Open Book Festival

The Open Book Festival is a trusted space in which difficult conversations are possible.  The festival, at its core, recognizes the importance of books to explore the world. Writers and their work is at the center of the Festival, along with the audience. We believe that the meaningful conversation is impossible, without the representation of the audiences. 

Book Lounge

The Book Lounge is located at 71 Roeland Street in Cape Town.  

Karavan Press

Karavan Press is an independent publisher based in Cape Town, South Africa, devoted to excellence and integrity.  They are passionate about the books they publish.

The Frightened by Lethokuhle Msimana

  Published by Karavan Press

“In this lyrical, fragmented novella, Lethokuhle Msimang uses autobiographical and poetic interventions to lead the reader thorugh landscapes of loss and longing, traveling between France, China, Spain and South Africa, to explore the troubled terrain of leaving and findinghome. 

The Bitterness of Olives by Andrew Brown

  Published by Karavan Press

Avi Dahan, a retired detective mourning his beloved wife in tel Aviv and Khalid Mansour, a Palestinain doctor confront the precarious reality of living in Gaza City – and are still reeling from the policital fallout that jeopardies their delicate friendship.  

Colleen Hicks. Modjagi Books

Colleen Hicks is a writer and publisher.She founded the ground-breaking independent southern African press, Modiaji Books in 2007.Through her publishing company she occasionally offers workshops on how to get published in South Africa. She has edited four editions of African Small Publishers Catalogue.  

The Bookery

The Bookery was established in 2010 and since then has set up more than 98 school libraries in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng, South Africa.  Professional libraries assist in keeping the organized supplied with reference, non-fiction and fiction books.  The Bookery provides at least three books per learner, carefully selected, to meet their individual needs and interests. The Bookery also trains librarians.  They have distributed more than 375,000 books throughout South Africa.

African Literary Cities Project

African Literary Cities Project – University of Cape Town 

“As a form of urbanity, the literary city can be considered a narrative that (re)produces itself in both material and imaginative forms and can thus not be read solely with one single disciplinary lens. The African Literary Cities Project at the University of Cape Town proposes the notion of “literary urban ecologies” to make sense of the complex entanglements and (re)productions of cityness and literature. We are not concerned with creating an authoritative definition of the African Literary City. Rather, we are interested in mapping how literary cityness is locally produced in the contexts of dynamic African cities that are constantly “ making connections of all kinds through their literary.”

Conversations with Mohale Mashigo

Otto Foundation

The Otto Foundation is the philanthropic trust of the Otto Family. The Trust was established by Chris Otto and his daughter, Zephne Ladbrook, in 2016. The Otto Family and the board of trustees has mandated the Otto Foundation to contribute to social justice and positive change in South Africa through projects that improve early literacy. 

Batis Books

Batis Books, based in Edinburgh  and publish beginning in early 2026. Batis will publish a handful of titles focusing on literary excellence and new talent from South Africa and Scotland. 

On Publishing with Pan Macmillan

Patient 12A by Lesedi Molefi – a candid and absorbing account of his time spent in a psychiatric clinic in 2016.

Book mentioned

Braids and Migranes by Andile Cele  - 

The Fragile Mental Health of Strong Women By Michelle Myeko Kekana

Elizabeth Howard, Producer and Host of the Short Fuse Podcast 

Elizabeth Howard is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast, conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others whose art reveals our communities through their lens and stirs us to seek change. Her articles related to communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, The Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others.  Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015) and Ned O’Gorman:  A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016). She leads reading groups at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York.  @elizh24 on Instagram

The Arts Fuse 

The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication’s over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. There is a robust readership for arts coverage that believes that culture matters.

The goal of The Arts Fuse is to treat the arts seriously, to write about them in the same way that other publications cover politics, sports, and business — with professionalism, thoughtfulness, and considerable attitude. The magazine’s motto, from Jonathan Swift, sums up our editorial stance: “Use the point of your pen … not the feather.” 

The Arts Fuse has published over 10, 000 articles and receives 80,000+ visits a month. This year the magazine is celebrating its 18th birthday - a milestone for a small, independent magazine dedicated to covering the arts.

Assist Arts Fuse in its mission:  keep arts and culture hale and hearty through dialogue, and not just marketing.  

Serious criticism, by talking about the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of the arts, plays an indispensable role in the cultural ecology. Smaller, newer organizations need a response. When they are ignored as they are by the mainstream media, they fail to gain an audience. And without an audience, they fold, further weakening the entire ecosystem.

SUBSCRIBE to the weekly e-newsletter

LIKE The Arts Fuse on Facebook, FOLLOW  on Twitter

HELP  The Arts Fuse thrive by providing underwriting for the magazine. Even better — make a tax deductible donation.

Malcolm D. Purkey 

Born to Cockney Jewish immigrant parents who were entertainers, Malcolm Purkey  is an actor, director, playwright, influential drama lecturer, and theatre administrator.  He holds a BA and Honours from University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, an MA in Theatre Studies from the State University New York,  is a Fulbright Scholar and  he is a Graduate of the British Film School. 

His career and contribution to theatre is monumental. It started in the mad bohemian world of Adam Leslie. While still a student he designed and developed The Box and The Nunnery Theatres for Wits and then managed the influential Workshop 71. He surrounded himself with a group of artistic academic friends who met in a house in Junction Avenue, Parktown.  They formed the Junction Avenue Theatre Company that created politically conscious plays that had an influence on theatre in South Africa.

Malcolm took a post lecturing drama at Wits (University of Witwatersrand) becoming Head of Department and an associate Professor. He was asked to assist the Market Theatre through a diffiult period and  turned it around. Malcolm has been a force in the theatre community and has had an enormous impact on hundreds of students. 

Elizabeth Howard, Producer and Host of the Short Fuse Podcast 

Elizabeth Howard is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast, conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others whose art reveals our communities through their lens and stirs us to seek change. Her articles related to communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, The Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others.  Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015) and Ned O’Gorman:  A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016). She leads reading groups at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York.  @elizh24 on Instagram

The Arts Fuse 

The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication’s over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. There is a robust readership for arts coverage that believes that culture matters.

The goal of The Arts Fuse is to treat the arts seriously, to write about them in the same way that other publications cover politics, sports, and business — with professionalism, thoughtfulness, and considerable attitude. The magazine’s motto, from Jonathan Swift, sums up our editorial stance: “Use the point of your pen … not the feather.” 

The Arts Fuse has published over 10, 000 articles and receives 80,000+ visits a month. This year the magazine is celebrating its 18th birthday - a milestone for a small, independent magazine dedicated to covering the arts.

Assist Arts Fuse in its mission:  keep arts and culture hale and hearty through dialogue, and not just marketing.  

Serious criticism, by talking about the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of the arts, plays an indispensable role in the cultural ecology. Smaller, newer organizations need a response. When they are ignored as they are by the mainstream media, they fail to gain an audience. And without an audience, they fold, further weakening the entire ecosystem.

SUBSCRIBE to the weekly e-newsletter

LIKE The Arts Fuse on Facebook, FOLLOW  on Twitter

HELP  The Arts Fuse thrive by providing underwriting for the magazine. Even better — make a tax deductible donation.

SUBCRIBE TO READING THE CITY

Order Tyler Wetherall's novel Amphibian

About Reading the City

 "Reading the City" is a weekly newsletter of bookish events in and around NYC, a weekly diary of upcoming New York literary life on a need-to-know basis. No long blurbs, no reviews, just book events of all stripes. "Reading the City" links to the author’s books, website, or social pages when possible. Tyler Wetherall, the founder and editor, is a believer in the  power of the literary community to raise each other up, champion one another, and help make the site an inclusive and welcoming space for all writers and readers. 

Tyler Wetherall is a  Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and teacher, and the author of No Way Home: A Memoir of Life on the Run (St. Martin’s Press) and Amphibian (forthcoming from Virago).   She arrived in New York from London in 2014, knowing just three people. She  carried with her a manuscript she had  written alone in a Victorian outhouse at the end of her mother’s garden in Devon. Her entire experience of the writerly life thus far was solitary—and pretty cold. She found herself in a  very special place called the Oracle Club (RIP) in Long Island City, and there  she met real life authors for the first time. After staying up late and  talking craft, drinking gin, and playing records, or reading poetry and howling into the night, she had  found her community, and through that community the practical and intellectual resources she needed to become an author myself. 

Photo credit:  Sammy Deigh

Elizabeth Howard, Producer and Host of the Short Fuse Podcast 

Elizabeth Howard is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast, conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others whose art reveals our communities through their lens and stirs us to seek change. Her articles related to communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, The Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others.  Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015) and Ned O’Gorman:  A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016). She leads reading groups at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York.  @elizh24 on Instagram

The Arts Fuse 

The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication’s over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. There is a robust readership for arts coverage that believes that culture matters.

The goal of The Arts Fuse is to treat the arts seriously, to write about them in the same way that other publications cover politics, sports, and business — with professionalism, thoughtfulness, and considerable attitude. The magazine’s motto, from Jonathan Swift, sums up our editorial stance: “Use the point of your pen … not the feather.” 

The Arts Fuse has published over 7,000 articles and receives 60,000+ visits a month. This year they are celebrating their 5th birthday, a milestone for a small, independent magazine dedicated to covering the arts.

Why The Arts Fuse? Its birth was a reaction to the declining arts coverage in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. When the number of news pages shrink in the mainstream media, attention is paid. But the continual whittling down of arts coverage has been passed over in silence. Editor-in-Chief Bill Marx started the magazine to preserve the craft of professional arts criticism online, while also looking at new and innovative ways to evolve the cultural conversation and bring together critics, readers, and artists.

Serious criticism, by talking about the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of the arts, plays an indispensable role in the cultural ecology. Smaller, newer organizations need a response. When they are ignored as they are by the mainstream media, they fail to gain an audience. And without an audience, they fold, further weakening the entire ecosystem.

Assist The Arts Fuse in their  mission: to keep arts and culture hale and hearty through dialogue rather than marketing.

SUBSCRIBE to the weekly e-newsletter

LIKE The Arts Fuse on Facebook, FOLLOW  on Twitter

HELP  The Arts Fuse thrive by providing underwriting for the magazine. Even better — make a tax deductible donation.

 Sonya Chung is the author of the novels The Loved Ones (Relegation Books, 2016) and Long for This World (Scribner, 2010). She is a staff writer for the The Millions and founding editor of Bloom, and is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize nomination, the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, the Bronx Council on the Arts Writers’ Residency, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a Key West Literary Seminars residency, a Studios of Key West residency, and an Escape to Create residency.  Sonya’s stories, reviews, & essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Tin House, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, Short: An International Anthology, and This is The Place: Women Writing About Home, among others. Sonya has taught fiction writing at Columbia University, NYU, and Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She is the Director of Film Forum. 

Film Forum

Film Forum began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a $19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership, Film Forum moved downtown to the Vandam Theater in 1975. In 1980, Cooper led the construction of a twin cinema on Watts Street. In 1990, Film Forum’s current Houston Street cinema was built at a cost of $3.2 million. In 2018, Film Forum raised $5 million to renovate and expand its Houston Street cinema, upgrading the seating, legroom, and sightlines in all theaters and adding a new, 4th screen. In 2023, Cooper stepped down as Director and was succeeded by Deputy Director Sonya Chung.

We present two distinct, complementary film programs – NYC theatrical premieres of American independents and foreign art films, programmed by Cooper (Advisor to the Director as of 2023), Mike Maggiore, and Sonya Chung; and, since 1987, repertory selections including foreign and American classics, genre works, festivals and directors’ retrospectives, programmed by Bruce Goldstein. Our third and fourth screens are dedicated to extended runs of popular selections from both programs, as well as new films for longer engagements. 

Film Forum is open 365 days a year, with as many as 250,000 annual admissions, nearly 500 seats, approximately 60 employees (of which half are full time), 6,500+ members and a $7 million operating budget. Approximately 80% of our budget is spent directly on programs. As a non-profit, we raise approximately 50% of our operating income. Public funders include: The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and various NYC agencies including the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Private donors include individuals, foundations, and corporate entities. Additionally, our members contribute more than $500,000 annually. This allows us to take risks on emerging filmmakers and challenging films. Film Forum has a $6 million endowment, begun in 2000 with a $1.25 million gift from the Ford Foundation.

Film Forum is the only autonomous nonprofit cinema in New York City and one of the few in the U.S. The success of our distinctive position is evidenced by our over 50-year tenure, during which our programs and fiscal resources have grown steadily. Sadly, since the 1970s, dozens of NYC art-house theaters (and a great number throughout the U.S.) have closed their doors.

As a cinema of ideas, Film Forum is committed to presenting an international array of films that treat diverse social, political, historical and cultural realities. Unlike commercial cinemas that primarily “book” high-grossing, Hollywood films, Film Forum’s programs are thoughtfully selected, with attention to unique cinematic qualities, historical importance individually or within a genre and – particularly for documentaries – relevance to today’s world.

Elizabeth Howard

Elizabeth Howard is the Host of the Short Fuse Podcast.

Arts Fuse 

The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication’s over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. There is a robust readership for arts coverage that believes that culture matters.

Adam Kuper

Professor Adam Kuper  is an anthropologist and public intellectual. He has held positions at a number of universities  and is a recipient of the Huxley Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Kuper is the author or editor of 19 books and  has published over 100 journal articles focusing on anthropological theory, the history of anthropology in the US and Britain, and southern African societies and cultures. He has made numerous appearances on BBC TV and radio, and reviewed regularly for the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Wall Street Journal. 

The Museum of Other People

Published by Penguin Random House, in this deeply researched, immersive history, Adam Kuper tells the story of how foreign and prehistoric peoples and cultures were represented in Western museums of anthropology. Originally created as colonial enterprises, their halls were populated by displays of plundered art, artifacts, dioramas, bones, and relics. Kuper reveals the politics and struggles of trying to build these museums in Germany, France, and England in the mid-19th century, and the dramatic encounters between the very colorful and eccentric collectors, curators, political figures, and high members of the church who founded them. He also details the creation of contemporary museums and exhibitions, including the Smithsonian, the Harvard’s Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, and the famous 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago which was inspired by the Paris World Fair of 1889.

Listen to an excerpt from The Museum of Other People 

Elizabeth Howard  

The Short Fuse Podcasts, hosted and produced by Elizabeth Howard, are conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others who have a lens on contemporary thought and stir us to seek change. With their art, their music, their performances, and their vision they lead us through the social and environmental transformations sweeping across the globe.

“Artists are here to disturb the peace.” James Baldwin.

The Short Fuse is distributed through the Arts Fuse, a journal of arts criticism and commentary.
 

The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and the Reclamation of Their Groundbreaking History   By:  Karen Valby

The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas, the first principals in the Dance Theatre of Harlem, who traveled the world as highly celebrated stars in their field and whose legacy was erased from history until now.

At the height of the Civil Rights movement, Lydia Abarça was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company—the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She was the first Black ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, an Essence cover star, cast in The Wiz  and on Broadway with Bob Fosse. She performed in some of ballet’s most iconic works with her closest friends—founding members of the company, the Swans of Harlem, Gayle McKinney, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Sells, and Karlya Shelton—for the Queen of England and Mick Jagger, with Josephine Baker, at the White House, and beyond.

Some forty years later, when Lydia’s granddaughter wanted to show her own ballet class evidence of her grandmother’s success, she found almost none, but for some yellowing photographs and programs in the family basement. Lydia had struggled for years to reckon with the erasure of her success, as all the Swans had. Still united as sisters in the present, they decided it was time to share their story themselves.

Captivating, rich in vivid detail and character, and steeped in the glamor and grit of professional ballet, The Swans of Harlem  is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of their historic careers, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long. During Covid, five ballerinas met weekly on Zoom and formed the 152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy Council. Karen Valby joined them and wrote their story

“Karen Valby’s The Swans of Harlem brings to life the stories of Black dancers whose contributions to the world of ballet were silenced, marginalized, and otherwise erased. Karen introduces readers to important figures of our past, while inspiring us to courageously chase our dreams.”Misty Copeland

“These five original Dance Theatre of Harlem ballerinas fell in love with an art form that most of America believed was white and should remain so. Upon Arthur Mitchell’s founding of an all-Black company in 1969, they eagerly took their places at the barre and challenged themselves to the utmost. They triumphed. They showed that Blacks could not only excel at classical ballet but could also shape the art in their own vibrant image. Karen Valby weaves their stories together as a choreographer would: the women form an ensemble, yet each gets her own riveting solo. It’s thrilling to watch as they join forces at last and claim their unique place in American ballet’s past, present and future.”—Margo Jefferson

152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy Foundation

The 152nd St. Black Ballet Legacy is an independent non-profit organization created by five trailblazing Black ballerinas.  Their professional careers began at the founding of Dance Theatre of Harlem, where their sisterhood was born.  They have enjoyed and nurtured their sisterhood for over 50 years and continue to thrive for the sake of preserving our their rich history.

Lydia Abarca Mitchell is a founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and their first prima ballerina. She danced leading roles in George Balanchine’s Agon, Bugaku, Concerto Barocco, Allegro Brillante, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, and Swan Lake, Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, Ruth Page’s Carmen and Jose, William Dollar’s Le Combat, and Arthur Mitchell’s Ode to Otis, Holberg Suite, and Biosfera. She was featured on the cover of DanceMagazine, in the movie The Wiz, and on Broadway in Bob Fosse’s Dancin’.  It was a stunning career on the world stage.

Karen Valby 

Author of Welcome to Utopia, and contributor to The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; Glamour; Fast Company; and Entertainment Weekly

Dance Theater of Harlem
The Dance Theater of Harlem was founded in 1969, during the Civil Rights movement by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook.

Harlem School of the Arts

Elizabeth Howard, Producer and Host of the Short Fuse Podcast 

Elizabeth Howard is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast, conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others whose art reveals our communities through their lens and stirs us to seek change. Her articles related to communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, The Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others.  Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015) and Ned O’Gorman:  A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016). She leads reading groups at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York.  @elizh24 on Instagram

Yoknapatawpha and Faulkner Conference in Oxford, Mississippi 

This is the longest continually running literary conference in the United States dedicated to the work of one author. This is the 50th Anniversary of the Conference, first held in 1974. 

Square Book Store, Oxford, Mississippi

 Square Books is a general independent bookstore in three separate buildings (about 100 feet apart) on the historic town square of Oxford, Mississippi, home of the University of Mississippi and many great writers, including William Faulkner, Barry Hannah, Larry Brown, and, for a time, both Willie Morris and John Grisham. The main store, Square Books, is in a two-story building with a cafe and balcony on the second floor; Off Square Books is a few doors down from the main store and has lifestyle sections such as gardening and cookbooks; Square Books, Jr., the children's bookstore, is in a building on the east side of the square; above it (in the site of the original bookstore) is the more recently opened Rare Square Books, which feature collectible, vintage, first edition books across a broad price range. Square Books is known for its strong selection of literary fiction, books on the American South and by Southern writers, a large inventory of reduced-price remainders, and its emphasis on books for children. The store hosts the popular Thacker Mountain radio show and over 150 author events a year.

University Press of Mississippi

University Press of Mississippi tells stories of scholarly and social importance that impact our state, region, nation, and world. We are committed to equality, inclusivity, and diversity. Working at the forefront of publishing and cultural trends, we publish books that enhance and extend the reputation of our state and its universities.

Dr. Jay Watson

Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies Jay Watson, a native of Athens, Georgia, received his B.A. degree from the University of Georgia (1983) and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University (1985, 1989). He joined the English department at the University of Mississippi in 1989, was promoted to Professor of English in 2007, and became UM’s second Howry Professor in 2010. During the 2002-2003 academic year he served as Visiting Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland, and he has since been honored with the UM Faculty Achievement Award (2012), the UM Liberal Arts Professor of the Year award (2014), and the UM Humanities Teacher of the Year award (2014). In 2013 he was a finalist for the Southeastern Conference Professor of the Year Award, and in 2018 he was the fall convocation speaker at UM.

Elizabeth Howard, Producer and Host of the Short Fuse Podcast 

Elizabeth Howard is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast, conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others whose art reveals our communities through their lens and stirs us to seek change. Her articles related to communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, The Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others.  Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015) and Ned O’Gorman:  A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016). She leads reading groups at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York.  @elizh24 on Instagram

Elizabeth Howard began hosting and producing the Short Fuse during the pandemic years. Those days when we were shuttered in our rooms. Displaced. Disoriented. Since then she has hosted 33 conversations, created a YouTube channel for online Short Fuse reading groups, and held live events at P&T Knitwear in New York, the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, and at the Portsmouth Athenaeum in New Hampshire.  You can find all of the Short Fuse conversations  on the Short Fuse website.

Dell'Aria Cafe is at 232 East 111th Street in East Harlem.  An authentic cafe with roasted Italian coffee ... and conversation.

Jasmine Rice LaBeija is a Drag Queen, who can often be found performing in New York City.

Rev. Michael Curry is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States.  He spoke at the memorial held for Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

Ann Kjellberg is the founder of Book Post. 

Bill Marx is the founder and Editor of the Arts Fuse, the online journal of arts commentary and criticism.

Kyle Dacuyan is a poet and the director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.

Valena Beety is the author of Manifesting Justice and works with Tasha Shelby.

Frank Young is the artist who created the collage for this episode. 

The Arts Fuse is  an on-line magazine designed to preserve the craft of professional arts criticism,  while also looking for ways to explore new and innovative ways to evolve the cultural conversation and bring together critics, readers, and artists. Substantial criticism -- by sparking lively, contentious dialogue about the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of the arts -- plays an indispensable role in the cultural ecology. Smaller, newer organizations are fostered by debate and evaluation. When they are ignored, as they are by the mainstream media, they fade away.

SUBSCRIBE to the Arts Fuse weekly e-newsletter

LIKE the Arts Fuse on  Facebook, FOLLOW on Twitter

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Justice Malala, is one of South Africa’s foremost political commentators and commentators and the author of the bestseller We Have Now Begun Our Decent:  How to stop south Africa losing its way.   He has been a columnist for the Times in SA, and written for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and the Financial Times. He now lives in New York.

Jonny Steinberg is the author of several books about everyday life in the wake of South Africa’s transition to democracy. He is a two-time winner of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award, South Africa's premier literary prize, and an inaugural winner of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes. Until 2020, he was professor of African studies at Oxford University. He currently teaches part-time at the Council on African Studies at Yale University's MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and is visiting professor at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) in Johannesburg.

Alex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at [email protected] with inquiries.