Happy Independence, Antigua and Barbuda.
Original Posting November 1st 2019>and on November 2nd ETA SX Salon & Womanspeak.
The WomenSpeak Project in Trinidad and Tobago teams with the Institute for Gender and Development for ‘Write to Speak’
The WomenSpeak Project in partnership with The Institute for Gender and Development Studies invite you to register for the “Write to Speak” spoken word workshop for women. In this workshop participants will be exposed to the tools for developing their style through poetry: exploring verbal fluency, finding and projecting their unique voice, transforming memory into an intentional story, characterization, and the basics to writing a poem. Participants will have the opportunity to work individually and in groups to explore advocacy and prepare their very own spoken word piece with facilitator Alyea Pierce, a spoken word poet and Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellow. Write to Speak will be held on November 16th 2019 at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the UWI, St. Augustine. Contact womenspeakproject@gmail.com for more information.
SX Salon Number 31 is Now Available Online
With this issue, SX Salon transitions editors, with Rachel L. Mordecai taking on the role of SX Salon editor and Ronald Cummings taking on the role of book review editor. Vanessa K. Valdés and Kelly Baker Josephs will both still be part of the larger Small Axe Project, but are leaving SX Salon in Rachel’s and Ron’s hands. A special discussion section of Issue 31 (focused on online publishing) is guest-edited by outgoing editor Kelly Baker Josephs and outgoing book review editor Vanessa K. Valdés. The pieces collected in this section include reflective essays by Peter James Hudson of The Public Archive, by Vanessa K. Valdés, and by Jyothi Natarajan of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop website, as well as interchanges between Social Text Online editors Anna McCarthy, Tavia Nyong’o, and Marie Buck, and between Kelly Baker Josephs and the Caribbean Review of Books editor Nicholas Laughlin. The essays offer brief, compelling histories of the contributors’ respective platforms as they speak to Josephs and Valdés’s prompts, but the discussion also raises distinct questions of representation in digital space. Also in this issue, reviews of Crossing the Line: Early Creole Novels and Anglophone Caribbean Culture in the Age of Emancipation by Candace Ward, Caribbean Critique: Antillean Critical Theory from Toussaint to Glissant by Nick Nesbitt, Slave Old Man: A Novel by Patrick Chamoiseau, Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon by Anthony Joseph, and Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze by Shane Vogel. The Poetry and Prose section contains a story by Cynthia James as well as two multi-modal, digital-literature offerings: Urayoán Noel’s “Bagku” and “Cinquain sin quien,” and Joey De Jesus’s “Black Flag.” As SX Salon continues in its role as an innovative and important platform vis-a-vis Caribbean literature and literary criticism, Rosamond S. King will continue in her role as creative editor. To contact, SX Salon, email rlm@smallaxe.net
About the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize
This has been in Opportunities Too for some time, but in case you missed it (I’m posting this on the last day for submissions, which also happens to be Antigua and Barbuda’s Independence Day, November 1st). From the official release: The 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize is accepting entries from 1 September to 1 November 2019. The competition is administered by Commonwealth Writers and is free to enter. The prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000–5,000 words). The five regional winners receive £2,500 each and the overall winner receives a total of £5,000. In addition to English, submissions are accepted in Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil, and Turkish. Stories that have been translated into English from any language are also accepted. The prize is open to citizens of all Commonwealth countries and judged by an international panel, representing each of the five regions of the Commonwealth. The judges for the 2020 prize are: Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Chair), Mohale Mashigo (Africa), William Phuan (Asia), Heather O’Neill (Canada and Europe), Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw (Caribbean), and Nic Low (Pacific). The five regional winning stories are published online by the literary magazine Granta. Past winners of the prize have gone on to win other literary competitions and secure book deals. The overall winner is announced at a ceremony which is held in a different region of the Commonwealth each year. All the regional winners are invited to attend this special event which provides opportunities to network with other writers and engage the media. Janet Steel, Programme Manager of Commonwealth Writers, said: ‘The prize is at the heart of all the work we do at Commonwealth Writers. It’s a chance for new voices to shine from around the Commonwealth and be recognised on a global platform.’ Constantia Soteriou, Cypriot writer and overall winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, said: ‘I feel honoured and happy to win this amazing prize; it feels like a reward for all the hard work I have been doing over the last eight years, writing about the perspectives of women on the political and historical events of Cyprus. ‘This prize is a recognition for giving voice to those who did not have the chance to be heard before; those who were left behind.’ Those interested in applying can find out more about eligibility, rules, and the submission process [here].
About the Sharjah International Literary Festival
Antiguan and Barbudan writer Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Musical Youth etc. and founder/coordinator of the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize) is scheduled to be a guest author at the Sharjah International Book Fair. According to Gulf Today, “The 38th edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF 2019) will be a dream come true for book lovers, with more than 60 international authors and cultural personalities set to participate in the third largest book fair in the world.” This includes American comedian and host Steve Harvey, acclaimed African American author Bernice McFadden (The Book of Harlan, Sugar), and, among others editor of the global anthology New Daughters of Africa UK-based Margaret Busby. 
Hillhouse will be part of a New Daughters panel and another panel on young adult literature, in addition to a scheduled school visit. We’re sure she’ll report on the experience on her return.
About the Burt Award
This book is the last Burt Award winner, look for it and the other winning titles as Burt Award editions on your book shelves soon. What’s the Burt Award? and is this just a shameless attempt to point you to a post that addresses that very question and highlights all the teen/young adult Caribbean prizes that came out of this contest? Yes… why?
About the V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize
I’m not sure if anyone from the Caribbean has won or even been shortlisted for this UK Prize before. No names jump out at me. But one surely did when I checked the long list for 2019. Well, two – Diana McCaulay and her story Picking Crabs in Negril.
Diana McCauley at the launch of her first book Dog-Heart with renowned Jamaican poet Mervyn Morris. (Photo courtesy Diana McCauley)
She is one of 11 finalists for the prize, valued at 1000 pounds. Here are the details. Diana may be known to readers of the blog as we’ve interviewed her and reviewed her Burt award winning book Gone to Drift, mentioned most recently in a post we did on the Burt Award. Congratulations to her on her continued achievements -after becoming a Burt award finalist for a second time this year, with a manuscript shortly to be published by Peepal Tree Press.
As with all content on Wadadli Pen, except otherwise noted, this is written by Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, With Grace, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure – Perdida! Una Aventura en el Mar Caribe). All rights reserved.
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