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Writers are doing it for themselvesCommunity Publishing Project press releaseIn the past five years, fourteen books have been published as a result of grants and mentoring from the Community Publishing Project, a joint venture of the Centre for the Book, NB Publishers, Nasou Via Afrika and now the MAPPP SETA. Colleen Higgs, manager of the Community Publishing Project says, “The grants and advice we offer mean that writers who are unlikely to get their works published by mainstream publishers have this avenue open to them.” The Centre published A rough guide to small-scale and self-publishing in 2005, which gives useful advice to writers who would like to publish their own work. From mid-2006 it will also be available in four other languages. The three most recent books are Mafube, a collection of poems in Sotho, and two chapbooks published by Aerial Publishing in Grahamstown: Exposures by John Forbis and As each new year opens by Paulette Coetzee. The Community Publishing Project, started in 2001 as a way of making it possible for books to be published that otherwise would not have seen the light of day, is changing the literary landscape in South Africa in small but important ways. Writers who have valuable manuscripts which are, however, not commercially viable, now have the possibility of receiving a grant to self-publish their work. The project challenges the idea that self-publishing is second best. As Monde Ngonyama says, “The bread I bake at home is no less important than the bread I buy from the shelf … Given the apathy of publishing literary works in African languages in particular, anyone undermining the self-publishing route would be denying a slice of bread to the hoping hungry weeping child.” Many of the recipients of Community Publishing Project grants have enjoyed the process of publishing as much as the writing, and found it at least as demanding and fulfilling. For more information about the Project or to apply for a grant, contact Colleen Higgs at (021) 423-2669 or colleen.higgs@nlsa.ac.za. The next selection deadline is 15th March 2006. For this round of applications “we are particularly looking for popular fiction, romances, crime fiction, and thrillers in all languages,” says Higgs. Go to www.centreforthebook.org.za for information about the books which have been published with CPP grants.
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