Colleen Higgs launched Modjaji Books, the first publishing house for southern African women writers, in 2007. Her first collection of poetry, Halfborn Woman, was published in 2004. She lives in Cape Town with her partner and her daughter.

An invaluable reference book for publishers or anyone interested or in any way involved in the African book/publishing/literary scene, or writers looking for a publisher. Lists a wide range of over 60 small and independent publishers in countries from around Africa. The catalogue also contains articles about publishing the indie way, book-making in the time of COVID-19, and more. Includes publishers from South Africa, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Senegal, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Nigeria, the United States, Canada, Togo, Mozambique, Morocco, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Algeria, Egypt, Uganda, and Namibia.

A woman reluctantly takes on the responsibility of putting her eccentric rebellious mother into a retirement home, and managing her care. She has her own daughter to raise and nurture, a marriage and a business to hold together, and her own psychological troubles due in good part to how she was mothered.

My Mother, My Madness is Colleen Higgs’s diary of her mother’s last ten years. It is at once funny, harrowing, mundane, chaotic, and full of insight. It is a rich and moving story which unfolds through its characters like a novel.

Colleen Higgs is the author of two collections of poetry (Halfborn Woman, 2004, and Lava Lamp Poems, 2011) and a short story collection (Looking for Trouble – Yeoville Stories, 2012). She founded Modjaji Books in 2007 and, after publishing more than 150 books, is still Modjaji’s manager and publisher.

Reference book, catalogue. Lists a wide range of small and independent publishers in the following African countries: Algeria, Namibia, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Senegal, Zimbabwe. The catalogue contains listings of well over 60 different publishers from all over Africa. There are useful resources for writers and publishers. The back of the catalogue contains articles and short essays about the publishing scene in mostly, but not only Anglophone Africa. There are also items and innovations that are of interest to writers, booksellers, publishers, librarians, and all of those who are interested in the world of African publishing and book development.

A collection of short stories set in Yeoville from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The stories capture with a dark humour the lives of young people trying to make a go of things, given the constraints of the country and the volatile period. Most of the stories have been published in literary magazines or in collections of stories including a collection published in Uganda. A slightly earlier version of the title story was published in a collection of stories by South African women edited by Maggie Davey, Dinaane, Telegraph Books, London.