It’s time for the next great round of events on the Open Book Festival calendar; the Workshop Week programme is live!
Workshop Week is all about bringing experienced and emerging creatives together to hone their skills and learn from the best. Running from June 1-6 we have thirteen events of varying themes designed to share inspiration, garner new skills and take one’s writing out of the ideation phase and turn it into something more. We invite writers and creatives alike to enjoy a diverse line-up of workshops facilitated by some of our city’s top creators.
Every event has been carefully curated to offer skills every writer needs, and even some they didn’t know they needed. Our goal at Open Book is to bring unique groups of people together to share experiences, perspectives and knowledge. This allows us to learn from each other in a process that prioritises unity and collective growth in safe and welcoming spaces, key aspects to our ethos.
Event themes vary widely from The ABCs of Writing with Mohale Mashigo covering everything emerging writers need, to The Art of Everyday hosted by Reinhard Venzke who will demonstrate how we can use comics and zines to capture our lives. We are excited to have ClimateLounge (Sarah Robyn Farrell and Dela Gwala) and Siphokazi Jonas joining us again.
Alongside them we have The Writing Room (Toni Giselle Stuart and Chantel Erfort Manuel), Giles Griffin, the team from New Contrast (Robyn Paterson and Shane van der Hoven) and many others who each offer innovative and fresh concepts. Departing from previous years, there are two sessions running in the evening, both of which we are tremendously excited about.
The first is Listening to Cape Town’s History with Atiyyah Khan, and the second is Tea With Our Living Ancestors, facilitated by Natalie Sifuma and Stella Hertantyo, who are joined by Rizqah Dollie, Nadia Kamies and Andre Marais. The workshops will be held at Bertha House within their various spaces. Prior booking is essential as each event has limited capacity.
The programme can be viewed on our website where you will be redirected to Webtickets to complete your bookings. The Open Book Festival is the next exciting event on our calendar and we recommend blocking off the first weekend of September to make sure you don’t miss out. With numerous panels covering a broad collection of topics, there is something for everyone.
In between events visitors can browse through books, art and other amazing marketplace tables, get books signed, and enjoy the food and drink on sale at the Homecoming Centre.
Workshop Week would not be made possible without our sponsors, partners and participants. We are thankful to Bertha House for hosting us and to New Contrast, The Bookery, Celio Entertainment, Belgrado, ClimateLounge, Life Righting Collective and Future Nostalgia for all of the background work that goes into creating these events.
For programme updates and more information visit our website at openbookfestival.co.za We can also be found across various social media platforms. For the latest news follow @openbookfest on Instagram and BlueSky, and @openbookfestival on Facebook and LinkedIn
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