Catalyst Press is calling on African poets to take part in a live Poetry Sit-In on Zoom to close #ReadingAfrica Week 2026. The three-hour event takes place on Saturday, 7 November, from 4:00 to 7:00 PM SAST, which is 3:00 to 6:00 PM in Lagos and 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM EST. Poets can sign up for a ten-minute slot to read, recite, or perform their work by emailing lora@catalystpress.org or messaging the press on social media.

The sit-in is open to audiences as well. Anyone can register on Zoom to hear and watch the poets, and Catalyst says attendees are welcome to stay for all three hours or drop in for a few minutes. The poets who will appear are yet to be announced.

The event is part of #ReadingAfrica Week, which runs from 2 to 7 November. The indie publisher started the annual celebration in 2017 to draw attention to African writers working across genres, and to spotlight the work of other independent publishers. This year’s theme, “Crossing Pages, Crossing Borders,” looks at migration and mobility in African literature, both as subject matter and as part of how books travel: through translation, republication, and the movement of stories from oral tradition to print, screen, and social media.

Alongside the sit-in, the week’s programme includes “Language as Movement,” a panel on how translation carries stories across linguistic and cultural borders, and “Intimate Geographies,” a poetry workshop led by author Jane Kurtz on using verse to capture hard-to-write moments. Kurtz’s verse memoir Oh Give Me a Home, about her childhood moving between Africa and the United States, was published by Catalyst Press.

Readers can join the celebration by posting about African books on social media with #ReadingAfrica or #ReadingAfricaWeek from 2 to 7 November. More details are on the Catalyst Press website.