Award winning author was Carlyle Labuschagne beaming as her project; the SAIR (South African Indie Revolution) Book Festival went off without a hitch.
The event was held at Skoobs Theatre of books at Monte Casino last month.
Fans had their books signed by renowned local authors such as Fred Strydom, Sonia Killik, Joanne Macgregor and Adrienne Woods.
The festival’s main aim was to collect and donate a thousand books for the Pavement Bookworm Foundation.
The foundation supplies books to underprivileged children and schools. Working with the foundation’s Philani Dladla, not only did the festival meet it’s aim but surpassed it.
This allowed Carlyle to donate books to another organization BizKidz SA.
The author who is known for her young adult science fiction novel series Broken was thrilled with how well the festival was received.
“I am overwhelmed by the success of the festival. The community came together regardless of race, background or culture and wanted to help. This means we are leaving a legacy of reading in our community and showing people that reading and writing is a dream worth pursuing,” she said.
Another aim of the festival was to get local authors together and share their experiences of writing and publishing books to future authors.
Carlyle said the focus of the festival is on building a community of book industry people and co-promote each other.
”I want to inspire and assist established, up coming and young writers in the country,” she said.
Now Carlyle is looking for a school that needs books for their library.
This is part of another project called Help Build a Library in Africa.
She collects books while traveling aboard and helps a school build their library.
“I collect Young Adult novels which get the youth interested in reading because it’s important. It is another way to help continue the culture of reading,” she said.
If any schools are interested in having a library with exciting books to read for pupils can contact Carlyle via her website https://www.carlylelabuschagne.com/help-us-build-a-library.html
Those who want to donate books, there will be a collection bin at Skoobs available until November.
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