Back in 2017

Thank you to all our contributors this year, especially Gary Cummiskey, Victoria Williams,and Eva Jackson. See you back in 2017!

Out There by Gary Cummiskey

Being Human After 1492 by Richard Pithouse

"We are all, in the sense derived from Walter Benjamin, formed from the catastrophe of history. Some of us have come out of that catastrophe with property, wealth, education, social standing and access to the agora. Others are impoverished, socially-scorned and governed with welfare, incarceration and violence. Some of us are valued. Some of us are disposable."

Singhfeld by Pravasan Pillay

Singhfeld

"Singhfeld is a comic book script written by Pravasan Pillay. In it we meet Prem Singh, a teenager growing up in the Indian township of Chatsworth, Durban in the 1990s, who falls obsessively in love with the television show Seinfeld. Prem decides that he wants to become a standup comedian like his hero Jerry Seinfeld, but faces opposition from his strict mother and his bully of an older brother."

It Came As Some Surprise by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0310

They said you can’t build something real from these fleeting motes that go by on a breeze. They said you can’t construct a life from scraps of other people’s.
Well we’ll fucking see about that won’t we?

People Will Die: Marikana & Fees Must Fall by Niren Tolsi

"For exactly 300 days, they sat: The traumatised. The tortured. The people who knew the dead. They had watched their family members, lovers, colleagues or comrades being killed. Over and over again. This was in evidence led at the commission of inquiry into the 44 deaths during an unprotected strike at Marikana in August 2012."

The Snow In Södermalm

In This Weekday Haze by Gary Cummiskey

People You May Know

Thabo Mbeki And Haiti

Richard Pithouse's extensive, elegant essay opens a new avenue in the ongoing work of assessing Thabo Mbeki's Presidency. It brilliantly outlines the experience and meaning of Haiti in the modern world, and the notes and affirms the positions that Mbeki took with regard to Haiti. Make sure you read this essential piece by one of South Africa's finest political essayists.

Green Mangoes Stockholm

The Trees Are Calling, Calling by Gary Cummiskey

Snackwich Nation

Pravasan Pillay continues his series of columns on sandwiches and this time he’s talking snackwiches.

När Livet Ger Dig Citroner

Victoria Williams: 0309

Every day the same trajectory. An abstract part of you rides as a passenger in the chariot which pulls the sun across the sky, looking down on your helpless body performing its daily rituals; catching this train and that, moving in the same worn circles; the future always an elaborate pantomime of the past, the same characters and villains appearing, each year in more exaggerated dress and painted faces. The endless waiting to be born; waiting to perform the right action which will allow you to be released into the brilliant, blinding, blank unknown. Do I mean the future? Or do I mean death? Or are they perhaps THE SAME THING? Haha, anyway, look at me rambling on! Happy birthday kiddo!

5 Authors Share Their Favourite Pieces of Writing

"We spoke to a host of writers to find out what their favourite pieces of writing are. Some shot back immediately with their most treasured text while others refused to single it down to one example of writing, but all of them ended up sharing with us, their source of written inspiration."

While I Lay Sleeping by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0104

Die Laughing Teaser Interview

Q&A with Anton Krueger & Pravasan Pillay on Books Live.

Girls

This short story by Pravasan Pillay was originally published in Volume 2, Issue 4 of South African literary magazine, Prufrock.

Sensation Desired by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0308

Have you ever thought about seeing a psychiatrist?
Has a psychiatrist ever thought about seeing me?

Eva Jackson: 0103

Celebrate Caster But Remember The Plight Of SA’s Black Sportswomen by Cheryl Roberts

"With all of South Africa locked in euphoria and celebrating the dazzling achievements of Caster Semenya, we can easily forget, hide away from, even, the black sportswoman’s struggle in this country."

In Case You Missed It: Don't Stop Until Incinerated by Gary Cummiskey

Gary Cummiskey's Don't Stop Until Incinerated is a short collection of poems that inhabit a desolate, disquieting place, a place in which the fabric of reality is threadbare. Cummiskey has mastered the art of minimalist unease, yet there are also moments of dark humour in these 26 starkly elegant poems, characterised by his iconoclastic surrealism.

Die Laughing Invite

The Rebellion Rocking Schools by Vashna Jagarnath

"In an interview at the turn of the millennium Sylvia Wynter, the Jamaican dancer, writer and theorist, observed that for a social order to exist intellectuals must establish and legitimate “the categories in which this order sees itself and knows itself”."

Tunnelbana Billboard

They Are Coming! They Are Coming! by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0307

Hobbies:
Getting competitive with strangers over who has the most severe emotional problems.

Die Laughing Invite

Stockholm Street Art

Caster Runs With Every Black Woman’s Struggles & Triumphs

"Caster Semenya’s devastating runs on the athletics track this year all around the world has installed her as the world’s leading athlete in the women’s 800m going into the discipline’s finals at 2016 Rio Olympics on August 20."

Red Pearl by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0067

"I know this means of communication may not be morally right to you as a person but I also have a great thought about it and I have come to this conclusion which I am about to share with you."

‘Exploit The Weak… Work! Consume! Die’: Power And Revolt In Comic Books by Christopher McMichael

"In such dystopian times, science fiction is uniquely positioned to interrogate politics and society. Despite outward appearances, the genre is far more successful at depicting the present than predicting the future. By extrapolating current anxieties and trends, it shows the true face of the contemporary through a distorting funhouse mirror."

Log Off

The Very First Hard Copy Of The Con

Blue Night by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0306

Someone pick me up and make sense of me.

Blueberries

7 Things You Should Know About Sharing a Bunny Chow

"The bunny chow, arguably the most iconic Durban street food and recently making waves in hip circles in the UK and the US, is at its heart a communal, working-class dish, meant to be shared with another person. However sharing a bunny is an esoteric art with lots of unwritten rules and etiquette – an etiquette that people eating their “reimagined” brioche or sour dough bunnies in London or New York may not be aware of. Pravasan Pillay lets you in on some of the things you should know before inviting your friend over to split a half-mutton."

All Tomorrow's Parties by Gary Cummiskey

Photographing At The International Library Of African Music by Siemon Allen

"In July 2015, I visited the International Library of African Music, or ILAM, in Grahamstown, South Africa for the first time. I had approached Diane Thram, ILAM’s director, in 2013 about a proposal to photograph their 78 rpm record collection. I was looking to expand on a project to visually document every South African record ever pressed. Admittedly, an asymptotic endeavor, if not quixotic!"

From Darrel Bristow-Bovey's Introduction to Die Laughing

Die Laughing

Die Laughing Winners Announced

The Short.Sharp.Stories Awards are very pleased to announce the WINNERS for the 2016 collection, DIE LAUGHING. Congratulations to all.

JUDGES’ CHOICE

BEST STORY
 'This Could Get Messy' by Greg Lazarus
“A simply wonderful story about love... funny, with its twists and turns, chuckles and sadness.”

NEXT ON THE PODIUM…

The Runners-Up…

'This Is Not A Joke', Maureen by Gail Schimmel
“Really funny despite its dark subject matter. The depiction of the humourless mother is exquisite.”

'Angel Heart' by Kobus Moolman
“Unconventional, with an adventurous play of syntax, and a truly original imagining of Jesus. Bizarre, and intriguing.”

EDITOR’S CHOICE
'Learning a New Language' by Fred Khumalo
“Tongue-in-cheek action which shows up misogyny… and makes a statement as to learning to appreciate women.”

HIGHLY COMMENDED
'Jim Goes to Durban' by Anton Krueger and Pravasan Pillay
“Good, honest, laugh-out-loud slapstick.”

'Number One With A Bullet' by Christopher McMichael
“Truly laugh-out-loud funny, with a satirical edge.”

'The Derby' by Ofentse Ribane
“Written with a sharp energy and an original take.”

'The Viewing Room' by Diane Awerbuck
“A sophisticated, melancholy and quirky story.”

'The Seduction of Ozzie Stone' by Stephen Symons
“The ironies, the plot, it all comes together in easy-flowing, integrated writing, and leaves one smiling wistfully.”

Taken By Night by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0305

I will rise again, from the flames of heartburn and indigestion.

Spice Shelves Stockholm

Bongani Madondo’s Sigh: The Real Shit by Richard Pithouse

"People are equal. Writers, like cooks and singers and dancers and lovers, are not. That’s just how it is. Most writers offer little in the way of new concepts, or new ways of appreciating the world. We move through pages and screens. A little time passes. A little life is lost. Nothing much changes. But some people write new meaning into the world. They stop, even if for a moment, the squandering of life. They enable us to experience, inhabit and make sense of the world in new ways. They intervene in being."

You Cannot See by Gary Cummiskey

Sjambok!

"Sjambok!" on Brittle Paper.

Announcement Of 2016 Short.Sharp.Stories Awards Shortlist

Short.Sharp.Stories is proud to announce the shortlist for this year’s competition, Die Laughing. 20 stories make up the shortlist. The winners will be announced in July, at the National Arts Festival.

Bastards And Badlands – A Conversation With Jason Aaron by Christopher McMichael

"His work on creator-owned titles like Scalped and Southern Bastards, and on books like Thor, Wolverine and Star Wars are characterised by a winning combination of fucked up situations, vivid characterisation and black comedy."

O Father, Tell Me, Are You Weeping? by Gary Cummiskey

Bhel Puri

Bessie Head: Thunder Behind Her Ears by Cebelihle Mbuyisa

"It took me about three weeks of careful reading to finish Gillian Stead Eilersen’s Thunder Behind Her Ears – a Bessie Head biography first published in 1995."

All The Things You Are by Gary Cummiskey

Tearoom Books Island

Victoria Williams: 0304

It’s funny how happy money makes me.

On Leaving The Durban International Film Festival by Sarah Dawson

"It was with great sadness that I left my position as manager of the Durban International Film Festival last week. I have been involved in the activities of the Centre for Creative Arts for the better part of a decade, and have been enriched – as both an individual and a South African – in innumerable ways by the complex and often difficult discussions that have taken place under the banners of the four esteemed festivals that the centre hosts."

Fade Away And Radiate 2 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0102

Jungle Jim #26

"The Green Ghost" by Pravasan Pillay in the upcoming issue of the pulp magazine Jungle Jim. The early blurb reads: "GHOSTS! VIGILANTES! FEMINISM! JUSTICE! - JUNGLE JIM #26: Coming soon!!!"

The Damned in the Jacaranda City by Percy Zvomuya

"Harare’s streets are expansive. It is as if the god of metropolises, while handing out talents to cities – gold and tsotsis to Joburg; sand to Gaborone; racists to Cape Town; 419 scammers to Lagos – could find nothing to give to Harare and so decided to give it wide streets."

Fade Away And Radiate by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0303

First Lines:
I will always regret not being more violent in high school.

Announcement Of 2016 Short Sharp Stories Awards Long List

"DIE LAUGHING will be the fourth of the Short.Sharp.Stories Awards anthologies, following BLOODY SATISFIED (2013), ADULTS ONLY (2014), and INCREDIBLE JOURNEY (2015), all positively reviewed in the media."

A Blind Prospector In Bambazonke Country by Percy Zvomuya

"Bambazonke ( Ndebele for winner takes all), the name by which Harare was grudgingly known in Bulawayo back in the 1980s, goes back to the foundation of the city itself."

Gary Cummiskey, Paris 2016

Victoria Williams: 0302

On Trying to Buy a New Dress:
I am dissatisfied, but content with that dissatisfaction. I have slipped into a delicious melancholic restlessness. Nothing pleases me. I am engaged in a search for something that cannot be found. I am confident something else will be revealed in time. In the morning, I’m an eternal optimist, blinded by the sun-filled windows; in the evening, a jaded pessimist, even though the sky is full of stars, but stars are dying, like everything else. I live a complete new life each day; each one turns out to be the same as the last.

Foot-path by Diana Bloem

A Person Cannot Be Illegal by Richard Pithouse

"The Con always celebrates when the smart ones in our extended family get their names on a book cover. At a time when xenophobic attacks appear to be on the rise again in Johannesburg and Durban, we publish an excerpt that examines the violent attacks of 2008 from Richard Pithouse’s recently released collection of essays, Writing the Decline (Jacana)."

Poetry And Art by Gary Cummiskey At Poetry Pacific

Six poems and seven artworks by Gary Cummiskey at Poetry Pacific, a Canadian-based poetry blogzine.

A Door by Diana Bloem

Rising To The Bait by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0301

Unlocked achievement:
Having the world’s slowest heart attack.

Cold Toast

Pravasan Pillay examines the roots of his relationship to toast. 

Who Are You? by Gary Cummiskey

Congrats!

Congratulations to V. Williams on her 300th post!

Victoria Williams: 0300

Watching Boys In Bands by Grethe Koen

"Of all the activities I have thrown myself into over the years, there is one that has dominated an inordinate part of my life."

Dance, Sister, Dance by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0066

"A golfer in your area wants to date you."

Black Prince by Vashna Jagarnath

"Today is the 54th anniversary of the assassination of the man born as Malcolm Little, known as Detroit Red during his period as a young hustler in Harlem, buried as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and popularly remembered as Malcolm X."

New From Tearoom Books: Don't Stop Until Incinerated by Gary Cummiskey

Gary Cummiskey's Don't Stop Until Incinerated is a short collection of poems that inhabit a desolate, disquieting place, a place in which the fabric of reality is threadbare. Cummiskey has mastered the art of minimalist unease, yet there are also moments of dark humour in these 26 starkly elegant poems, characterised by his iconoclastic surrealism.

Western Cinema’s Racist Heart by Vashna Jagarnath

"The recent challenge to white hegemony in Hollywood has been a long time coming. It’s not just Hollywood that is blind to its racism."

Internet Sentences: 0065

"Don't let the doctors and their worst case Sanrio bring you down."

HT: Eva Jackson

Forthcoming from Tearoom Books: Don't Stop Until Incinerated by Gary Cummiskey

From The Other Side by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0299

Well *I* am having a rockin' Saturday night...

Three Wheels

Fearful Deity by Gary Cummiskey