THE 11th Olive Schreiner Karoo Writers Festival took place in Cradock last weekend.
The festival started on Thursday with the first of the AVBOB Poetry projects for educators, coaches and performers.
All sessions of the very popular poetry project were sold out long before the weekend.
Popular Cradock writers, Chris Marais and Julie du Toit, amazed their listeners with an interesting talk about their experiences compiling information for the book, The Flanagen Journey, on extraordinary South African women who have made their mark in the world. The festival was also the launch of Marais and Du Toit’s follow-up of their bes- selling Karoo Roads, entitled Karoo Roads 2.
Another Cradock writer, Freda Frolick, who has just released her first poetry collection, spoke about her journey writing poems and, together with Elona Rasmeni, a Cradock resident who published his experiences as a drug addict, joined Dean Allen at an early coffee show on Saturday morning to talk about how their books came to life.
At 11.00 also on Saturday, AJ Opperman, who grew up in Cradock and is now a reporter in Cape Town, lifted the curtain on his experiences, talking about the stories behind the stories.
It was also announced at the festival that Tony Jackman, another Cradock writer, was named the best Galliova Food Writer for 2021.
South Africa’s foremost crime writer, Deon Meyer, who has now also turned to producing films, was a guest at the festival and discussed in true Meyer fashion, the magic of movies. His first movie, Jagveld, was shown at the Victoria Manor.
“Meyer loves the Schreiner Festival and assured us that he will return next year. He is very busy working on another movie, a documentary and two series,” Lisa Ker, one of the organisers, said.
The festival, which is named after the writer, Olive Schreiner, celebrated 100 years after her internment on a mountain top outside Cradock, and festival goers were introduced to the Kate Stewart letters – correspondence of yesteryear between Kate and Olive that have only been discovered recently.
Discussions about the possibility of Cradock becoming an arts town, as well as the development of promoting the Schreiner House Museum and promoting literacy tourism, were also discussed at a workshop.
Ker said that they were happy about this year’s festival.
“It was well attended. We had small but engaging audiences, which was perfect in COVID-19 times. All genres of art and writing, poetry, music, food, investigative journalism, crime and long historic novels were discussed,” she said.
