Dryad Press is an independent South African publisher that promotes and publishes South African poetry. At Dryad Press we publish poetry, which in the words of Roland Barthes searches for “the inalienable meaning of things”. Read more
Postnet Suite 281
Pvt Bag X16 Constantia
Cape Town 7848
Copyright 2024 | Website by Webfactory
P. R. Anderson has published three volumes, Litany Bird, Foundling’s Island and In a Free State: A Music (“Destined to be a landmark in South African poetry” – J.M. Coetzee). Peter is the recipient of South Africa’s Thomas Pringle Prize for Poetry (2018) and the Sanlam Literary Award (2006), and was runner-up in the Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize of Canberra University in 2017, judged by Simon Armitage, and in The Rialto/RSPB “Nature and Place” competition in 2020. He teaches English at the University of Cape Town. His work has appeared in The London Magazine, Denver Quarterly, TEXT, The Rialto, New Contrast, New Coin, and other magazines. His collection forthcoming from Dryad Press is Night Transit.
Michèle Betty is the founder of Dryad Press (Pty) Ltd, an independent publishing company dedicated to the promotion and publication of poetry in South Africa. She has a BA LLB from the University of Witwatersrand and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. Her poems have appeared in journals both in South Africa and abroad and have been widely anthologised. Her debut collection, Metaphysical Balm (2017) was shortlisted for the 2018 Ingrid Jonker Prize. Her second collection, Dark Horse, (2023) was a finalist in the 2024 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, a finalist in the 2024 Humanities and Social Sciences Award in Poetry and the winner of the 2023 South African Literary Award for Poetry. Most recently, she has co-edited, (with Sally Ann Murray) a book of essays on creative practice in the arts, titled The Creative Arts: On Practice, Making and Meaning.
Oliver Findlay Price was born in 1935, attended St. John’s College, Johannesburg and has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Cape Town. He has, travelled extensively in Europe and Africa and worked as an ordinary seaman on British merchantmen for several years, whereafter he endured office jobs for thirty years. He has two grown-up children and is now a widower. His stories have appeared in various journals, and his poems in Carapace, Stanzas and New Contrast: South African Literary Journal. Catalien is his debut poetry collection.
Thando Fuze is a multifaceted creative force, known for her evocative spoken word performances, thought-provoking writing, and innovative curation. Born and raised in Durban, Thando has established herself as a prominent voice in the performance art scenes. Her creative output explores themes of identity, individualism, sexuality, gender equality, and politics. A passionate advocate for women’s empowerment and youth development, Fuze initiated the SHEfted Minds project in 2016, providing a platform for female artists to showcase their work. Thando has also worked extensively with schools and colleges as a Peer Educator, establishing poetry platforms as safe spaces for young people to discuss social issues. Her live performances have captivated audiences at festivals both locally and abroad, including the Goteborg Book Fair (Sweden), Queer Art Festival (Sweden), Poetry Africa (South Africa), and the Essence Festival: Articulate Africa (South Africa). Her poems have featured in various publications, including, Home Is Where the Mic Is Anthology, a self-curated chapbook of poems, Conversations with The Human and #Hashtag. Wallflower is her debut collection.
Joan Hambidge is a poet, novelist critic and public intellectual. She is a Fellow and Senior Researcher at UCT. She was a professor in Afrikaans and Creative Writing at the University of Cape Town until her retirement in 2023. She is currently writing articles for Vrye Weekblad and essays on poetry for Versindaba. Her poetry has been the recipient of the Eugène Marais and ATKV prizes. She writes a well-known blog Woorde wat weeg which can be found at www.woordewatweeg.co.za. A volume of poetry Asindeton is forthcoming in 2024.
Iyra Maharaj is an educator, poet, and palaeobiologist living in Cape Town. She was born and raised in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal and holds a PhD in palaeobiology from the University of Cape Town. Her debut poetry collection, earth-circuit, was published by Dryad Press in 2023, and was nominated for the Ingrid Jonker Prize for 2024. Her poems have also appeared in New Contrast and Botsotso. Iyra currently teaches Biology at a high school in Cape Town. Alongside teaching, she is a writer at KREST Publishers working on a collaborative fiction novel.
Chris Mann was Emeritus Professor of Poetry at Rhodes University. Before his move to Rhodes, he worked in rural education and development for over a decade, primarily as a director of the Valley Trust outside Durban. He founded Wordfest South Africa at Rhodes University and his published work includes fifteen poetry collections and several verse plays. He is the recipient of an English Academy Gold Medal (2019), the Patricia Schonstein Poetry in McGregor Prize (2019), a Standard Bank National Arts Festival Ovation Award for his play, The Ballad of Dirk de Bruin (2014), the Thomas Pringle Award for Poetry (2007), the Olive Schreiner Award for South African Poetry (1983) and, while a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, the Sir Roger Newdigate Prize (1973). Dryad Press mourns his passing in 2021.
Kobus Moolman is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of the Western Cape. (UWC) He has published eleven previous collections of poetry, two plays, and edited a collection of poetry, prose and art by South African writers living with disabilities. He has won numerous local and international awards for his work, including the 2015 Glenna Luschei Award for African Poetry for his collection A Book of Rooms and the UWC Creative Output Award for his 2022 Dryad Press collection, The Mountain Behind the House. He was guest editor of the first special issue of a South African journal dedicated entirely to the teaching of creating writing, Current Writing. His first collection of short fiction, The Swimming Lesson and Other Stories, was published in 2017. In 2024, he produced a chapbook of poetry entitled He Said // She Said (Dye Hard Press) with images by Katherine Glenday as well as a collection, Fall Risk (uHlanga Press, 2024), a collection of poems about disability and illness.
Beverly Rycroft was born in the eastern Cape and is a graduate of the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand. A qualified teacher, she taught widely at various schools before turning full-time to writing and journalism. Her debut poetry collection, missing, won the 2012 Ingrid Jonker award and in 2013, she was awarded the Thomas Pringle Prize for best poem in a journal. Her first novel, A Slim, Green Silence, was published by Umuzi in 2015. A Private Audience is Rycroft’s long-awaited second collection and presents readers with a deeply moving and intimate account of the terminal illness of her father.
Deborah Seddon was born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe, emigrating to South Africa where she now lives and works. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literary Studies in English at Rhodes University. Deborah holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Rhodes University and a PhD in English from Cambridge University. During her career as an academic, she has contributed essays, book chapters, articles, and reviews to a wide variety of academic publications. Her poetry has been published in various journals, both locally and abroad, including Ons Klyntji, Botsotso, New Contrast, the Sol Plaatje European Union Anthology, the AvBob Poetry Project, the Badilisha Poetry X-Change Archive of Pan-African poets, the Gerald Kraak Anthology, and Sinister Wisdom. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Gerald Kraak Award and the New Contrast National Poetry Prize. Magnitude is her debut poetry collection.
Linda Ann Strang has an MA in English and a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, where she works in the field of Learning Development. Her poetry and short stories have been published in over seventy journals and anthologies worldwide, including in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Iceland, Japan, and South Africa, most recently in New Ohio Review, Image Journal, Orbis, The Mantelpiece, Stand, and Lily Poetry Review. Linda’s first collection, Wedding Underwear for Mermaids, was published in 2011 in the United Kingdom. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2007), longlisted for the Bridport Prize (2012), and longlisted for the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize (2018). Star Reverse (Dryad Press, 2022), her second collection, was shortlisted for the 2023 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.
STEPHEN SYMONS holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCT and a Ph.D in History from the University of Pretoria. His poetry collections are Questions for the Sea (UHlanga, 2016) and Landscapes of Light and Loss (Dryad Press, 2018) and his poems and short stories have been published locally and internationally. He was short-listed for the American Hudson Prize for Poetry (2015), Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry (2017) and the Ingrid Jonker Prize for Poetry (2018). He lives with his family in Oranjezicht, Cape Town.
Sarah Uheida is a Libyan poet and essayist, living and working in Cape Town. She holds a BA Honours degree in English literature from Stellenbosch University (SU) and a Master of Arts in English Studies from SU in poetry. In 2021, Sarah was the recipient of the internationally renowned Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholarship. She is also the recipient of the 2020 Dan Veach Prize for Young Poets, which adjudicates poetry from college age students across the United States and internationally. Sarah’s poetry and lyric essays have been widely anthologised both locally and abroad in journals such as Persea Books, New Contrast, Atlanta Review, HarperCollins, the other side of hope, The Shore, fresh.ink, Plume, Every Day Fiction, and elsewhere. She is a regular contributor at readings by poetry groups such as Off the Wall and The Red Wheelbarrow. Not This Tender is her debut collection
Simon van Schalkwyk was born in Cape Town but lives in Johannesburg where he works as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Studies at Wits University. In recent years, he has acted as the Head of his Department, the co-editor of Safundi, a peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal that addresses southern Africa and its transnational relationships to other parts of the world, and as an occasional academic editor for The Johannesburg Review of Books, a bi-monthly South African online magazine gathering reviews, essays, poetry, photographs, and short fiction focused predominantly on South Africa and other African countries. Simon has been actively involved in South Africa’s literary world, engaging with writers and academics such as Geoff Dyer, Paul Beatty, Paul Gilroy, and Amitav Ghosh, and contributing essays, reviews, short fiction, and poetry to a wide variety of publications including The Johannesburg Review of Books, Aerodrome, The AvBob Poetry Project, Imago, New Contrast, The Conversation, and The Mail and Guardian. His first collection of poetry, Transcontinental Delay, was published by Dryad Press in 2021. Zero Summer is his second collection.
Fiona Zerbst is the author of four previous poetry collections, Oleander (Modjaji Books, 2009), Time and Again (UCT Younger Poets Series No 1/Snailpress, 2002), the small zone (Snailpress, 1995) and Parting Shots (Carrefour Press, 1991). She received an MA in Creative Writing from UCT, studying under the late Stephen Watson, and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Pretoria, supervised by David Medalie. Her poems have been widely anthologised, most recently in The New Century of South African Poetry (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2019). Fiona has run her own writing and editing business for a decade and lives in Cape Town.
