The healing power of life writing, one shared story at a time

This Is How It Is a “refreshing, poignant and wide-ranging” (Helen Moffett) collection of real life experiences: 52 stories, prose and poetry, that tell of a man who is anxious about an HIV test; a child with an alarming nose for gossip and a girl who is saved by the enemy in a war zone. Some of the writers are grieving the loss of a child or struggling with addiction, abuse, bullying or betrayal. Most of these writers have never been published before. They wrote these stories primarily to bear witness to their lives and the troubled times in which we live. Putting traumatic experiences down on paper can help people work through shame, guilt and fear, releasing them from the traps they lay. Writing is sometimes able to turn a painful incident into something more manageable, even beautiful.

Sharing stories can also heal both the writer and the reader. When we first meet a stranger, we make assumptions about them. When we hear of their life in their own words, we find that many of our negative assumptions are wrong. Often we discover that we are more alike than we are different. Our magnificent world is in trouble, much of it because we are not paying attention to what is right in front of us. When the facts don’t stir us to reconsider, story can. This anthology invites us to become curious and reflective rather than fearful and defensive. It encourages us to climb down from the ladder of hierarchy and competition and to join the circle of relationship and humanity by becoming vulnerable enough to share and listen to our own and each other’s half-hidden stories.

But equally importantly, Bongani Kona, 2016 Caine Prize finalist, reminds us: “We forget that the most daring thing we can do is to allow ourselves to be seen. To stand before the world and to say this is who I am. This is how it is.”

About THE LIFE RIGHTING COLLECTIVE: The Life Righting Collective (LRC) runs courses for anyone who wants to learn to write about their experiences. The approach promotes self-discovery, self-recovery and more effective communication. It raises funds to make courses available to those in need of sponsorship and to provide platforms for these life stories to be published. Sharing experiences with a wide readership can help reduce discrimination and promote mutual understanding. Visit the website: www.liferighting.com

The 100 Successful Women Around the World book is a compilation of amazing stories by incredible women from many sectors and many nations that have overcome great odds and achieved balance, daily routines, priorities, and see challenges as opportunities.

This book will inspire, motivate, teach, and empower the reader. It will have a powerful impact on their lives for years to come.

The following global organizations have joined forces to produce this book that will help women of all ages learn and grow in all areas of their lives:

• Global Trade Chamber (GTC)
• Ladies of all Nations International (LOANI)
• 100 Successful Women in Business

This is the first volume featuring the first 50 successful women from around the world.

Nelson Mandela: By Himself is the definitive book of quotations from one of the great leaders of our time. This collection - gathered from privileged authorised access to Mandela's vast personal archive of private papers, speeches, correspondence and audio recordings - features nearly 2000 quotations spanning over 60 years, many previously unpublished.

A Dangerous Love is an exhilarating, true love story that plays out in the chaos and lawlessness of the political turmoil that was South Africa in the late 80s and early 90s. The mayhem and desperation of a country whose social fabric is unravelling is mirrored in Karen Daniels’s own life, and hers is an up-close-and-personal account of life as a young woman of colour in the anarchy of early post-apartheid South Africa.

Karen Daniels was only 21 when she met Martin, a mysterious, dangerous man who, at 22 years of age, had the world at his feet. Captivated by this man, she was soon caught up in a love affair that turned into obsession and violence. Gutsy and charming, Martin wasn’t born into a life of crime and drugs, but his greed and passion soon pulled him into the underworld and he was overcome by a darkness he could not escape.

Hold your breath as Karen takes you with her on a roller-coaster ride into an abyss of armed heists, crime, and violent abuse. Her story shows how having such intense and conflicting emotions for a man – loving him and being petrified of him – is only a few heartbeats away from hate.

Karen’s eventual escape from this life is a success story that has taken her to the heights of the corporate world, and encouraged her to become an advocate for human rights and women empowerment. Her story is one of human resilience, courage and determination. It offers hope to those struggling to break free from their circumstances, and will inspire anyone who wants to live their best life and go from surviving to thriving.

"A tightly coiled story of obsession and crime that plays out in an era of lawlessness" - Terry-Ann Adams, author of Those Who Live in Cages.

For five years, Ndumiso Ngcobo, South Africa’s favourite big-headed columnist, has entertained Sunday Times readers with his hallucinations: amusing anecdotes, outlandish opinions and furiously funny tales that are required reading for legions of fans.

Eat, Drink & Blame The Ancestors is a collection of Ngcobo’s most memorable columns in that time, edited and reworked for maximum effect, providing the perfect overview of his unique and wonderful insights.

Whether he’s consuming fermented beverages and communing with the ancestors, describing life with his terrorist children and skollie dog (RIP Spiderman), or dissecting dung-beetle philosophy with the Men of Thurst, this is the finest and funniest writing in the land.

You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Wokelore is a thought-provoking collection of more than fifty articles, essays and stories you won't find anywhere else. From the independent and fearless newspaper Byline Times, it transports you from 1970s Europe to Putin's Russia, from the days of empire in Kenya to Brexit Britain, shedding light on America's political crisis and exposing the UK's disastrous handling of COVID-19. The work collected here - from an impressive range of writers including Bonnie Greer, Anthony Barnett, Musa Okwonga, Otto English, Misha Glenny and Salena Godden - covers race, identity, disinformation, populism, the state of journalism, threats to our democracy and more, each piece offering a fresh take and new ideas.

100 Voices is an anthology of writing by women across the country on what achievement means for them, and how they have come to find their own voice. Featuring poetry, fiction and memoir, the pieces range from notes on making lemon curd, to tales of marathon running and riding motorbikes, to accounts of a refugee eating English food for the first time, a newlywed learning her mother tongue and a woman rebuilding her life after an abusive relationship. The poignant, funny and inspiring stories collected here are as varied and diverse as their authors, who include established names such as Louise Jensen, Sabrina Mahfouz, Yvonne Battle-Felton and Miranda Keeling alongside a host of exciting new writers. Taken together, they build a picture of what it's really like to be a woman in the UK today.

Ons praat Afrikaans – diverse mense – een taal is meer as net nog ’n fotoboek: dit is die eindproduk van ’n projek wat sy ontstaan gevind het in een individu se liefde vir die Afrikaanse kultuur en taal, Douw Greeff. Die projek is geloods in 2016 toe fotograwe (amateur en ook professioneel) genader is om werke in te skryf wat hulle voel die Afrikaanse kultuur en taal raakvat. Verskeie inskrywings is ontvang en die top foto’s het deurgegaan na ’n beoordelings-rondte, waar ’n paneel die beste foto’s gekies het om in hierdie pragpublikasie te pronk.

What would happen, I wondered, if I simply missed out the fifty per cent of the population whose voices have been credited with shaping this particular 'cultural norm'. If I coppiced the woodland, so to speak, and allowed the light to shine down to the forest floor and illuminate countless saplings now that a gap has opened in the canopy. There has, in recent years, been an explosion of writing about place, landscape and the natural world. But within this, women's voices have remained in the minority. This anthology gathers the voices of women from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries whose subject is the natural world in Britain, Ireland and the outlying islands of our archipelago. Alongside the traditional forms of the travelogue, the walking guide, books on birds, plants and wildlife, Women on Nature embraces alternative modes of seeing and recording that turn the genre on its head. Katharine Norbury has sifted though the pages of women's fiction, poetry, biography, gardening diaries and recipe books and garnered accounts from artists, farmers, theologians and natural scientists to demonstrate the multitudinous ways in which women have observed the world about them. From the fourteenth-century spiritual revelations of Julian of Norwich to the seventeenth-century travel journals of Celia Fiennes, and including a host of twenty-first-century voices such Sarah Evans, Sinead Gleeson, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay, Rachel Lichtenstein, Amy Liptrot, Helen Mort, Anita Sethi and more, Women on Nature presents a fresh vision of the natural world and is of unique importance in terms of women's history and the history of writing about nature.

Travel writing matters Travel - at least how we once knew it - has changed. But while the pandemic has stopped many of us from seeing the world, it hasn't stopped us from dreaming about it. If anything, being confined to our homes has only ignited our desire to travel and, with it, our desire to experience the beauty of travel through the stories of fellow adventurers. This book is a collection of the 25 best travel stories published in a host of British magazines, newspapers and journals over the last two decades, as judged by some of the top names in the game today. The Best British Travel Writing of the 21st Century is an ode to travel and all that it offers, from the thrill of eating late-night tacos al pastor in Mexico City to scaling an active volcano in Ethiopia, meeting a master craftsman in Japan or learning the art of garifuna drumming in Belize. More than that, this anthology is a celebration of the craft of travel writing, and its ability to educate, inspire and build understanding between people and cultures. At a time marked by closed borders and stay-at-home orders, what could be more important than that?

Devoured by the Lovecraftian community and general readers alike, Leslie S. Klinger's best-selling New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, Volumes I and II were hailed as classics of the genre. Now, Klinger returns with the ideal annotated primer not only for Lovecraft devotees eager for a more portable version, but also students, literature-lovers, and curious newcomers looking for a scare. In "Dagon," one of Lovecraft's earliest stories, the terrifying idea of an unknown being at the bottom of the ocean is introduced for the first time; in "The Call of Cthulhu," the horror spreads beyond the sea. The iconic "Rats in the Walls" relates a journey into the depths of a haunted house and mind, while "The Outsider," is a twisted tale that will make the reader question everything. A necessity for any library, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories is an indispensable companion for anyone looking to experience a master at the height of his craft.

When a different kind of justice is needed---swift, effective, and personal---a new type of avenger must take action. VENGEANCE features new stories by bestselling crime writers including Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, and Karin Slaughter, as well as some of today's brightest rising talents.
The heroes in these stories include a cop who's seen too much, a woman who has been pushed too far, or just an ordinary person doing what the law will not. Some call them vigilantes, others claim they are just another brand of criminal.
Edited and with an introduction by Lee Child, these stories reveal the shocking consequences when men and women take the law into their own hands.
Full list of contributors:
Alafair Burke
Lee Child
Michael Connelly
Mike Cooper
Brendan DuBois
Jim Fusilli
Michelle Gagnon
Darrell James
C.E. Lawrence
Dennis Lehane
Steve Liskow
Rick McMahan
Adam Meyer
Dreda Say Mitchell
Michael Niemann
Twist Phelan
Zoe Sharp
Karin Slaughter
Orest Stelmach
Anne Swardson
Janice Law Trecker"

Twenty-six new short stories representing the state of the art in international science fiction.'Rare and wonderful' The Times The future is coming. It knows no bounds, and neither should science fiction. They say the more things change the more they stay the same. But over the last hundred years, science fiction has changed. Vibrant new generations of writers have sprung up across the globe, proving the old adage false. From Ghana to India, from Mexico to France, from Singapore to Cuba, they draw on their unique backgrounds and culture, changing the face of the genre one story at a time. Prepare yourself for a journey through the wildest reaches of the imagination, to visions of Earth as it might be and the far corners of the universe. Along the way, you will meet robots and monsters, adventurers and time travellers, rogues and royalty. In The Best of World SF, award-winning author Lavie Tidhar acts as guide and companion to a world of stories, from never-before-seen originals to award winners, from twenty-three countries and seven languages. Because the future is coming and it belongs to us all. Stories: 'Immersion' by Aliette de Bodard; 'Debtless' by Chen Qiufan (trans. from Chinese by Blake Stone-Banks); 'Fandom for Robots' by Vina Jie-Min Prasad; 'Virtual Snapshots' by Tlotlo Tsamaase; 'What The Dead Man Said' by Chinelo Onwualu; 'Delhi' by Vandana Singh; 'The Wheel of Samsara' by Han Song (trans. from Chinese by the author); 'Xingzhou' by Yi-Sheng Ng; 'Prayer' by Taiyo Fujii (trans. from Japanese by Kamil Spychalski); 'The Green Ship' by Francesco Verso (trans. from Italian by Michael Colbert); 'Eyes of the Crocodile' by Malena Salazar Macia (trans. from Spanish by Toshiya Kamei); 'Bootblack' by Tade Thompson; 'The Emptiness in the Heart of all Things' by Fabio Fernandes; 'The Sun From Both Sides' by R.S.A. Garcia; 'Dump' by Cristina Jurado (trans. from Spanish by Steve Redwood); 'Rue Chair' by Gerardo Horacio Porcayo (trans. from Spanish by the author); 'His Master's Voice' by Hannu Rajaniemi; 'Benjamin Schneider's Little Greys' by Nir Yaniv (trans. from Hebrew by Lavie Tidhar); 'The Cryptid' by Emil H. Petersen (trans. from Icelandic by the author); 'The Bank of Burkina Faso' by Ekaterina Sedia; 'An Incomplete Guide...' by Kuzhali Manickavel; 'The Old Man with The Third Hand' by Kofi Nyameye; 'The Green' by Lauren Beukes; 'The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir' by Karin Tidbeck; 'Prime Meridian' by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; 'If At First You Don't Succeed' by Zen Cho

Die geliefde en gevierde kortverhaalskrywer Hennie Aucamp is op 21 Maart 2014, slegs twee maande na sy 80ste verjaardag oorlede. In hierdie herinneringsboek word verskillende fasette van sy lewe deur familie, vriende en medeskrywers belig. Onder die familielede wat bydraes tot die boek gelewer het, is sy suster Rina wat herinneringe aan hulle kinderjare op die familieplaas Rus-mijn-ziel opdiep en sy neef Inus Aucamp wat meer vertel van die vestiging van die Aucamp-familie in die Stormberge. Die skryfster Margaret Bakkes, wat ook sy kleinniggie is en op 'n buurplaas grootgeword het, vertel hoe sy en Hennie reeds as kinders teenoor mekaar bely het dat hulle wil skryf. Daar is ook bydraes deur Marius en Christiaan Bakkes, wat oor Hennie se belangstelling in die natuur. Daar is besondere opstelle deur medeskrywers Lina Spies, Aletta Lubbe (gebore Aucamp), Danie Botha en Abraham de Vries, terwyl Daniel Hugo en Joan Hambidge gedigte opgedra aan Hennie gelewer het. Die radiopersoonlikhede Monica Breed en Margot Luyt skryf oor Hennie se ruimhartigheid en sy vriend Nico Loubser oor Hennie se laaste dae. Foto’s van Philip de Vos en Marius Bakkes skep 'n visuele beeld van die woordman Aucamp.

Self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet" Audre Lorde is an unforgettable voice in twentieth-century literature, and one of the first to center the experiences of black, queer women. This essential reader showcases her indelible contributions to intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race studies in twelve landmark essays and more than sixty poems-selected and introduced by one of our most powerful contemporary voices on race and gender, Roxane Gay. Among the essays included here are: "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" "I Am Your Sister" Excerpts from the American Book Award-winning A Burst of Light The poems are drawn from Lorde's nine volumes, including The Black Unicorn and National Book Award finalist From a Land Where Other People Live. Among them are: "Martha" "A Litany for Survival" "Sister Outsider" "Making Love to Concrete"

The first translation and publication of sixteen submissions to the notorious eighteenth-century Bordeaux essay contest on the cause of Black skin-an indispensable chronicle of the rise of scientifically based, anti-Black racism. In 1739 Bordeaux's Royal Academy of Sciences announced a contest for the best essay on the sources of "blackness." What is the physical cause of blackness and African hair, and what is the cause of Black degeneration, the contest announcement asked. Sixteen essays, written in French and Latin, were ultimately dispatched from all over Europe. The authors ranged from naturalists to physicians, theologians to amateur savants. Documented on each page are European ideas about who is Black and why. Looming behind these essays is the fact that some four million Africans had been kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic by the time the contest was announced. The essays themselves represent a broad range of opinions. Some affirm that Africans had fallen from God's grace; others that blackness had resulted from a brutal climate; still others emphasized the anatomical specificity of Africans. All the submissions nonetheless circulate around a common theme: the search for a scientific understanding of the new concept of race. More important, they provide an indispensable record of the Enlightenment-era thinking that normalized the sale and enslavement of Black human beings. These never previously published documents survived the centuries tucked away in Bordeaux's municipal library. Translated into English and accompanied by a detailed introduction and headnotes written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Andrew Curran, each essay included in this volume lays bare the origins of anti-Black racism and colorism in the West.

Where can a walk take you? Setting out after a cramped, hectic day indoors. Taking the weekend to hike to new views. Meeting a friend and settling into matching strides. Getting a feel for your new city on foot. It goes without saying, walking can move us forwards. This beautiful book captures the heart-opening, life-enriching, sometimes gloriously mundane magic of taking a walk. Built of original writing from a range of award-winning, beloved, striking authors, this is a beautiful book with something for everyone. Featured writers include Tim Parks, Kamila Shamsie, Will Self, Nicholas Shakespeare, Irenosen Okojie, Ingrid Persaud, AL Kennedy, Cynan Jones, Sally Bayley, Joanna Kavenna, Kathleen Rooney, Richard Ford, Harland Miller, Keshava Guha, Agnes Poirier, Josephine Rowe, Ingrid Persaud, Sinead Gleeson, Pico Iyer, Patrick Gale and Jessica J Lee.