recently The Last Warner Woman and A Light Song of Light. Kei has been an International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa, a Vera Rubin Fellow at Yaddo, and presently teaches at Glasgow University in Scotland.
Kobus Moolman, an award-winning poet and playwright, educator and editor, teaches creative writing in the Department of English at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. He has published five collections of poetry: Time like Stone (which received the 2001 Ingrid Jonker Prize), Feet of the Sky, Separating the Seas (recipient of the 2010 South African Literary Award for Poetry), Anatomy (winner of the 2008 DALRO Prize for the best poem to appear in New Coin magazine), and his latest, Light and After. His award-winning play, Full Circle, was produced at the Oval House Theatre in London, and in the United States. The play was published in 2007. Kobus has also published a collection of his radio plays, Blind Voices, featuring a CD of the BBC production of his play, Soldier Boy. He was editor of the literary journal, Fidelities, from 1995 until 2007. In 2010 he edited and published, Tilling the Hard Soil: poetry, prose and art by South African Writers with Disabilities (UKZN Press). He has a PhD in English Studies from UKZN.
Lauren Beukes is an author, cartoon scriptwriter, award-winning columnist and self-described recovering journalist. She’s also published a rollicking non-fiction, Maverick: Extraordinary Women From South Africa’s Past and various short stories, most recently as part of the cell phone lit project, Novel Idea. She is head scriptwriter at SA’s largest animation studio, Clockwork Zoo and has published two novels in three years, Moxyland and Zoo City.
Leon de Kock is the author of three volumes of poetry (Bloodsong, gone to the edges and Bodyhood), several works of literary translation (including Triomf – Marlene van Niekerk, Intimately Absent and Before it Darkens – Cas Vos poems, and In Stede van die Liefde / In Love’s Place, a forthcoming Etienne van Heerden novel. His own novel, Bad Sex, will be published by Umuzi in September. In addition, he has published a monograph, Civilising Barbarians, is the compiler of several collections of SA writing and criticism (including South Africa in the Global Imaginary), and has written many academic articles on various topics in literary and cultural studies. Until July 2010 he was Head of the School of Literature and Language Studies at Wits, where he convened the Creative Writing programme. He is now Professor and incoming Head of English at Stellenbosch.
Leonora van Staden grew up in Johannesburg and completed a BA (Fine Art) Information Design at the University of Pretoria in 2002, then moved to Cape Town where she worked as a copywriter and designer at an advertising agency. In 2004 she decided to follow a career in fine arts and completed her MA (Fine Art) cum laude at Stellenbosch in 2006, specialising in comics and sequential graphic narrative. For a while she lectured part time, but nowadays focuses entirely on her art and works from her studio in Stellenbosch. Some of the highlights of her career include winning the Sanlam Vuleka art award in 2007, and doing an artist's residency at the Fumetto Comics Festival in Switzerland in 2010.
Leslie Swartz is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Stellenbosch. Most of his work is in the field of disability studies, and he is well known locally and internationally for his writing in this field. Current projects include research capacity building for members of disabled people’s organisations in ten southern African countries, and work on improving access to health care for disabled people. He is especially interested in different forms of writing and communication about disability, and previous work includes a collaboration with Angela Buckland, a photographer who is the mother of a disabled child (Zip zip, my brain harts, HSRC Press, 2006). Leslie has two adult daughters and is married to Louise Frenkel, also a clinical psychologist. He is chronically untidy and disorganised but somehow gets things done.
Lindsay van Rensburg is twenty-five years old. She was born and raised in Cape Town, where she still lives. She received her Honours in English Literature from UWC and is currently the Junior Editor at Kwela Books where she, among other duties, oversees the publication list for the romance imprint, Sapphire Press.
Lindy Stiebel is Professor in English Studies at UKZN, teaching South African and African literature. She has written extensively on Rider Haggard, and also about Thomas Baines and Lewis Nkosi. Her research interests continue to be writers as linked to place, as is evident in the project she has headed for the past 10 years, KZN Literary Tourism. This project is unique in South Africa in its development of Literary Tourism as a research field – to date the website (www.literarytourism.co.za) hosts entries on 90 KwaZulu-Natal writers, together with research papers gathered from the project’s workshops, podcasts, literary maps, book reviews and interviews. Six writers’ trails have been developed, with the latest being on Midlands Writers. Several, including the Cato Manor Writers and INK Writers trails, provide scope for community involvement.
Lynda Gilfillan: My entire professional life has been focused in some way or other on reading, teaching and evaluating literature. After lecturing in English at the University of Pretoria, I zig-zagged southwards via a farm in the Karoo to Cape Town, where I have lived for the past eight years. Reflecting my special interest in the construction of identity, my doctoral thesis is on black South African autobiographical writing. I have authored, co-authored and co-edited various books, and also dabbled in journalism. Then in 1996 I embarked on a career change that continues to challenge and delight me – for anyone who loves words, editing is a wonderful form of work. The real bonus is collaborating in a very intimate way with creative minds, and I have been especially privileged to work with some of South Africa’s most talented authors.
Lynn Carneson is a writer, poet, corporate governance consultant and Senior Fellow at Stellenbosch. Her recent biography, Red in the Rainbow, about her activist parents, Fred and Sarah Carneson, has been nominated for the Alan Paton award. The family survived years of banning, house arrest, psychological and physical torture, imprisonment and exile. The triumph of the elections in 1994 vindicated the sacrifices that were made. The Struggle left its scars and also produced great heroes. A lot of what was learnt during the Struggle is still relevant today, particularly about the importance of ideology, humanity, freedom of speech and the dangers of racism.
