Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late September 2022)

A reminder that the process with these Carib Lit Plus Caribbean arts bulletins is to do a front and back half of the month, updating as time allows as new information comes in; so, come back, or, if looking for an earlier installment, use the search window. (in brackets, as much as I can remember, I’ll add a note re how I sourced the information – it is understood that this is the original sourcing and additional research would have been done by me to build the information shared here – credit and link back if you use).

Reading Material

A new Penguin edition of New Daughters of Africa has been published. The book, originally released by Myriad (UK) in 2019, is an international anthology of writing by women of African descent, 200 of us. “From Antigua to Zimbabwe and Angola to the USA, overlooked artists of the past join key figures, popular contemporaries and emerging writers in paying tribute to the heritage that unites them, the strong links that endure from generation to generation, and their common obstacles around issues of race, gender and class.” The Harper Collins (US) edition was previously nominated for the NAACP Image award. New Daughters of Africa follows on the success of Daughters of Africa 25 years earlier. It is edited by Margaret Busby, an award winning UK publisher and editor with roots in both Africa and the Caribbean. (Source – Myriad email)

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Issue 21 of Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters includes new writing by Topher Allen, Lysanne Charles, C.R. Glasgow, Rajiv Mohabir, Geraldine Skeete, and more, including art by Alexander Phoenyx. The Andre Bagoo-edited journal also announces a new podcast, Sky Words. Read and listen here. (Source – Moko magazine email)

Film

After Venice, after TIFF, comes the Caribbean International Film Festival in the UK. Official selections (those still to come, at this writing, on September 23rd) include from Curacao, Eché Janga’s Buladó; Barbados, Neal Hope’s The Last Fishpot

; Jamaica, Dean Charles’ The Mistress; Trinidad and Tobago, Gerelle Forbes and Mark Loquan’s A Better Tomorrow, Miquel Galofré (originally of Barcelona’s) Hit me with Music, Playing Mas, and Little Moko, . From the UK, Bristol in particular, there is Michael Jenkins (Pickney). From the US, there is Iantha Richardson’s J’ouvert. The Caribbean International Film Fest is run by Caribbean Pop-Up Cinema, and is the only UK Film Festival celebrating Caribbean filmmakers and stories. (Source – Facebook)

Events

Brooklyn Book Festival Virtual Festival Day is September 25th 2022. Participating Caribbean writers include Trinidad and Tobago’s Ayanna Lloyd Banwo (When We were Birds) in a 12 p.m. session, Transformers; and Jamaica’s Marlon James (Moon Witch, Spider King) in a 2 p.m. session, The New Fantastical. (Source – BBF email)

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Caribbean literary social influencer Book of Cinz has announced the September online book club meeting for September 27th 2022. It’s 6 to 8 p.m. I am not sure of the applicable time zone but the convener is based in Trinidad and Tobago if that helps. This month’s book is The Island of Forgetting by Barbadian-Canadian writer Jasmine Sealey. It is described by publisher Harper Collins as ” an intimate saga spanning four generations of one family who run a beachfront hotel. Loosely inspired by Greek mythology, this is a novel about the echo of deep—and sometimes tragic—love and the ways a family’s past can haunt its future.”

Here’s the link to participate in the book club discussion. (Source – Book of Cinz email)

Art and Culture

View and learn about Jamaican artist Market Woman Jacqueline Bishop’s ceramic plates in Issue 23 of British Art Studies. It’s the cover story. (Source – JRL email)

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The Sir Keithlyn Smith Foundation in collaboration with Antigua and Barbuda Observer Radio’s Voice of the People has announced the winners of their Voice of the People Summer Reading Program Art Competition 2022. They are nine year old Kelsey Cochrane, 1st; previous winner 10-year-old Rhekeisha Manning, 2nd; and 15-year-old Brandon Canonville, 3rd. The winner received a laptop. The summer read book (selected for radio discussion, a project that began two year’s ago with Keithlyn and Fernando Smith’s To Shoot Hard Labour) was the slave narrative by Mary Prince and she was the focus of the art project.

(Source – Daily Observer newspaper)

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The recently concluded Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival has been spotlighted in Essence magazine.

‘The BCLF aims to uphold, enjoy and celebrate Caribbean storytelling and its writers both at home in the region and throughout the diaspora. This unique festival, which began in 2019, explores the rich depth of Caribbean culture and its centuries’-long tradition of storytelling.

BCLF provides a place for storytellers of Caribbean descent to share their own stories and write from the unique lens of that heritage. It has since brought together over 250 writers, publishers and creatives from a community that people have often considered “too small” to impact the literary world.

“We felt like Caribbean stories needed to be celebrated by Caribbean people and for Caribbean people because Caribbean stories have been underplayed, undervalued and underrepresented in the United States,”said Festival Founder and Director, Marsha Massiah-Aaron.’

(Source – BCLF email)

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My CREATIVE SPACE column, which runs every other Wednesday in the Daily Observer has had three installments since I shared #16 of 2022 here on the blog. #17 was “What Artists Want”, #18 was “About Wallings”, and #19 is a conversation with Celene Senhouse about the African-Caribbean headwrapping tradition. As mentioned in the latter link, this is the fifth time CREATIVE SPACE has made the front page since being platformed on the Daily Observer in 2020 – just as we were entering the pandemic.

A content creation hack: the column exists because I decided to create the content I want to see about local and Caribbean art and culture without waiting for a positive response to a pitch. Building my own, rather than asking permission. In time, I found a platform for it in the Daily Observer and continue to create the content I want to see. I share that to encourage you to do the same. (Source – Me)

As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, and The Jungle Outside). All Rights Reserved. Subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.