Writing

Schimke worked at some of South Africa's largest newspapers including The Argus, The Star and The Cape Times, as a political reporter, before going freelance in 2000.^[1] She returned to The Cape Times for five years as the freelance books page editor from 2010 to 2015.

Schimke has contributed to a broad range of newspapers and magazines including Mail & Guardian, Daily Maverick.,^[2] The Sunday Times,^[3] Marie Claire, Visi,^[4] Elle, Financial Mail, Business Day, African Decisions, The Argus, The Star, The Cape Times, Rapport, Fair Lady,^[5] Real Simple, High Life and Psychologies. She was a humour columnist for Femina magazine, as well as for Parent24^[6]

In 2006, Schimke co-authored the bestselling, Fabulously 40 and beyond: coming into your power and embracing change,^[7] with Margie Orford and her latest book, The Karen Book of Rules (NB Publishers)^[8] with comedy writer Karen Jeynes,^[9] was released in September 2020.^[10]

Poetry

Schimke's debut poetry collection, Bare & Breaking (Modjaji Books),^[11] was published in 2012. The collection won the Ingrid Jonker Prize in 2014.^[12] Her second volume, Navigate (Modjaji Books), was published in 2017.^[13]

She has performed her own poetry at the Woordfees, Badilisha Poetry X-Change,^[14] the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefee and poetry-on-the-road in Bremen,^[15] Germany, in various podcasts and in radio interviews. Her work has been published in New Coin, New Contrast, Stanzas and Carapace^[16] and has been featured in Paris Lit Up magazine, Atlanta Review, Mslexia, as well as a collection of poetry from South Africa translated into German, called Ankunft eines weiteren Tages,^[17] published by Afrika Wunderhorn.^[18]

Translations

In 2019, Schimke, together with Leon de Kock, won the 2019 Sol Plaatje Translation Award^[19] for Flame in the Snow, the English translation of Vlam in die Sneeu, a collection of love letters written in the 1960s between novelist André Brink and poet Ingrid Jonker.^[20] She regularly translates the work of the well-known Afrikaans thriller writer Irma Venter.

Editor

Schimke edited Open^[21] (Oshun, Struik, 2008) a collection of women's erotic writing by some of South Africa's top female writers. She has edited the work of well-known South African authors like Martin Steyn,^[22] Chanette Paul,^[23] Dov Fedler^[24] and Bronwyn Davids^[25]

Writing coach

Schimke is a writing coach,^[26] developmental editor, course designer and mentor.

Poetry

• Bare & Breaking (Modjaji Books 2012): ISBN 978-1-920397-97-5
• Navigate (Modjaji Books 2017): ISBN 978-1-928215-26-4.

Non-fiction books

• Fabulously 40 and Beyond: Coming into Your Power and Embracing Change (With Margie Orford - 30 September 2006). Spearhead P. ISBN 978-0-86486-588-5.
• The Karen Book of Rules with Karen Jeynes, 2020 ISBN 9780624090915
• Contraception and Prevention (Pearson Education 2011) ISBN 9780435074999
• The Internet (Pearson Education 2011) ISBN 0435075039

Journalist

‘We are all petrified.’ An interview with Robert A. Hamblin. Daily Maverick June 2021^[27]

Editor

• Open: An Erotic Anthology by South African Women Writers (Oshun 2008). ISBN 1770075720

Contributor

• Difficult to Explain (Modjaji Books 2010) ISBN 978-1-920397-23-4
• Living While Feminist: Our Bodies, Our Truths (NB Publishers). ISBN 9780795709418

Translation

• Flame in the Snow: The Love Letters of Andre P.Brink and Ingrid Jonker (Penguin Random House 2017) ISBN 9781415208786