Carib Lit Plus (Early to Mid March 2023)

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).

Music Drop

New from Antiguan and Barbudan artist’s Laikan’s The Lore.

Read about it in CREATIVE SPACE. (Source – Laikan on Instagram)

Opportunities

To empower researchers in sharing their research, Antigua and Barbuda’s Education Ministry will be hosting its third annual research symposium, Wednesdays in May 2023, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Interested researchers are invited to submit abstracts up to 300 words in editable Word format to MOEresearchantigua@gmail.com by March 24th 2023. (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco)

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The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Fest has announced that it will be holding workshops ahead of its annual short story contest. Read about the first of them and more in Opportunities Too. (Source – BCLF email)

Events

Late Brooklyn born artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent Jean-Michel Basquiat continues to be relevant. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ran an October 2022 to February 2023 exhibition “Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music”. “Organized in collaboration with the Musée de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris, Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music is the first large-scale multidisciplinary exhibition devoted to the role of music in the work of one of the most innovative artists of the second half of the 20th century.” – Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

“Released in English and French by the MMFA’s Publishing Department, in collaboration with Éditions Gallimard, this catalogue is an unprecedented study of the role of music in Basquiat’s painting. It includes essays by major art, music and culture historians as well as interviews with public figures who knew Basquiat or who were inspired by his work, such as George Condo, Anna Domino, Fab 5 Freddy, Michael Holman, Lee Jaffe, Nick Taylor and Toxic. It also includes new compositions by American poet Thomas Sayers Ellis and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis.

Richly illustrated, the book is divided into four sections, which follow the exhibition’s main themes and trace the history of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s artistic production. Each section comes with a playlist to further immerse readers in the artist’s sonic landscapes.”

This catalogue can actually be purchased online. (Source – a good friend who keeps me up on culture)

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Barbadian visual artist Sheena Rose‘s Earth Black Lipstick Solo Show has been on at Johansson Projects, a gallery space in California since February 2023. Here she is with her mom and one of the images from the show.

The show is scheduled to run to April 1st 2023. (Source – Sheena Rose on Facebook)

RIP

Alwyn Bully of Dominica, founder and first chair of the Nature Island Literary Festival, passed on March 10th 2023.

(Bully pictured with Natalie Clarke White at the NILF)

While most recently known in this space, he has a long string of accomplishments including being the designer of the Dominica flag, a playwright, director, graphic artist, set designer, poet, short story writer, Carnival costume designer, and composer. His accolades include Dominica’s second highest honour, the Sisserou, induction in to Jamaica’s Culture for Development Hall of Fame, the National Drama Association of Trinidad and Tobago Cacique Award for contribution to regional theatre, the University of Technology of Jamaica’s Arts Award, the University of the West Indies Alumni Award of Excellence and a doctrate for his contribution to Caribbean society in the field of art and culture, the Golden Drum Award from Dominica’s National Cultural Council, and the LIME Creole Lifetime Achievement Award. He has worked as UNESCO’s Caribbean Culture advisor, chaired the CARIFESTA regional advisory body, was advisor to the Ministry of Culture in Dominica and a board member with the Festivals Commission. He has written 10 full length plays (including 2007’s “Hit for Six”, 2010’s “A Handful of Dirt”, and 2018’s “Oseyi and the Masqueraders” – all of which he directed), four radio serials, four screenplays, and numerous short stories. (Source – Nature Island Literary Festival on Facebook)

***

Halycon Steel Orchestra has lost soloist, percussionist, arranger, and pan player Fitzroy ‘Blakey’ Philip, who joined the Grays Green based pan orchestra in 1978 at just age 13. They describe him as an integral part of Halcyon’s 10 panorama titles – a utility player who could do it all, “the real deal”. More than that, though, it is the man they celebrate as they mourn, saying in Antigua and Barbuda’s Daily Observer newspaper, ‘To Halcyon you represented everything that was good and pure.. You were indeed the “heart” of the band.’ His individual accolades include being selected national solo champion in 1993 and his community contributions include being an instructor with the Halcyon school of pan. “We still feel like we’re in a bad dream and we are not ready to wake up without you.” – Halcyon and the entire pan fraternity. (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco.)

***

Politician and personal friend of the deceased Senator Shawn Nicholas eulogized Ivor Ford, a public figure with many roles perhaps best captured by her when she said at this funeral, “I never quite understood his role back then, but he was a staple at ABS Radio & Television, and was ever present to guide the younger ones in the field of broadcast media.” ABS could perhaps be substituted for the public sphere and the commentary he provided covered a wide span of public sector issues. Nicholas mentioned some of the projects she collaborated with Ford (also a producer of a number of the youth educational programmes which were staples on ABS) on, including The 150th Anniversary of the See and the City of St. John’s for the Anglican church in 1992 and the revised edition of historical tome The Struggle and the Conquest by Novelle Richards. She expressed a desire to continue the work started by Ford’s LAVONGEL foundation started in 2021 to document the history of Antigua and Barbuda “and to put to use the volumes of documents stored in the Fort Knox Archives that capture dates, times, places, and persons, and the social political history of Antigua and Barbuda.” (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco.)

Books and Other Reading Material

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer was launched in January 2023. Named a Good Morning, America book club pick, and one of Book Riot and BookBub‘s most anticipated, it is set in a Barbados caught between slavery and freedom – i.e. during the interim period known as apprenticeship in the then British West Indies. Rejecting apprenticeship the fictional Rachel runs away and travels the Caribbean to find her children, presumably sold away during enslavement. It was the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s February read and was discussed on their Cocoa Pod podcast. The author is the grandchild of Windrush immigrants (from Barbados and St. Lucia) to Britain from the Caribbean. (Source – BCLF email)

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To be a Cheetah, a collaboration between writer Joanne C. Hillhouse and artist Zavian Archibald, both of Antigua and Barbuda, is available for pre-order as announced in Publisher’s Weekly. It lands on July 4th and is currently available for pre-order. (Source – me)

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March 1st kicked off Women’s History Month and a new CREATIVE SPACE landed on that day. It features two young Antiguan and Barbudan women in conversation. Read it here and watch below.

(Source – me)

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Anderson Reynolds’  They Called Him Brother George: Portrait of a Caribbean Politician, is now in stores. The Vieux Fort Launch is at 4PM Sunday 5 March at the American Medical University building, and the Castries Launch is at 6:30 PM Saturday 18 March, at the Financial Center, Pt. Seraphine. The VFort South Parliamentary Rep, Dr. Kenny D. Anthony, is expected to provide special remarks at the Vieux Fort Launch, while Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre is expected to do so at the Castries Launch.

The book captures from multiple perspectives the political, artistic, and personal life of George Odlum. (Source – email Jako Productions) 

Wadadli Pen

Michaela Harris was a Wadadli Pen finalist in 2012; she would work with the project as an intern in 2017.

We missed last season; we missed the start of this year; but we will have a Wadadli Pen Challenge in 2023. We need help though. See our recently posted Interns and Volunteers page and let us know if you can be that help. (Source – in house)

Accolades

Wadadli Pen team member Barbara Arrindell is one of several women celebrated by the United Progress Party Women’s Forum. “For reinforcing the human right to freedom of information, via social media, and for balanced national discussion of political and social issues, respectively: Dr.  Jacqui Quinn and Barbara Arrindell.” Arrindell who has written for the Outlet, Observer, Antigua Sun, and other publications, in addition to being an author, bookseller, and consultant, is the current host of Observer Radio’s Big Issues. Veteran broadcaster and politician Quinn hosts the station’s morning show. (Source – Antigua Newsroom)

***

The Bocas Long List has been announced.

Nine writers – three based in the region – from Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Belize are in the running for the region’s most coveted book prize. On the poetry long list are Grenada born Canadian Michael Fraser (The Day-Breakers), Trinidad born United Kingdom based Anthony Joseph (Sonnets for Albert), and Jamaica born Canada based Pamela Mordecai (de book of Joseph), with special mention made of Guyanese born UK writeer John Agard’s Border Zone and Trinidad and Tobago writer Andre Bagoo’s Narcissus. In the fiction category are US based Jamaica born Marlon James (Moon Witch, Spider King), UK based Trinidad and Tobago born writer Ayanna Lloyd Banwo (When We Were Birds), and Barbadian-Canadian Jasmine Sealy (The Island of Forgetting). The longlisted non-fiction books were written by India born Trinidadian Ira Mathur (Love the Dark Days), Trinidad born US based Patricia Joan Saunders (Buyers Beware: Insurgency and Consumption in Caribbean Popular Culture), and Belizean Godfrey Smith (Diary of a Recovering Politician). Read about the books and authors, and read up on Bocas here. (Source – Bocas on Facebook)

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Fire Rush by Jamaica-born British writer Jacqueline Crooks has been longlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction.

It is one of 16 books in the running for the prestigious prize. Set amid the Jamaican diaspora in London at the dawn of 1980s, Fire Rush is described as a mesmerizing story of love, loss, and self-discovery that vibrates with the liberating power of music. Crooks’ short stories have been shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize and the BBC National Short Story Award. Her story collection, The Ice Migration, was longlisted for The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Fire Rush is her first novel.

(Source – Eric Karl Anderson on YouTube)

The winning essays in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Antigua and Barbuda’s essay competition are by Kaleb Hatton, Zanaba Simon, and Tella Martin. They wrote in response to the theme “Tribute to an African Queen” with 14-year-old Tella of Christ the King High School and Kaylee, 12, of Sir Novelle Richards Academy both writing about their moms, and Zanaba, 11, of the Nyabinghi Theocracy Church School writing about Queen Nzingha of Ndongo and Matamba (read about her in my She’s Royal series). (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco)

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Canadian writer of Antiguan and Barbudan descent Motion (Wendy Brathwaite) is a writer on the digital series Revenge of the Black Best Friend which has been nominated for nine Canadian Screen Awards. The series features on all-Black writers room. Motion’s penned episode “The First One to Die” is up for Best Writing. It is one of two episodes written by her in the 2022 season. (Source – Motion email)

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Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Arts and Letters to Antiguan and Barbudan writer and Wadadli Pen founder (that’s me…and what can I say but #gratitude). Read about it and watch video on my Jhohadli blog.

ETA: Observer Radio did a Big Issues segment about the award, and I’ve clipped and uploaded it to my channel:

(Source – me)

***

Sixteen young Barbudans were feted during Antigua’s sister islands first solo youth awards – a National Youth Awards covering youths in the entire country already exists. Among the recipients of awards, in the arts, are young poet-writer award honoree Kaylean Williams and young artisan Kyrollos Greaux. Culinary arts awardee was Glenesha Payne while Allyson Turner won for Culture and Performing Arts. (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco)

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.

Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late August 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).

Activities

Andre Bagoo debuts (or depending on when you read this debuted) his first short story collection Dreaming, published by Peepal Tree Press, on August 27th’s Evening of Tea and Readings at Paper Based Bookshop in Trinidad and Tobago. Bagoo is a former winner of the Bocas non-fiction prize and the book is highly anticipated. (Source – Paper Based Bookshop on Twitter)

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The Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora Film Festival runs from August 26th – 28th 2022. It’s an online film festival inclusive of masterclasses, panels, filmmaker chats, and special screenings. Details here. (Source – Karukerament email)

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Join me in celebrating Cassilda Thomas Brookes on her first published book. If you’re in Anguilla, take note and support if you can.

(Source – Author DM)

Accolades

In the early part of this year (February), playwright, novelist, and Bocas long-listed non-fiction writer Dorbrene O’Marde was formally received his instrument of Appointment as Ambassador-at-large with responsibility for Antigua and Barbuda Reparatory Justice Programme. He had already been serving for years as Chairman for the Antigua and Barbuda Reparation Support Commission and Vice-Chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission. At the time of the appointment, the Office of the Prime Minister said on Facebook, “Ambassador O’Marde’s appointment seeks to facilitate the effective and efficient implementation of the CARICOM Reparatory Justice Programme and to signal in a very serious way Antigua and Barbuda’s commitment to have diplomatic representation at the leadership level.” In April, ahead of the royal visit here, the Commission issued a letter calling for “an apology for the role Britain played in the transatlantic slave trade.” (Source – Facebook)

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Barbadian Cherie Jones is one of the writers from all over the world selected for the Iowa International Writing Program 2022 Fall Residency. She was a finalist for UK’s 2021 Women’s Prize in Fiction for her first novel How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, now published in the UK, US, and in French and German translations. Her first story collection, The Burning Bush Women & Other Stories, appeared in 2004; other short fiction came out in Feminist Wire and elsewhere, and was broadcast on BBC. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Exeter. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State has provided the grant for her participation. (Source – International Writing Program)

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That the BCLF short story prize has become so popular in such a short time (roughly three years) speaks to the dearth of and hunger for opportunities among writers in the Caribbean. The latest three writers to be named finalists for the annual prize are Alexia Tolas, Callie Browning, and Portia Subran. Alexia is Bahamian. She was the regional winner of the 2019 Commonwealth short story prize and was shortlisted for the 2020 Sunday Times Audible Short Story award. Her previous accomplishments notwithstanding, she was giddy with excitement at this latest accolade. “Somebody come slap me!!! So excited to move on to the final list with these amazing writers. Thank you Brooklyn Caribbean Lit for this honor!” the writer exclaimed on twitter. Callie Browning, meanwhile, is a Barbadian novelist. Her popular The Vanishing Girls and especially The Girl with the Hazel Eyes have picked up acclaim from regional (Gleaner, Rebel Women Lit) and extra-regional (Yahoo, Oprah) cultural tastemakers. These accomplishments aside, her excitement – “I’m a finalist, wunna!!!” (via Twitter) – was palpable. Portia Subran is of Trinidad and Tobago. I admit I am less familiar with her writing and profile but per her bio on Peepal Tree Press, she has been published in Jewels of the Caribbean for a piece that previously won the Potbake Productions Caribbean short story competition. She, per her Bocas profile, was presented with the UWI Literatures in English prize for Creative Writing for the 2009-2010 period and she was the 2016 Small Axe fiction winner; and she has also been published in New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean. Congratulations to them all. (Source – Alexia and Callie on Twitter)

Opportunities

A reminder that there are always new opportunities and opportunities too, for opportunities with pending deadlines, to be accessed here on Wadadli Pen. Now, some more.

As mentioned in my last CREATIVE SPACE of August 2022, What Artists Want, Kingston Creative in Jamaica has created a database for artists, artisans, and artrepreneurs through which the plan is for them (us) to access opprtunities worldwide.

You can access and sign up for the Caribbean Creative network here. (Source – Kingston Creative co-founder Andrea Dempster Chung on Twitter)

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Tropical Literature Creatives is a forthcoming podcast which will allow Caribbean authors to get their work promoted for free.

(Source – via email)

Reading Material

This Alake Pilgrim rec list on Bad Form, books magazine focussed on writers of colour, is a definite rec! A teaser, it includes The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Dandicat, The Swinging Bridge by Ramabai Espinet, and Tigers are Better Looking by Jean Rhys. Read the rest here. (Source – N/A)

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Speak OUT! is a collection curated by guest editors Brenda Lee-Browne (a former Wadadli Pen judge), Beatrice Lamwaka, Rifat Munim and Peter Sipeli, from a call for submissions related to Freedom of Expression and its wider subthemes of gender, LGBTQIA+, race/ethnicity, and politics among others. The collection is comprised of four issues, each featuring an introduction by one editor and 7-8 works of fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction, selected and edited by all editors. Read it in full here. (Source – Commonwealth Writers email)

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Claudia Ruth Francis’ latest Six Steps: An African-Barbudan-Caribbean Story is, as of July 2022, available in Antigua and Barbuda at the Best of Books bookstore, after previously being available online. Interested readers can also source it through Samari Georges 734 5997. The book tells the story of Charity, a Black girl born in the city of Leicester in England in 1950. She is an orphan. She lives in a number of foster homes. At the age of ten, she receives a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school and hopes that her loneliness will lessen in her new environment. It is during this period that she discovers her ability to commune with her ancestors (beginning with a five times removed grandmother kidnapped in 1813 from Africa), and begins to learn of her history. The book is also the story of Barbuda which, in 2022, is at risk from climate change, home grown gold diggers, foreign designs, and re-colonization. It is a story written especially for young adults and the wider public. (Source – the author via email)

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.

Carib Lit Plus (Early to Mid August 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).

Farewells

Antigua and Barbuda and the pan fraternity worldwide bid farewell to one of the best to ever do it, son of the soil Victor ‘Babu’ Samuel. An official funeral was held on August 8th 2022 at the Antigua Recreation Grounds. The eulogy was delivered by former PM and steelpan lover Baldwin Spencer, a long time friend and collaborator of Babu through their mutual relationship with the Halycon Steel Orchestra. The service featured performances by Trinidad and Tobago’s Len ‘Boogsie’ Sharpe, the Antigua Dance Academy, and Rudolph Davis, principal of St. Joseph’s Academy, for which Babu arranged, leading them to several wins in the schools panorama competition. Steelbands performing at the service were Halcyon, Panache, West Side Symphony, Gemonites, Hell’s Gate, along with the Point Iron Band. Babu who was a multi-winning pan arranger with Halcyon Steel Orchestra, with which he played since the 1970s, died on June 28th 2022 after a prolonged illness. Babu, a 2001 national award recipient, pioneered the Law Enforcement Steel within the police force. A notable role of Babu’s which he speaks about this interview for Halcyon’s anniversary with The Spectator (an interview well worth watching for an understanding of the developmental challenges still faced by the art form even as we posthumously honour one of the men who fought hardest for its development), was youth pan development programme and specifically the National Youth Pan Orchestra which abruptly ended, as he states in the interview (and as written about in my CREATIVE SPACE interview with Culture department pan programme coordinator Barbara Mason). A post-note of the funeral, based on calls to Observer radio the day after the funeral, is that Halcyon was reportedly disallowed from playing Babu to the cemetary given that it was an official funeral. (Source – Daily Observer newspaper)

Content

The Humane Society of Antigua and Barbuda has distributed more than 4,000 copies of its All Creatures Great and Small Colouring Book to public and private pre-schools and kindergartens; if you’re in Antigua and Barbuda, to collect, call them at 461-4957. (Source – Daily Observer newspaper)

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Dotsie Isaac is in conversation with Joanne C Hillhouse for the August 10th installment of the latter’s CREATIVE SPACE art and culture column.

This one is also added to the Wadadli Pen Reading Room and Gallery, as well as the related playlist on the Wadadli Pen YouTube channel, and A & B Artists Discussing Art; so, be sure to check those links as well (and like, subscribe, comment, share). The CREATIVE SPACE column runs this (August 10th 2022) and every other Wednesday in the Daily Observer newspaper and online at the Jhohadli blog. (Source – me)

Events

Antiguan and Barbudan cyclist Andre Simon who was injured while riding one day and has had to be flown off-island for further treatment. A number of fundraisers have been organized to assist with medical expenses. The latest, at this writing, is an announced gospel concert “Each One Reach One”, August 14th 2022, SJPC House of Restoration Ministries on Lauchland Benjamin Drive. (Source – Valerie Gonsalves-Barreiro on Facebook <— Contact her for tickets)

Accolades

The Booklyn Caribbean Literary Festival has a short list; matter of fact, they have two.

BCLF ELIZABETH NUNEZ CARIBBEAN-AMERICAN WRITER’S PRIZE SHORT LIST 2022

Jazz Sanchez – Cock Soup – JAMAICA

Amaris Castillo – El Don – DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Rachelle J .Gray – Peter 3:15 – BARBADOS

Elesa Chan – Jumbie – GUYANA

Yvika Pierre – Nadege goes Home – HAITI

BCLF ELIZABETH NUNEZ AWARD FOR WRITERS IN THE CARIBBEAN

Denise Westfield – The Valley- St. VINCENT & THE GRENADINES

Topher Allen – A Familiar Friction- JAMAICA

Kirk Bhajan – The La Diablesse of Ecclessville – TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

Callie Browning -The Science of Garbage – BARBADOS

Alexia Tolas – The Fix – BAHAMAS

Lisa Allen-Agostini – Meeting Beverley Jones -TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

Sara Bastian – The Girl With Your Grandmother’s Eyes – BAHAMAS

Portia Subran – Please Take One- TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

Martine Magnus – One for the Books – JAMAICA

Kwame Weekes – Green Thumb – TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

(Source – BCLF email)

***

Monique Roffey (awarding winning British-based Trinidad writer) and Polly Patullo (who owns the UK-Dominica press Papillote) have been made honorary fellows with the Royal Society of Literature. In the largest mass induction in RSL’s history, nearly 100 fellows and honorary fellows signed the RSL’s historical roll book with a famous writer’s pen. This was the first year writers could use the Andrea Levy (UK-Jamaican writer) and Jean Rhys (Dominican-European writer) pens since they were introduced to the collection for the 200th birthday of the RSL in 2020. To be nominated as a Fellow, a writer must have published or produced two works of outstanding literary merit, and nominations must be made by two Fellows or Honorary Fellows. The 2022 inductees also include the first cohort of Fellows elected through RSL Open, a flagship programme celebrating the great diversity of outstanding writers and writing in Britain. (Source – JRLee email)

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Coming out of Antigua and Barbuda’s Carnival congrats to Revo Band (cheers to Daddy Barlo) recognized as the first and sweetest sounding jam band on the road at j’ouvert; Mud Mas awarded as the first j’ouvert troupe. The winning road march tune is “How M’ Sound” by Lyricks Man (who is also the Jumpy Party Monarch). The runner up for road march is soca veteran Claudette ‘CP’ Peters – a former winner (first female to do so) in her own right, and also once again crowned as Antigua and Barbuda’s Groovy Party Monarch. Her tune is “Stressless”.

Second runner-up for road march (song played most on the road) is another former party monarch Tian Winter with “Stressless”. The opening parade cheerleading competition was won by Xplosion, with AS and BK cheerleaders following. The winning opening parade float was the Ministry of Tourism’s followed by the Transport Board and State Insurance. The T-shirt mas winner is Icons followed by Redd Hot Nation and Xclusive Mas. (Source – ABS TV/Radio on Facebook)

Additionally, the Calypso Monarch winners are Trevor ‘Zacari’ King in the social commentary segment and Tian in the Bacchanal segment – runners up are Ge’Eve and Peetron in social commentary and Sammie C and Thalia runners up in Bacchanal. This is Zacari’s fifth calypso monarch crown. Usually there is one calyspo monarch, with artists having to compete in two segments, unofficially with a serious song and a party song, but this year, it was decided to have two segments with different line-ups. (Source – Observer Media by Newsco Ltd on Facebook)

Screen cap of Insane Mas Troupe from the ABS TV Carnival stream.

Unclear (at this writing) what happened to the band of the year announcement re the winning troupe or troupes; it was not a part of the official results posted and no mention of why in that posting – disappointing. Possibly it had to do with Carnival being COVID cancelled for two years and the late announcement of its staging this year. Still something should have been said when the results were published.

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.

Carib Lit Plus (Early to Mid May 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).

Opportunities

Remember to check the Opportunities Too page for even more opportunities.

Keir Alekseii of Trinidad and Tobago is an associate literary agent with the Azantian Literary Agency and is open for queries. She is seeking YA & Adult SFF and YA contemporary. She is ONLY open to receiving queries from writers who identify as belonging to a marginalized or underrepresented group such as (but not limited to) BIPOC, LGBTQ+, immigrants, ND, folks who speak English as a second language, and DIS people. (Source – Culture246 Literary Arts emails)

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The 2022 Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Short Fiction Story Contest has been announced. There is no theme. A US$1750 cash prize is attached, plus a bespoke trophy from Safa Iman woodworks, a recording on the BCLF Cocoa Pod podcast, books courtesy of Akashic Books, circulation of story in several partner literary magazines and publications, press opportunities, and BCLF merch. The contest has two streams with Katia D. Ulysses and Ifeona Fulani juding the prize for Caribbean-American Writer’s and Tanya Batson-Savage and Ayesha Gibson judging the prize for Writers in the Caribbean. Submit by July 1st 2022. Details here. & read about other opportunities for writers and other artists here on Wadadli Pen. (Source – BCLF instagram)

Events

These are some images from the third installment of Stamp 268, May 14th 2022. It is “a buy local family-friendly event” – according to a facebook post by the Antigua and Barbuda Department of Culture. I chose these two images as a reminder that food is culture. Each one of the named items (raspberry jam, tamarind stew, guava cheese, and especially ashum, i.e. parched corn crushed to dust) were treats, along with tamarind balls, fudge, sugar cake (made of burnt grated coconut), suckabubby – more popular than imported American treats – for children of my generation (i.e. those of us who came of age in the 70s and 80s). The tray women, found around schools and along sidewalks in St. John’s city, would have one or all of these – plus children raided any trees loaded with guava, tamarind, raspberry etc used to make them. How could we ever go hungry? (Source – Khan Cordice, culture director, on Facebook)

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Professor Alison Donnell delivered the 15th Edward Baugh Lecture on May 9th 2022 at University of the West Indies (Mona). Her focus: The Missing Mid Century West Indian Woman Writer and Another Quarrel with History. Donnell is head of the school for literature, drama, and creative writing at East Anglia. She referenced specifically Jamaica’s Ada Quayle – nee Kathleen Woods (The Mistress), Guyana’s Edwina Melville (his is the Rupununi: A Simple Story Book of the Savannah Lands of the Rupununi District, British Guiana & various short stories), and Grenada-born and Barbados-raised Monica Skeete (Time Out) among the forgotten writers of the period under study. (Source – YouTube)

***

The Antigua Sailing Week committee has reported that “the fans came out in their numbers to dance and sing along under the stars in historic dockyard” for the return after a long absence (due to COVID-19 protocols) of Reggae in the Park.

Reported local bookings for the event were Ibis the Livest, Exorcist International Sound System, The Strays, Anu Collective, Kenne Blessin and Arlen Seaton, and the headliner was Romain Virgo out of Jamaica. Yes, we reported in a previous Carib Lit Plus update that local singer Tian Winter, best known for soca but adept at other genres, would headline but that quickly unraveled thereafter. Both sides (ASW and Tian Winter’s camp) have publicly acknowledged communication misfires resulting in Winter seemingly withdrawing from the event. That (in particular concerns about the treatment of local v. imported talent) and the venue (also changed from the previous announcement from Shirley’s Heights Lookout to Nelson’s Dockyard proper) stirred online chatter. But, per the ASW release, all’s well that ends well and ASW itself was set to wrap (at this writing) with the last of the week’s race’s on May 6th 2022. The curtain comes down, May 7th, Dockyard Day. (Source – ASW press release)

***

The Media Institute of the Caribbean and the Association of Caribbean Media Workers have teamed up for the Caribbean Media Summit Inaugural Launch. Date: May 5th 2022 in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day 2022. Theme: Journalism Under Digital Siege. If you’re here before the event, register here. If not, and you’re still interested, here’s the MIC webpage and facebook page. (Source – email)

Publications

Tangle is the first poetry collection by Rochelle Ward (Faizah Tabasamu). It was released late in 2021 by House of Nehesi Publishers in St. Martin. Ward’s poetry has previously appeared in Where I See the Sun – Contemporary Poetry in St. Martin. (Source – N/A)

***

The latest edition of My CREATIVE SPACE art and culture column, which runs every other Wednesday in the Daily Observer newspaper (extended edition with Extras on my Jhohadli blog), spotlighted visual artist and award winning commercial director Lawson Lewis.

Read the extended edition with Extras of CREATIVE SPACE: CRAFTING WINNING COMMERCIAL ART and catch up on previous installments of the series while you’re there. (Source – Me)

***

Research Librarian at the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda Myra Piper receives a copy of The Colour Box from Dan Waite,  written by his mother Barbara Waite. The book is  fictional  with historical facts, surrounding the lives of Anne and Elizabeth Hart in Antigua. It has been added to the Antiguan and Barbudan Writings and Antiguan and Barbudan Fiction databases. (Source – Facebook)

New Music

Antigua and Barbuda’s Asher Otto released a new EP (Before It’s Too Late) earlier this year. It has six tracks. Preview here.

***

New music is forthcoming from Canadian pannist of Antiguan-Barbudan descent Joy Lapps.

‘Sharifa The Great’ is the first single from Joy’s forthcoming Album: Girl In The Yard set to drop on July 8th, 2022. Joy, a tenor steel pan player, composed all the songs on the album which is funded in part by the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts and The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings. “Sharifa is my big sister’s middle name and she’s slender and she’s small but she’s like a force to be reckoned with,” said Joy, explaining the inspiration for the pre-release track. (Source – YouTube)

Misc.

Bocas’ storytime children’s channel (referenced below) also features How to be a Calypsonian by Antigua-based writer Desryn Collins. This reading by children of Trinidad and Tobago. (Source – YouTube)

***

New podcast – Know Your Caribbean. This first episode focussed on Gangsta Stories or stories of rebellion, including the 1736 revolt planned by King Court/Prince Klaas. (Source – KYC on Instagram)

***

Bocas Lit Fest has been running April 28th to May 1st (if you missed it, you can go to the Bocas channel on YouTube to catch up). But this update is about the Bocas Storytime children’s channel launched during the same period. It includes content for and by children including this video of a guided art session with illustrator of my book The Jungle Outside Danielle Boodoo Fortune of Trinidad and Tobago, home of Bocas.

Remember to like the video and subscribe to the channel. ETA: Antiguan and Barbudan writer Barbara A. Arrindell was one of among several writers from across the reason selected to present excerpts from written works – published or unpublished. She presented an excerpt from an unpublished work entitled ‘Scholarship Child’.

(Source – Bocas Lit Fest)

RIP

The Virgin Islands has mourned the passing of Eugene ‘Doc’ Peterson, described as a cultural icon. A veterinarian by trade, he also was reported to be, among other things, a vocalist and musician, author, and radio talk show host. (Source – writer Apple Gidley’s email and blog)

***

Katie McConnachie, a Los Angeles native who moved to Antigua in 1985, after a career that involved painting special effects for Hanna Barbera Productions in Hollywood (her dad John Stephenson was the original voice actor of the Mr. Slate character on Flinstones got her an initial interview in 1978 and she would go on to work on popular shows like Scooby-doo and The Smurfs). She was known for wildlife, and especially marine, art – including prints and paintings, book illustrations (Shadow on the Moon and other books), and the Wyland marine mural on the island of Grenada. She was a member of the Ocean Artists Society. Through her Seahorse Studios, she provided for years graphic design services for businesses and the yachting community of which she was a part. She died of cancer in April. (Source – Daily Observer newspaper)

Accolades

I debated where to put this – opportunities, accolades, or maybe misc. – but went with accolades to celebrate the 300 recipients of the 2022 Catapult Caribbean Arts Grant. The awardees are currently being rolled out by the Catapult Arts page on instagram. I’ve written about my participation – as a grantee – in the mixer where recipients got to learn more about each other and, as importantly, each others’ arts. Andrea Dempster, co-founder of Kingston Creative, one of the administrators of the grant, explained, in this article, “The CATAPULT Covid-19 Relief Arts Grant, is now in its second year and since late 2020 it has delivered over half a million US dollars ($81 million JMD) to 1,535 artists from the Caribbean, in the form of cash grants or capacity-building support. …This year, by offering relief grants to 300 creatives of $500 USD each, CATAPULT helped a community of artists from 23 Caribbean islands to further their practice by completing stalled arts projects or purchasing equipment.” She noted the particular vulnerablity of Caribbean artists. “We operate in a region where many countries have neither a dedicated national Arts Fund nor the resources to provide adequate support for the arts community, especially in the event of a pandemic. Some of these Covid-19 relief grants were necessary to just cover living expenses, food and rent for talented artists who were in dire straits due to the impact of two years of lockdown and loss of income.” But it wasn’t just a hand out, it was a lift up for artists who often feel devalued and unseen. “Some artists expressed that the grant not only helped them financially, but also served as a symbol of validation for their artistic practice.” ETA: May 13th 2022 is #CATAPULTday, so be sure to search for it across your social media. (Source – Me)

***

No, this isn’t a sports site (though it’s hardly the first time we’ve shared sports news – sports can be artful) but in this case, I’m sharing because I looked at this picture and thought, LEGENDS. You don’t have to be a cricket buff, to know the man on the left, Sir Vivian Richards, who was named one of the top 5 cricketers of the 20th century. He was the second Antiguan called up to the West Indies Cricket Team and would go on to be a fierce batsman and, as leader, the only captain never to have lost a test series. He was for a long time Antigua and Barbuda’s only living national hero and the national stadium is named for him. To the right, is another man who needs no introduction, the first Antiguan to be called up to the WINDIES team and a deadly fast bowler, Sir Andy Roberts. Want to know more about these men, read books like Hilary McD. Beckles’ A Spirit of Dominance: Cricket and Nationalism in the West Indies and watch documentaries like director Stevan Riley’s Fire in Babylon about the 70s and 80s period when WINDIES dominated international game. Since those days, there’ve been dashed hopes and frustrations both in terms of the team’s performance and in terms of the ascendance (or the unfair non-ascendance) of Antiguans and Barbudans to the team. The man in the middle, Rahkeem Cornwall, is an example, in the eyes of Antiguans and Barbudans of frustrated opportunity as he fought to jump through and over hoops and hurdles to earn a spot – his weight (or what ESPNcricinfo.com describes as his “uncommon” bulk) was the official reason (per the same ESPN profile, he needed a dietician and extra attention before he could be considered for the senior WINDIES side). But he has performed since being called up to the team in 2019 (being named Domestic Cricketer of the Year by Cricket West Indies that same month) and, per the local T-20 tournament from which this photo is taken, continues his winning ways. (Source – Daily Observer newspaper)

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Cuban born academic Ada Ferrer has been awarded a 2022 Pulitzer Prize in history for Cuba: An American History. Her third book, it is previously the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History.

(Source – Twitter)

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Winners at the Island Innovation Awards ceremony were announced and among them several individuals and projects from the Caribbean. Some we think will be of interest to our readership. Such as winner of the Future Island Leader Award, Life in Leggings founder Ronelle King of Barbados – “In 2016, i founded a movement…a cyber feminist campaign…a space for Caribbean women to speak about their experiences of sexual violence and raise awareness about the pervasive rape culture in the region…the hashtag then evolved in to a grassroots organization…I invite you to learn more about our work by visiting our website.” Such as master ceramist at Wine to Water, creator (15-years ago) of the ceramic water filter, which filters out water bourne diseases while saving money and positively impacting the environment, Redhames Carela of the Dominican Republic, winner of the Island Innovator Award. Scaling Smart, Solar, Energy Access Microgrids in Haiti won Sustainable Energy Initiative of the Year, Cayman’s Gina Ebanks-Petrie director of the department of environment there won the Women #SDG Leadership Award, Island Green Living of St. John in the US Virgin Islands was named Sustainable Company of the Year, Reach Within: Getting to the Root of Childhood Trauma of Grenada won the COVID-19 Response Award, and the Barbados-based CARICOM Development Fund won the Green Finance and Investment Award. Barbudan GO in Antigua’s sister island was a finalist for the Resilient Island Award. You can watch the full awards announcement below.

(Source – Island Innovation email)

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The UK-based Society of Author Awards has announced the shortlists for its various prizes and there are a couple of Caribbean writers in the mix. Jamaican Roland Watson-Grant is short listed for the Tom-Gallon Trust award given for a single published short story, ‘The Disappearance of Mumma Dell‘, which you’ll remember was regional winner of the 2021 Commonwealth short story prize. Trinidad and Tobago’s Celeste Mohammed continues to have a breakout year – after winning both the Rebel Women Lit’s readers’ award and the Bocas prize – with her short listing for the McKitterick Prize given to a first time novelist over 40. Her novel Pleasantview is published by Jacaranda, itself a prize winner back in 2020 for small press of the year at the British Book Awards. (Source – Commonwealth Writers twitter post)

***

Celeste Mohammed, lawyer turned writer of Trinidad and Tobago, has collected the coveted Bocas Prize, essentially the Caribbean book of the year prize for her novel Pleasantview.

She had previously been shortlisted as the fiction winner alongside non-fiction winner Kei Miller (Things I have Withheld) and Jason Allen-Paisant (Thinking with Trees), both of Jamaica. Her win was announced Saturday 30th April 2022 during the Bocas Literary Festival, every second of which can be viewed online. This past February, I reported in CREATIVE SPACE that she had been voted as the readers choice winner in the Rebel Women Lit awards – that’s right, this means that her debut book is both a popular win and a criticial win/awards darling, which is the writer’s (any writer’s) dream. (Source – Twitter)

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, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. Subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.

Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late February 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).

Transitions & Remembrance

I wasn’t going to write about Calvin Holder. This letter I came across in Guyana’s Staebrok News when googling to see if news of his passing was true (it was, February 7th 2022) changed my mind. Mr. Holder was a teacher of mine and one of the mentors along the way to me becoming the writer that I am. His English classes (at the Antigua State College) drew me out, I shared my writing with him and received feedback, I wrote plays for the college drama group he led. After college we lost touch – though we reconnected from time to time, though not in a long time. The writer of the February 21st 2022 letter, Roy Brummel, referenced Mr. Holder’s PhD thesis, Victim and Vehicle: The Political, Cultural and Intellectual Contexts of Martin Carter’s Poetry, which he successfully defended on April 5th 2007: “Calvin had served as a teacher in different parts of the hinterlands and, after graduating from UG, he returned, giving more years before being transferred to work as an education official on the East Coast of Demerara. Calvin migrated to Antigua to teach, but he came back to UG to read for his Masters in English and later completed his PhD at the University of the West Indies, with his thesis being on Martin Carter….I have been informed that Dr. Gemma Robinson of England has written a thesis on Martin Carter, but I don’t know of any Guyanese besides Calvin who has written a PhD thesis on Guyana’s national poet. Therefore, Calvin’s work is very significant. I’ve asked people whether they have knowledge of a Martin Carter biography, and they said no. Assuming there is no Martin Carter biography, the works of Drs. Robinson and Holder are even more important as they are the closest to that biography.” Sounds like a good idea to me. Rest in Peace to Mr. Holder. (Source – a friend)

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Sarah White, who was the co-recipient of the first Bocas Henry Swanzy Award in 2013, has passed. She was described by Bocas as co-founder of New Beacon Books with her partner John La Rose, and “a true and practical friend to generations of Caribbean writers, artists, and activists…Her death is a great loss to Caribbean and Black British publishing and bookselling, writers and readers.” Sarah was born in 1944 and died in 2022. (Source – JRLee)

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On Thursday, February 3, 2022, the Rex Nettleford Foundation celebrated Professor Nettleford’s life and legacy with a viewing of “Renaissance Man” A Documentary of the Life of the late Jamaican professor. Nettleford (full name Ralston Milton “Rex” Nettleford) was a scholar, social critic, choreographer, and vice chancellor emeritus of the University of the West Indies.

(Source – JRLee email)

Conversations

This recent addition to the A & B Artistes Discussing Art page:

Tim Tim Bwa Fik podcast discussion with Rilzy Adams part 2 (2022) – “When writing, where this was concerned, the one thing that I really wanted it to feel like and be like was Antiguan… I was very intentional with everything from the food choices to the music…but I also wanted them for the most part to be not necessarily heartwarming but …my general brand, for everything I write…Antiguan, full of love, and spicy.” She added that while so much of our Caribbean fiction deals with our historical trauma she just wants to write about people meeting, falling in love, and having sushi.

Click here to watch the full Tim Tim Bwa Fik series by podcaster Maëlla K on Apple podcasts. It includes interviews with several Caribbean writers. (Source – WordPress feed)

Training

jhohadli-writing-project-workshop-schedule-40-march-2022Download

(Source – Me)

***

You can now view ‘The Journey of a Book’, a webinar co-organized by The Antigua and Barbuda Intellectual Property and Commerce Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization, online. The presenters were Antigua and Barbuda’s Barbara Arrindell, Award winning authof of Love after Love Ingrid Persaud, Barbados’ Erica Smith, CEO of COSCAP – a collective management organization, and Brian Wafawarowa of South Africa, chief content and product officer, Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd.

Pictured during the webinar, above, are, left, Ricki Camacho, registrar of Intellectual Property and Copyright, and, right, Ingrid Persaud.

“Own your work and find your voice…voice is the key,” – Ingrid Persaud said during the webinar, held on February 10th 2022, giving the writer’s perspective. Arrindell, an author and bookseller, spoke about practical resources for writers (what we have and what we need in Antigua and Barbuda). Camacho hinted that one of the things writers have been asking for, the ability to legally copyright their writing locally, may be in the works. But don’t take my word for it. Watch the entire video. Follow this link and use this password (&F9+t1&r). Thanks to the organizers for making this available. (Source – Me)

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The Filmmakers Collaborative of Trinidad and Tobago has announced an online workshop with Los Angeles based South African writer/director Phumi Morae. It will cover screenplay titles, loglines, taglines, and short impactful synopses. Dates February 22nd and 23rd 2022. More here. (Source – Ministry of Culture, Trinidad and Tobago on Facebook)

Events

The PEN Out Loud series which has booked a number of Caribbean and/or Caribbean diaspora writers for conversations over the years has Aida Rodriquez who is American of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent coming up on March 22nd 2022.

***

After a two-year break due to the pandemic, Antigua’s Carnival is coming back. No, the pandemic isn’t over (at February 17th 2022, our dashboard shows 135 lives lost to date , 76 active cases, 75 isolated, 5 new, and blessedly only one hospitalized, with vaccine numbers around 60 percent) but (keeping in mind that a vaccine is not a get out of COVID unscathed card, we can still get it and transmit it) hopefully we’ll find ways to party safely to avoid a post-fete surge. (Source – Antigua Festivals Instagram)

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‘Dreadness: the Mystic Power, Philosophy and Performance of Shadow 1941-2021’, in celebration of Trinidad calypsonian the Mighty Shadow’s 80th birthday, is a virtual symposium announced for March 3rd and 4th 2022. Organizers are the Groundation Foundation and the University of the West Indies St. Augustine. Go here for details and registration information. (Source – Amilcar Sanatan email on this issue of Tout Moun Caribbean Journal of Cultural Studies)

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The NGC Bocas Lit Fest has been set for April 28th 2022 to May 1st 2022. The events will be live streamed. Stay tuned. (Source – Bocas email)

Accolades

The short list of books for the Bocas Prize has been announced.

They are Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer (Cuban-American), Things I have Withheld by Kei Miller (Jamaican), The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (American of Barbadian descent) contesting for the Non-Fiction prize; Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed (Trinidad and Tobago), How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones (Barbados), What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J. A. Chancy (Haitian-Canadian) competing for the Fiction prize; Thinking with Trees by Jason Allen-Paisant (Jamaican), What Noise Against the Cane by Desiree C. A. Bailey (Trinidad and Tobago), Zion Roses by Monica Minott (Jamaican) in the running for the Poetry prize.

The judges will announce the winners in the 3 genre categories on 27 March. These will go on to compete for the overall #OCMBocasPrize2022 of US$10,000, to be announced on 30 April, during the 12th annual NGC Bocas Lit Fest. Each category winner will receive US$3,000. (Source – Twitter)

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Late last year the Antigua and Barbuda JCI Youth Empowerment Programme recognized a number of young people. They are humanitarian award winner and Red Cross volunteer Daniela Mohamed, entrepreneurship award winner and Dadli Dose juice brand owner Kwesi Jarvis, sports awards winner and professional bikini fitness athlete Kimberly Percival, agriculture award winner and beekeeper Jamaul Philip, music award winner and pannist Jah-fari Joseph-Hazelwood, education award winner whose sede project is Eat ‘n Lime Tours Tiffany Azille, mental health activist awardee and associate clinical psychologist Regina A. Apparicio, leadership award winner and history teacher Kamalie Mannix, and culture award winner and translator Alfonsina Olmos.

(Source – Facebook)

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Guyana born British based writer John Agard in late 2021 became the first poet to win the Booktrust Lifetime Achievement Award. “I feel happy that I’ve stuck with this craft since I was a 16-year-old boy writing in a classroom in a Caribbean ex-colony. It’s not just me receiving this award, but all the people that inspired me,” Agard said. Read the full article here. (Source – Repeating Islands blog)

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Jamaican writer Kei Miller (Things I have Withheld) was on the Baillie Gifford Prize long list late last year. The prize ultimately went to Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Industry by Patrick Radden Keefe. The prize recognizes the best in non-fiction. (Source – JRLee email)

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Twenty early-career writers from seven different Caribbean territories have been shortlisted for the 2022 Bocas Emerging Writers Fellowships, to be awarded in two genre categories for poetry and prose. Scheduled to run for a period of six months, and offering tangible support for emerging writers to advance or complete a body of work, the two Bocas Emerging Writers Fellowships will include a cash award of TT$10,000, six months’ mentorship from an established author, participation in an intensive online workshop hosted by the UK literary organisation Arvon, and publication of a chapbook by Peekash Press. From a total of over 100 applicants, the shortlisted writers are, in alphabetical order:

POETRY

Topher Allen (Jamaica)
Xan-Xi Bethel (The Bahamas)
Neala Bhagwansingh (Trinidad and Tobago)
Johanna Gibson (British Virgin Islands)
Ubaldimir Guerra (Belize)
Jannine Horsford (Trinidad and Tobago)
Jay T. John (Trinidad and Tobago)
Gillian Moore (Trinidad and Tobago)
Ruth Osman (Guyana/Trinidad and Tobago)
Allyson Weekes (Trinidad and Tobago)

PROSE

Tracy Assing (Trinidad and Tobago)
Heather Barker (Barbados)
Ayrïd Chandler (Trinidad and Tobago)
Rachael Amanda Espinet (Trinidad and Tobago)
Amir Denzel Hall (Trinidad and Tobago)
Michelle John (Trinidad and Tobago)
Garvin Tafari Parsons (Trinidad and Tobago)
Rajiv Ramkhalawan (Trinidad and Tobago)
Ark Ramsay (Barbados)
Alexandra Stewart (Trinidad and Tobago)

The shortlists were selected by authors Andre Bagoo of Trinidad and Tobago (whose essay collection The Undiscovered Country was the winner of the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction) and Ann-Margaret Lim of Jamaica (whose book of poems Kingston Buttercup was shortlisted for the 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry).

“Caribbean Lit is in good hands,” remarked Lim of the fellowship applications. “Good, serious writers from the Caribbean, unafraid of subjects traditionally ‘taboo’ in their countries, are writing their truths, and doing so beautifully and as well as any international poet or fiction writer…. The voices are not stilted or affected. They are bold, true, and indeed shaped by skill and attention.”

“These writers all demonstrate a mastery of language in service of an artistic vision or point of view,” added Bagoo. “Their writing samples provide glimpses of a future in which Caribbean literature is bolder, more exhilarating than ever.”

The call for fellowship applications asked for writers working in innovative, genre-crossing forms, exploring themes of individual and personal identity, and ideas of belonging, displacement, and home.

The two successful fellows, selected from the shortlists, are expected to be announced in late March 2022, and will present their work in progress during the 2022 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, running from 28 April to 1 May.

The fellowships are made possible by generous donations from Canisia Lubrin, winner of the overall 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature; Dionne Brand, winner of the 2019 OCM Bocas Prize in the fiction category; Christina Sharpe, judge for the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize in the fiction category; and Allyson Holder, Friend of the Bocas Lit Fest. (Source – Facebook)

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Motion, Wendy Braithwaite, a Canadian writer of Antiguan and Barbudan descent, is a Canadian Screen Awards nominee for her writing on the drama series, ‘Coroner’. From Motion’s Facebook: “Wow! So much of our heart and souls went into this one! To see Ruby (played by talented Avery Grant) on screen. To write a story inspired by the culture. To integrate the sounds and the artwork of our artists in this city. To tell a story about art, family, legacy and a courageous girl – young, creative and Black. To work with an awesome room of writers, and create/collabo once again with visionary Charles Officer! 10 Canadian Screen Award noms for Coroner, and 2 for this special episode – DRAMA SERIES, BEST WRITING and DRAMA SERIES, BEST DIRECTING!” Motion’s nomination is for the episode ‘Eyes Up’. (Source – Facebook)

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Shouting out artrepeneur Barbados’ Nikisha Toppin, winner of the MicroPitch Best Female Entrepreneur Award at Micro Pitch Caribbean with her business Elaine’s Caribbean Crochet – “a registered social enterprise that provides Caribbean crochet artists with the knowledge, tools and resources needed to help their businesses be sustainable”.

Image from @elainescaribbeancrochet instagram

MicroPitch is a combination of entrepreneurship trainings and a business plan competition that gives entrepreneurs and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) of the Caribbean region the opportunity to boost their business by offering them capacity building and a platform to present (“pitch”) their business plans, solutions or ideas to a jury and audience, receiving personalised and instant feedback. Other finalists (more in the entrepreneur lane) are Jamaica’s Venice Irving, winner of the MicroPitch Export Award with her business Happy Teachers and Kavelle Hylton, winner of the MicroPitch Jamaica Award with her business STEM Builders Learning Hub; Dominica’s Jodie Dublin Dangleben, winner of the MicroPitch Best Entrepreneur Award with her Jaydie’s Naturals; Belize’s Miguel Huertas, winner of the MicroPitch Audience’s Favourite Award with his business Apilife and Mark Jacob, winner of the MicroPitch Belize Award with his business DML Foxtail Bamboo Straw; and Haiti’s Joseph Kendy Jules, winner of the MicroPitch Haiti Award with his business Haispot. (Source – N/A but finalists pulled from Micropitchcb Facebook)

Books

Rise up, Sista by Kristine Simelda came out late last year. It tells the story of a Jamaican reggae artist and a British rocker who meet in London in 1963, sparking a powerful story of friendship and cultural revolution. . It is dedicated to the life of Nelly Stharre, a Dominican reggae artist who passed away in 2015 and explores the amazing diversity of music written and broadcast during the 1960s and beyond—rhythms that served as a uniting force during times of change and political unrest. The book was published by Simelda, an American who has lived in Dominica since the mid-1990’s, River Ridge Press.

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Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean & African Women’s Cultural Critique of Nation by Andrea A. Davis was released in January 2022. Calling for new affiliations of community among Black, Indigenous, and other racialized women, and offering new reflections on the relationship between the Caribbean and Canada, Davis articulates a diaspora poetics that privileges our shared humanity. In advancing these claims, she turns to the expressive cultures (novels, poetry, theater, and music) of Caribbean and African women artists in Canada, including work by Dionne Brand, M. NourbeSe Philip, Esi Edugyan, Ramabai Espinet, Nalo Hopkinson, Amai Kuda, and Djanet Sears. Davis considers the ways in which the diasporic characters these artists create redraw the boundaries of their horizons, invoke the fluid histories of the Caribbean Sea to overcome the brutalization of plantation histories, use sound to enter and reenter archives, and shapeshift to survive in the face of conquest. The book will interest readers of literary and cultural studies, critical race theories, and Black diasporic studies. (Source – Twitter)

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Rohan Balkin and The Shadows by Juleus Ghunta with illustrator Rachel Moss was an end of year Caribbean Reads release.

Rohan Bullkin is haunted by sinister Shadows that fuel his fear of reading. He hates books so much that he often rips their pages. But when the Shadows become intolerable, Rohan accepts an offer of friendship from a special book. This marks the beginning of a remarkable journey during which he not only learns how to conquer Shadows but also develops a love of books and life. (Source – Caribbean Reads email)

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You know we’re all about promoting Antiguan and Barbudan books via our book lists, including Antiguan and Barbudan children’s literature. You know that we also promote Caribbean literature. Here’s a new one (or new to us), Jako Productions’ listing of St. Lucia Children’s Books. Just scrolling through it, I’m fascinated by Talking Talia Tattles or Tells – do I know the difference between tattling and telling? do you? this may be a book not just for children; lots of adventure tales – go Wyetta; love the use of the French creole – sak sa…sa ka fet…did I use those right?; the folklore – compere lapin to soucouyan… who looks as frightful as I remember from childhood tales in Antigua (my mother’s family is French creole from Dominica). Anyway, check out the listing of books for children and #readCaribbean (Source – Jako Productions email)

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This is book news more than books, and the news is that American author of Haitian descent Roxane Gay has a new (new in 2021) imprint and a fellowship programme to provide opportunities to publish and/or learn the business, respecitively, to underrepresented voices. Read the announcement in this article in Poets & Writers, and then do your research. (Source – Poets and Writers email)

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US based Trinidad and Tobago author Danielle Y. C. McClean’s The Whisperer’s Warning is the second book in her Secrets of Oscuros series after the Burt Award winning The Protector’s Pledge. It is illustrated by Rachel Moss and published by Caribbean Reads Publishing. Twelve-year-old JV has discovered that he’s one of a select few entrusted with preserving the balance between the world’s natural and unnatural realms and is now more driven than ever to know who his birth parents are. But there’s another mystery in the usually quiet village of Alcavere that he can’t ignore. He and his friends, Carol and Riaz, have received a cryptic warning from a supernatural being who dwells in the Oscuros Forest, launching them into a high-stakes mission. (Source – BCLF email)

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The second book in Jamaican writer Marlon James’ Dark Star Trilogy Moon Witch Spider King landed in February. It follows on National (US) Book Award Finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf. In Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Sogolon the Moon Witch proved a worthy adversary to Tracker as they clashed across a mythical African landscape in search of a mysterious boy who disappeared. In Moon Witch, Spider King, Sogolon takes center stage and gives her own account of what happened to the boy, and how she plotted and fought, triumphed and failed as she looked for him. It’s also the story of a century-long feud—seen through the eyes of a 177-year-old witch—that Sogolon had with the Aesi, chancellor to the king. It is said that Aesi works so closely with the king that together they are like the eight limbs of one spider. Aesi’s power is considerable—and deadly. It takes brains and courage to challenge him, which Sogolon does for reasons of her own. Moon Witch, Spider King delves into Sogolon’s world as she fights to tell her own story. James is a US-based author whose many accolades include the Man Booker Prize (only one of two Caribbean authors to claim that coveted prize) for A Brief History of Seven Killings. (Source – BCLF email)

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Sabine, the first short story collection from Hazel Simmons-McDonald, St. Lucia-born linguistics professor emerita, first head of the UWI Open campus, and poet, was published in December 2021. The book presents a deft exploration of class, of how values are shaped by religion, and of the tensions that undergird family life. She makes a place for voices hitherto not heard and creates characters who closely guard the secrets of their hearts but who through her narrative dexterity come to experience moments of truth and clarity of memory. Sabine is published by UWI Press. (Source – JRLee email)

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Co-founder of gender activist group Intersect Antigua and Barbuda Sarah Gresham has created a free online library. The purpose, to share reading recommendations from the Intersect team on each theme of the Caribbean Feminist Stories project. Access podcasts, articles, videos, blog posts, and books that illuminate the themes Resilience in the Face of Natural Disasters, Critical Green Theory, and Black in Environment! As the weeks progress, more resources will be added. (Source – Twitter)

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Ana Portnoy Brimmer’s To Love an Island came out in late December 2021. Portnoy Brimmer is a poet and organizer from Puerto Rico. To Love An Island begins with the aftermath of Hurricane María and spans the summer insurrection of 2019 and subsequent earthquakes in Puerto Rico. It was originally the winner of the YesYes Books 2019 Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest. (Source – N/A)

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A Lantern in the Wind: A Fictional Memoir was released in 2021 by Hansib. It was written by Ameena Gafoor and offers rare insight in to Muslim life in Guyana. Additionally, her description of being an immigrant in London is a relatively rare revelation of the female experience. Ameena Gafoor is the Founder of The Arts Forum Inc; the Founding Editor of The Arts Journal; and author of Aftermath of Empire: The Novels of Roy A.K. Heath (2017). She has received two National awards as well as recognition from the Guyana Indian Commemoration Trust and the Guyana Cultural Association of New York for her outstanding contribution to the literary arts of Guyana and the Caribbean. She has also received an award from Caribbean Voice for her social work with Support for Vulnerable People through The Gafoor Foundation. Her critical articles are published in selected Journals. (Source – Hansib email)

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One Day, One Day, Congotay by Trinidad and Tobago’s Merle Hodge is described, on the website of publisher Peepal Tree Press, as ‘A novel, like George Elliot’s Middlemarch that celebrates the small, hidden lives that make the world a better place. Like any richly documented historical novel, it has much to say, by implication, about the present’. It was released in January 2022. (Source – JRLee email)

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St. Lucian writer Mac Donald Dixon’s A Scream in the Shadows launches this month. It is a crime story set in the rural Caribbean where traditional allegiances and a flawed criminal justice system provide a backdrop to the rape and murder of a young girl. When her father is accused of the crime, her brother joins the police to try and clear their father’s name. While the suspect languishes in jail on remand, the young detective makes some alarming discoveries. (Source – Jako Productions email)

***

Olympic swimmer and Atlantic rower from Antigua and Barbuda Christal Clashing has written a water-based photo-illustrated (coffee-table-ish) book of fiction entitled Yemoja’s Anansi: A Short Story. It has been added to Antiguan and Barbudan Writings and Antiguan and Barbudan Fiction Writings here on the blog. Read about it in CREATIVE SPACE and Blogger on Books; also check our interview on my AntiguanWriter YouTube channel. (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, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. Subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.

Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late January 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).

RIPs

Eduardo Pyle, leader of the Antigua and Barbuda soca monarch band and longstanding member of the calypso monarch band in over two decades of involvement in culture and the arts, has died. “For Eduardo, what mattered most was the delivery of the most impeccable quality of the music during our annual summer festival,” said chairman of the festivals commission Maurice Merchant. (Source – Newsco’s Daily Observer)

Events

The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s menu of programmes includes a reading group, Unruly Islands: Uprising and Revolts, in collaboration with the the Center For Fiction. See their website for information on this and other programmes. (Source – BCLF email)

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Antiguan and Barbudan writer and bookseller, and Wadadli Pen team member, Barbara Arrindell is one of the resource people for an upcoming seminar entitled ‘The Journey of a Book’. Click here to register. (Source – email)

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I mentioned, in the late November 2021 Carib Lit Plus that the BCLF short story awards event was upcoming. Now here’s the video.

“Well, the thing is publishers respond to readers, to the market, and, so this is really a job for all of us. For the writers and the readers. And it’s a job for the readers to bring that attention because if the publishers see that there are readers for our work…it begins with us.” – Elizabeth Nunez, sharing this excerpt from the video, from the author for whom the BCLF short story prizes are named, to remind us all to #buyCaribbean #readCaribbean (Source – N/A)

Publications

We’ve mentioned Sea Turtles before but St. Kitts-Nevis writer Carol Mitchell has two other Big Cat books – Kay and Aiden’s The Tram Bell and The Stolen Trumpet. A graphic novel series based on the adventures of a pair of twins.

Illustrations are by London artist Alan Brown. Mitchell, in addition to being an author, is a publisher (Caribbean Reads Publishing). (Source – N/A)

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Catching up on some late 2021 releases. Like this one from Antigua and Barbuda.

Written by former aerodome superintendant Growing with VCBIA: VC Bird International 1965-2008 is the story of Antigua and Barbuda’s former international airport “beginning with the first airplane of the historic Lindberg of Pan Am fame, which landed pretty close to what would become our present airport, this avid aviator carries us on a journey …Starting with the Americans who sought to establish air and sea bases throughout the region for World War II activities which were then converted to civil airport use controlled by local government….Throughout the book the theme of building and growing is emphasized.” (from a review by Makeda Mikael in the November 26th 2021 edition of the Daily Observer). This one was added to the Antigua and Barbuda Writings and Antigua and Barbuda Non-Fiction databases late last year. (Source – Newsco’s Daily Observer)

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Belonging: Fate and Changing Realities is Herman Ouseley’s (Lord Ouseley’s) compelling account of his extraordinary life experiences. This vivid memoir describes how he coped with all challenges and, along the way, learnt how to develop methods to convince and persuade powerful people to use their influence to help eliminate the adverse effects of institutional discrimination, prejudice and bigotry. Over nearly six decades dedicated to public service, he became a ‘somebody’ at times, as he challenged the ‘great and the good’ in pursuit of equality and cohesion. He reflects upon contemporary Britain, knowing that there is still a struggle to achieve responsible and accountable leadership. The release date is listed as September 2021. Published by Hansib. (Source – Hansib email)

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Get Up!: A Collection of Inspiring and Encouraging Commands is the latest book from relatively new Antiguan and Barbudan author Stancel C. Roberts who last year released An Island Girl’s Inspiration from Above. Both are motivational books. Roberts is a staff auditor with the government, and also, per her linkedin, a motivational speaker and lecturer at the Antigua State College. (Source – N/A)

Shout Outs

To Peepal Tree (producer) and Malika Booker (host) of New Caribbean Voices podcast. It’s been keeping me company this night in January with conversations with writers like Anton Nimblett and the several poets (Tanya Shirley, Ishion Hutchinson, Vladimir Lucien featured) featured in the rare poetry collection unearthing the experiences of British West Indians fighting in the first World War. I have written in CREATIVE SPACE about some of our experiences in World Wars 1 and 2 and think not nealry enough is known or understood about our role in these major battles (Hollywood white washes the Black and Brown people from their historical war films). But we were there.

Published in 2018, this book was a collaborative project, co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, BBC Contains Strong Language, and the British Council.

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To two Antigua-Barbuda sites of interest which are in the running for the top Caribbean attraction as voted by readers of USA Today (you can vote too, by the way). Normally we don’t do tourism-centric posts around here but the two named sites (Nelson’s Dockyard and Wallings Nature Reserve) have historical and/or cultural value and have been covered either on this blog or on my own Jhohadli blog. Specifically, CREATIVE SPACE #4 of 2019 – What’s happening at Wallings?, and Nelson’s Dockyard: On Becoming a World Heritage Site and CREATIVE SPACE #18 of 2021 – Clarence House and the Complicated Landscape of Our Colonial Past.

“Image 33: Nelson’s Dockyard 2” P. 55, The Art of Mali Olatunji: Painterly Photography from Antigua and Barbuda by Mali Olatunji and Paget Henry.

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Ben Fox, founder at Shepherds.com who invited me to write a book recs post, subject of my choice. I used the opportunity to share some of my favourites from the CODE Burt Award for teen/young adult Caribbean literature. Click The Best Teen/YA Caribbean novels for readers everywhere to see which five I picked and why. (Also see what books I read – and reviewed – in 2021). (Source – Me)

Accolades

One Caribbean book which made it on to the Women’s Prize 2022 favourite books read, broken down by year of publication, as chosen by their readers, is Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch. (Source – Women’s Prize email)

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In addition to being a politician, Antigua and Barbuda’s Selvyn Walter was an art collector, writer (including popular column series like Not a Drum was heard and the book Bank Alley Tales), and founding member of the Grays Green based Halcyon Steel Orchestra which marked its 50th anniversary in 2021., and his creative pursuits are being recognized (posthumously) by the Sunshine Awards Organization. The US-based awards was founded in 1989 by Gilman Figaro Snr. Past awardees from Antigua and Barbuda are, in 1992, King Progress for best political commentary (Heaven Help Us), in 1999, female vocalist of the year Althea ‘Singing Althea’ Williams (Violence), in 2002, calypso monarch King Short Shirt named to the Hall of Fame, in 2003, soca artists Burning Flames (Children Call Een), in 2004, calypsonian Paul ‘King Obstinate’ Richards named to the Hall of Fame, in 2008, Rupert ‘King Swallow’ Philo, now deceased, named to the Hall of Fame in 2008 after winning best party calypso, best engineered recording, and best calypso in 1989 (Fire in the Backseat) and best social commentary in 1997 (CDC), in 2011, pannist Aubrey Lacua Samuel, in 2012, Dr. Prince Ramsey for music production and Rawdon Edwards for contribution to the performing arts, and, in 2015, Antigua State College principal Dr. Alister Francis (posthumously) for education. Other 2021 Sunshine Awardees are Barbados’ Ian Estwick, Nigeria’s Oluyinka Olutuye, Trinidad and Tobago’s Shakuntala Thilsted and Ainsworth Mohammed, St. Thomas’ Verne Hodge, and legendary Guadeloupean band Kassav. (Source – Newsco’s Daily Observer)

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A Trinbagonian writer has landed on the UK Observer’s list ‘Introducing our 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2022‘. “The class of 2022 reminds us that the novel is a form without limits or rules,” the publication writes of the list that includes Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s When We were Birds, forthcoming in February from Hamish Hamilton. She and her book are described as “an important new voice in fiction, at once grounded and mythic in its scope and carried by an incantatory prose style…When We Were Birds is both a love story and a ghost story – the tale of a down-on-his-luck gravedigger and a woman descended from corbeau, the black birds that fly east at sunset, taking with them the souls of the dead.” She describes the Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad as a turning point in her writing, an awakening followed by the MA programme at University of East Anglia in the UK where she has lived for the last five years. (Source – Facebook)

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The winners of the Caribbean Readers’ Awards 2021 have been announced. This is the second year of the Rebel Women Lit book club’s awards initiative; 500 votes were counted. Trinidad and Tobago’s Celeste Mohammed’s Pleasantview won best novel (adult); Jamaica’s poet laureate Olive Senior’s Pandemic Poems won best poetry collection; Curaçao’s Radna Fabias’ Habitus won best translation; Jamaica’s Kei Miller’s Things I have Withheld won best non-fiction book; and ‘Bomber and the Breadfruit Tree‘ was adjudged best RWL magazine piece. Congrats to all. (Source – RWL Facebook)

Opportunities

From Short Story to Novel Part 2 with Sharma Taylor is the first Bocas workshop of the year on January 29th 2022. Sharma’s first novel, What a Mother’s Love don’t Teach You, drops this year. She has been hugely successful as a short story writer winning the 2020 Wasafiri Queen Mary New Writing Prize, the 2020 Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award, and the 2019 Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize; being twice shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and being a finalist for the 2020 Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean. Sharma will share her experience, tools and techniques in transferring the craft and technique of short-form fiction to a successful novel, building your career as an emerging writer. This seminar is suitable for writers who participated in Part 1 last year, as well as new participants.  Register here. (Source – Bocas email)

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Consider this one an opportunity to pay it forward. April 29th 2022 is the deadline to recommend writers for the Royal Society of Literature’s International Writers Programme, which is supported by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society and the International Authors Forum. The RSL, founded in 1820, is the UK’s charity for the advancement of literature. Nominate writers for the International Writers Programme who are not resident in, nor citizens of, the United Kingdom, have published two outstanding works of literary merit (written or translated in to English). Twelve writers will be selected. Last year’s selectees were Don Mee Choi, Annie Ernaux, David Grossman, Jamaica Kincaid, Yan Lianke, Amin Maalouf, Alain Mabanckou, Javier Marías, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Claudia Rankine, Olga Tokarczuk and Dubravka Ugrešić. Make your nominations here. (Source – RSL email)

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The Poetry Channel on You Tube has extended an invitation to poets worldwide to contribute to the channel run by Indran Amirthanayagam (email him at indranmx@gmail.com). He hosts contemporary poets reading their work and wishes to present an archive of essential poems and without any language limitation. So you might hear poems in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Tamil, Uzbek, Haitian Creole and Arabic. The channel also features an occasional series called Speaking With Poets, which already includes programs with Mervyn Taylor and Martin Espada. If you would like to be featured, send poetry videos (one poem per video) – you can record yourself and send or the host can set up a zoom meeting. Indran Amirthanayagam also edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly with Associate Editor Sara Cahill Marron, and welcomes poetry submissions. (Source – JRLee email)

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“I was nervous at first to do the exercises and to read my first draft out loud, but it was fun in the end.” – US based participant in the Jhohadli Writing Project, my (Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator, and author Joanne C. Hillhouse) workshops currently being offered online. This workshop series being offered once a month throughout 2022 is ideal for writers with works in progress. The identified participant said the January 2022 session helped, “Strengthened my pages.” Register on a month by month basis or for several months at a time. See Opportunities Too for Jhohadli Writing Project and Other Opportunities. (Source – Me)

News

Bocas, Trinidad and Tobago’s literary festival and related programmes, many of which have reach across the Caribbean, is under new management. Nicholas Laughlin replaces Marina Salandy-Brown as festival and programme director, while she steps in to the role of president of the board of directors. Laughlin, a poet, editor of the arts and travel magazine Caribbean Beat and co-director of the arts collective Alice Yard has been working alongside Salandy-Brown from the start, crafting the festival programme every year and leading the programming of the new virtual festivals since 2020.   Additionally, after a rigorous, multi-stage recruitment process, Jean-Claude Cournand is the new Chief Executive Officer. Cournand has been responsible for areas of Bocas Lit Fest youth programming since 2013 and through a partnership between Bocas and the 2Cents Movement, which he co-founded and managed, strategically helped to introduce the nation’s youth to spoken word and performance poetry. The huge popularity of the First Citizens National Poetry Slam is the culmination of their joint efforts. Read more here. (Source – JRLee email)

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Issue 13 of Cacique magazine features Antiguan-Barbudan (by way of Dominica) designer Miranda Askie. Cacique is the inflight magazine of InterCaribbean Airways. The issue which also includes an interview with Barbados’ Cherise Harris (known around these parts as illustrator of my children’s book With Grace) and book recommendations by Caribbean Reads publisher and author Carol Mitchell. It can be read in full online. And remember, you can also read my Miranda Askie feature in this 2021 edition of CREATIVE SPACE. (Source – linkedin)

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St. Lucian Poet John Robert Lee has posted an article on ways to revitalize and upgrade his country’s institutions and programmes to Jako Productions’ blog. Some interesting – and perhaps familiar – points. A Creative Arts Centre where cultural products are sold and which can also serve as an event space and restaurant, gallery, cafe, and artists meeting space. National gallery (Long overdue!) with retail space. Enhancement of library spaces and services. Supported and well maintained heritage spaces which can serve as cultural hubs. Strengthening of the government printery to produce cultural material. A vibrant performing arts space with creative arts training and certification opportunities. Needed as well, in addition to in-school instruction, is more public education (through traditional and social media channels) in the arts. There are, he points out, many practitioners who could be drawn on to serve as educators in their respective disciplines; it, and these other suggestions, just require a bit more initiative on the part of the powers that be. “The CDF needs to become more pro-active, more creative in their thinking, more truly supportive of the arts, and that across generations.” (Source – Jako Productions email)

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, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.

Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late November 2021)

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).

Obit.

The region, and Montserrat where he was born and the US Virgin islands where he lived and worked (as a professor) for many years, especially, mourns the passing of playwright David Edgecombe. He died suddenly Friday 19th November 2021 at age 69.

Edgecombe was also a Caribbean Reads writer beginning with the publication of his Antigua-inspired (referencing a particular folklore of the ghost known as the) Lady of Parham, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Guyana Literary Prize Caribbean Award for Best Drama. (Source – Facebook)

Books

Tobias S. Buckell’s Shoggoths in Traffic and Other Stories came out this November. The Grenadian is a winner of the World Fantasy Award. Another award winning Caribbean fantasy writer Nalo Hopkinson said, “Buckell’s speculative fiction is a revelation: honest and wry, characters and situations fresh and unexpected.” The collection consists of 27 stories and includes inhabitants of a small town who won’t vaccinate against a zombie plague, a lone sentry keeping motorists from stumbling into something ancient and evil, a man who puts stranded ghosts to rest, an ex-soldier traveling the seas who trades his new life of hardship for a return to swords and blood, and many more tales of speculative fiction. (Source – Tobias S. Buckell on Twitter)

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Barbadian writer Shakirah Bourne announced the release of her My Coral Buddies and Me Cricket Calamity children’s book and related mural. You can read more about this initiative meant to educate and inspire young people here. Book synopsis: “The coral buddies are playing a game of cricket when a massive six takes the corals in search of the ball to a section of the reef they have never been before. This leads to a messy discovery and the coral buddies have to enlist some help from friends.” The e-comic book can be freely read online. It is a publication of the BlueGreen Initiative Inc. with support from the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy. There is also an activity book written by BGI co-founder Sen. Crystal Drakes who is also co-credited with Clish Gittens for the story idea. (Source – Shakirah Bournes’ instagram)

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Alison Donnell, of University of East Anglia, whom you might remember from previous postings on this blog, spearheaded both the Caribbean Literary Heritage Project and the online series on forgotten Caribbean writers and publications, released a book on Creolized Sexualities in October 2021. She also asked me to let you know about this discount.

(Source – N/A)

News

The Antigua and Barbuda Cultural Industries Mapping Project has ended with 430 respondents.

Initial response shows significant impact on the creative sector by the pandemic.

More details to follow in December. Here’s a link to the project’s facebook page (Source).

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November 18th 2021 was Jamaica Kincaid appreciation day as CCNY (in New York) honoured her at the Langston Hughes Festival. Jamaica Kincaid is one of the most celebrated writers from the Caribbean, and in particular from Ovals, Antigua.

In her response to the moment, following tributes by writers, Lauren Alleyne and Joanne C. Hillhouse, writers of Trinidad and Antigua, respectively, “I’m not jealous of much but I’ve been very jealous of writers who have a People to write for, I’ve always felt I was an orphan, you know, because I was going to say things that the people I am from, do not want to hear.” Kincaid’s books, many of which are critically acclaimed and award winning, include Annie John, A Small Place, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, Mr. Potter, and See Now Then. (Source – me)

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Commonwealth Writers is reporting 6,730 entries with 140 of those translated from 28 different languages. Family drama was said to be the most common theme with stories covering a variety of topics including mental health, homelessness, racism, and the pandemic. Winners will be announced April 22nd 2021. (Source – CW on Twitter)

Workshops and Other Opportunities

The Catapult programme provided grants to Caribbean artists in 2020 and this wrap up takes a look back.

I was one of the grant awardees and you can view my participation here. (Source – Kingston Creative on YouTube)

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It occurs to me that I haven’t really downloaded my experience of facilitating, in October, a Bocas workshop for the first (and hopefully not the last time). It was good (pending receipt of participation reviews which I always try to use to improve what I deliver). What I was invited to deliver was a workshop on writing for children (I think there was some confusion about this where some thought it was a workshop for children; it wasn’t). I used my own experience of writing children’s books (The Jungle Outside, With Grace, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure) to engage in practical workshop activity and instruction.

(Cover slide)

(Opening slide)

I also draw on my experience editing children’s picture books – I’ve edited more of these books this past year than perhaps any other book (as one client suggests, some of it is probably inspired by the lockdown and people having a greater awareness of what their children are learning). Whatever the reason, I’ve enjoyed these books and look forward to seeing them in the marketplace. My most recent picture book client is based in Australia and he’s currently doing revisions after receiving my edits and provided this performance review:

“I really appreciate your work. You have an amazing editorial eye. You made some connections I completely missed, and your questions/observations were spot on…You do excellent work and I am happy to sing your praises.”

I also did a session on How to Write Children’s Books for US based Aspiring Authors and Writers Virtual Literary Event (see Appearances) that was less a workshop and more a talk which did cover some of the same ground as the Bocas workshop but more personal, fluid, and with a different focus and intention. You can watch that one here.

If you would like me to revisit the workshop on writing children’s books (locally or virtually), let me know at antiguanwriter@gmail.com so that I can keep you informed of this or other future workshops offered through my Jhohadli Writing Project. I’m rebuilding my mailing list and hoping to roll out new programmes in the not too distant future.

I also encourage you to visit the Opportunities Too page here on the Wadadli Pen blog where you’ll find several other Bocas developmental activities including an emerging writer fellowship and at least one more workshop for the year, among other opportunities with pending deadline – including Harper Collins’ writing contest for children. Follow the link.

An additional workshop I participated in in October 2021 was the Antigua and Barbuda Conference. And I have posted that paper, entitled ‘About a Girl: a Close Read of Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Girl’, its stylistic devices and & aesthetic intersection with literature in the Antiguan oral (specifically, calypso) tradition‘, is now posted on my Jhohadli blog. (Source – me)

Readings + Events

UK based Trinidad writer Vahni Capildeo launches her latest, Like a Tree, Walking, on December 1st. The Carcanet publication is the 2021 Poetry Book Society Winter Choice. There will be a reading and discussion, and the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions. To be a part of the audience, register here. (Source – JRLee email)

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On December 4th 6 p.m. EST the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival will broadcast its 2021 short fiction awards on its facebook and youtube channels. The virtual event will be hosted by Pleasantview author Celeste Mohammed and there will be a feature presentation by Elizabeth Nunez – both of Trinidad and Tobago. There will be readings by the winners and the finalists. (Source – BCLF email)

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I also haven’t downloaded publicly at least my presentation at the Antigua and Barbuda Conference, also in October (busy month). I have, however, uploaded my paper – About a Girl: a Close Read of Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Girl’, its stylistic devices and & aesthetic intersection with literature in the Antiguan oral (specifically, calypso) tradition – has now been uploaded to my Jhohadli blog, if you’re interested in reading it. I will be revisiting Jamaica, the person, not the country, when I speak at the Langston Hughes Festival, at which Jamaica Kincaid is being honoured and I have been invited to speak. It’ on November 18th and, as a reminder, you can get tickets here. (Source – me)

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Antigua and Barbuda took to Dubai in November – a tourism promo trip but worth mentioning for the participation of local artists. No writers that I’m aware of but a number of other performance artists including soca queen Claudette Peters, pannist and culture director Khan Cordice, and various dancers.

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(Source – Facebook)

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I just found out that there’s a book meme called #nonfictionNovember and, despite it being a national (UK in this case) event, I decided to count the Caribbean in. The 2021 theme is real life super heroes. Apart from an obvious opportunity to share my She’s Royal series, I’ll comb through the Blogger on Books book review series for Caribbean non-fiction books for children that remind us not all heroes wear capes (because I like a challenge and am prepared to get creative).

How to be a Calypsonian by Desryn Collins – because calypsonians in the Caribbean have been folk heroes who challenge the system in song.

The Art of White Roses by Viviana Prado-Nuñez – which is not non-fiction but is historical fiction set in the time of the Cuban revolution and a Burt award winning teen/young adult novel.

Daylight Come by Diana McCaulay – which is also not non-fiction but is a future dystopian speculative horror inspired by the very real issue of climate change #climatechangeisreal and is another Burt award winning teen/young adult novel which (like McCaulay’s other Burt winning fiction Gone to Drift) sees a young protagonist fighting great odds and interweaves the environmental consequences of human action and inaction which, as evidenced by her recent winning of the Norman Washington Manley Award for Excellence for protection and preservation of the environment – see her acceptance video in accolades (below), is her life’s work.

Ruby’s Dream: the Story of a Boy’s Life by Ronan Matthew – not specifically for children (though it could be read by teens), not framed as non-fiction but it is the story of a boy’s coming of age amidst many challenges in Antigua and of the young man he becomes making his way in America, and it is rather directly inspired by the life of the author.

To Shoot Hard Labour by Smith and Smith – the 100 year life of Antiguan workingman Papa Sammy and of this community to such a revelatory degree that it should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand us and I include it here because I was myself a school student when I was introduced to it by a history teacher and because rough though it is erasure of that history is not an option.

Brown Pelicans by Mario Picayo – part of this indie publisher’s Caribbean Natural History Series which talks about extinct and living species with vivid visuals to hold young readers. I know, I read this one with one of my boys as I recount in the review.

Memes of this type are an opportunity to boost books and an invitation to read; so have a read. (Source – Facebook)

Accolades

Earlier this year Jamaican-Ghanian-American author Kwame Dawes won the biennial PEN/Nora Magid Award for his editorship of the Prairie Schooner. “Dawes has served as Glenna Luschei Editor of the Nebraska literary journal since his arrival at the university in 2011. He and the Prairie Schooner editorial staff have been working quietly over the past 10 years to revolutionize the 90-year-old journal — integrating technology into its processes, giving voice to a more diverse array of poets and authors, and establishing the journal as an international presence…The biennial PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing recognizes an editor whose high literary standards and tastes have contributed to the excellence of the publication they edit. Judges described Dawes as a “bold and visionary editor” who has “proved the ongoing validity of the literary journal and taken it to new places.”” (Nebraska Today) (Source – PEN email)

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Last Carib Lit Plus we announced the shortlist for the first Bocas children’s book lit prize and now we have a winner: When Life gives You Mangoes by Jamaican-British writer Kereen Getten.

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Shakirah Bourne’s Josephine Against the Sea has been named among the best middle grade books of 2021 by School Library Journal (in the US).

Shakirah is a writer based in Barbados. (Source – Author’s Instagram)

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Julia Alvarez of the Dominican Republic is the sole Caribbean nominee for the 2022 Astrid Lindgren Prize. There are a total of 282 nominees from 71 countries. They are authors, illustrators, narrators, and reading promoters who have been nominated by various international nominating bodies. The prize is named for famed Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren who died in 2002 at age 94, leaving behind an enduring legacy of writing and publishing children’s books, including iconic characters like Pippi Longstocking. The prize (valued at the Swedish equivalent of US$550,00) is administred by the Swedish Culture Council and decided by a jury of 12. There are no Caribbean authors or literary programmes listed among the previous winners, but previous Caribbean nominees include (me, Joanne C. Hillhouse) for the 2018 prize, and also from Antigua and Barbuda Joy Lawrence for the 2019 prize and the 2020 prize, Julia Alvarez and Biblioteca y Juvenil Republica Dominica from the Dominican Republic in 2021. St. Kitts-Nevis Carol Ottley-Mitchell is also a past nominee. (Source – N/A)

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Daughters of Africa (1992) and New Daughters of Africa (2019) editor Margaret Busby was announced in our Carib Lit Plus series this summer as recipient of the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award but it didn’t end there. Britain’s youngest and first Black female publisher also received an honorary degree for her achievements as an acclaimed publisher, broadcaster, playwright, and critic, from the University of London – one of Royal Holloway’s founding colleges. “I am really excited to have received an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature from Royal Holloway. It’s particularly special to me as I myself graduated from Bedford College,” Busby is quoted as saying. “I am pleased that my work has inspired students and the wider university and I hope that it continues to do so.”

Past awards for Busby include “Honorary Fellowship of Queen Mary, University of London, the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters, the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, honorary degrees from the Open University and the SOAS, and the inaugural Africa Writes Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal African Society. Margaret was recently recognised in the Queen’s birthday honours list for her services to publishing.”

Busby is Ghana-born and Britian-raised but with Caribbean roots through her parents to Trinidad, Barbados, and Dominica.

(Source – N/A)

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Earlier this year Media for Climate Change Education, out of the OECS’ “Reducing risk to human and natural assets resulting from climate change (RRACC)” project, working since 2011 to assist in the education of climate change and the development of sustainable participation and practices, issued a call for media to produce content related to ocean pollution/clean oceans. The advertised prize was $5500, $4500, $3500 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively, with public education being the larger project goal. Dale Elliot of St. Lucia, known there for his Untold Stories social transformation video series, produced ‘Clear Waters’ – a documentary focussed on marine pollution in the eastern Caribbean and the blue economy model of future development.

He was announced on November 16th 2021 as the first place winner 🥇.

Grenada communications specialist Sorana Mitchell’s background is in media and PR, and she currently works independently as an online news reporter and presenter, primarily through her video platform series Sorana Mitchell Worlds: Stories Heard and Shared. She has produced content entitled ‘The Litter Problem – Grenada‘, ‘Mainting the ‘Pure’ in Pure Grenada’, ‘Biorock Creation, Fisherfolk Practices and Concerns’, ‘Grenada’s Sewerage and Run Off in to the Sea’, ‘The Role of Mangroves in Keeping our Oceans Clean’ – I’m not sure at this writing which of these won her the prize, or perhaps the series as a whole, but Sorana is the second placed journalist 🥈.

Congrats to both Sorana and Dale.

Sorana said in a social media post (pre-winners’ announcement but relevant here): “The media and our consciousness are now rife with continuous talk about climate change and making adjustments to stave off the impending destruction. Only a few months ago I answered the call for journalists in the OECS region to focus on Clean Oceans. Even though at this time we do not emit as much harmful gases as the bigger countries, we still have our part to play in taking care of our environment. My research unearthed that littering is a huge problem in Grenada and other neighboring states. While we call for changes at #COP26 let us do our part to stop littering which eventually ends up in our oceans and adversely affects our marine ecosystem. #cleanoceans #bigoceanstates”

This reinforces that the goal of the Challenge was to produce action at the personal, community, national, and sub-regional level.

I (Joanne C. Hillhouse, freelance writer-editor and more in Antigua and Barbuda) am the 3rd placed journalist 🥉. I had two eligible pieces, part of a series of two articles focused on marine culture in my independent CREATIVE SPACE series. CULTURE 1 OF 2: FEAR OF SWIMMING, WITH CHRISTAL CLASHING O’REILLY ran in the September 15th 2021 edition of the Daily Observer with the extended edition running on my Jhohadli blog and the video component running on my AntiguanWriter YouTube channel.

CREATIVE SPACE #20 OF 2021 – MARINE CULTURE 2 OF 2: FINITE RESOURCES, OCEAN LAW, AND COMMUNITY ACTION, WITH TRICIA LOVELL ran in the September 22nd 2021 edition of the Daily Observer with the extended edition running on my Jhohadli blog and the video component on my AntiguanWriter YouTube channel.

I enjoy writing features and find the human interest approach can be quite effective, plus CREATIVE SPACE is an art and culture column, which is why I took a narrative approach – talking to two women involved in marine culture, for work and play, and using their lived experience to explore why oceans matter and how and why we need to change our relationship to them. I took the time to re-share and link our various content to encourage you to check them out and maybe change your actions because we all have a role to play, even if, as I suggest in my series, it begins with developing a healthier and more informed relationship with the sea. (Source – Facebook)

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Novelist and environmental activist Diana McCaulay of Jamaica receives the Norman Manley Award for Excellence.

(Source – Diana McCaulay on Facebook)

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, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.

Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late August 2021)

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)

Passings

Jamaican dub legend, Lee Scratch Perry, has passed. He was 85 years old. Details of his life and passing in this Pitchfork article. (Source – twitter)

Book Recs

In Issue 5 of Caribbean Reads’ Passport, in August 2021, Rebel Women Lit recommended five Beach Reads. They are Come Let us Sing Anyway by Jamaican author Leone Ross – “This collection shows her range as she tackles multiple worlds that brush up against the one we know”, Stick No Bills by Trinidad and Tobago’s Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw – “Walcott-Hackshaw shows how memory, bitterness, and pain can help us find power to see the light after tragedy”, The Sun’s Eye by various Caribbean writers, compiled by British editor Anne Walmsley – “It’s a brilliant way to sample the work of many stellar Caribbean writers like Olive Senior and Lorna Goodison (Jamaica), John Robert Lee (St Lucia), Earl Lovelace (Trinidad), Frank Collymore (Barbados), and so many more”, Motherland by Wandeka Gayle of Jamaica – “With characters that are equally as diverse and complex as the themes, we see women taking risks, having unexpected adventures daily, and finding their way as immigrants in their new worlds”, and A Million Aunties by Jamaican writer Alecia McKenzie – “a witty title that plays on the Caribbean’s culture of showing respect to older women who look out for you”. (Source – Caribbean Beat email)

New Books

“Yanique calls on themes from some of the best American, Caribbean and international fiction, using her signature lyrical writing style. This historical fiction travels throughout America, from California and Tennessee to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It explores intimacy through a generational, historical and societal lens. It provides a rare look into post-colonialism in America as well as the divergent experience of being black in America over the last 50 years.” – The St. Thomas Source writing on Virgin Island’s own Tiphanie Yanique’s latest novel Monster in the Middle. Though the book isn’t due out until October 2021, it has reportedly already won The Best American Short Story Prize and The O. Henry Prize. Selections from the book have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Harvard Review, and The Yale Review. Yanique’s previous prizes include the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry, the Forward/Felix Dennis Prize in the UK, the Phyllis-Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, among others. (Source – N/A)

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Celebrated Jamaican writer Kei Miller (latest publication Things I have Withheld) paid it forward on his social media some time ago by spotlighting new and upcoming Caribbean releases in what he described as “a bumper year of exciting publications”, and I thought I’d pay that forward by passing it on. Books mentioned in fiction included Popisho/This One Sky Day by Leone Ross (“a super lush, super expansive feat of imagination”) of Jamaica, How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (“the most gorgeous title ever”) by Cherie Jones of Barbados, Fortune by Amanda Smyth of Trinidad and Tobago (“seriously her best novel yet”), The Bread the Devil Knead (“so present and grounded”) by Lisa Allen-Agostini of Trinidad and Tobago, All The Water I’ve Seen Is Running by Elias Rodrigues of Jamaica, Dangerous Freedom by Lawrence Scott by Trinidad and Tobago, One Day, Congotay by Merle Hodge of Trinidad and Tobago (“everyone is looking forward!”), and Monster in the Middle by Tiphanie Yanique of the US Virgin Islands. Books mentioned in poetry included Mother Muse (“it sounds exciting!”) by Lorna Goodison of Jamaica, Thinking with Trees (“quietly beautiful”) by Jason Allen-Paisant of Jamaica, Like a Tree Walking by Vahni Capildeo of Trinidad and Tobago, Zion Roses by Monica Minott of Jamaica, and No Ruined Stone by Shara McCallum (“get back to reading her right now!”) of Jamaica. Books mentioned in non-fiction included The Gift of Music and Song (“a great resource for anyone interested in Caribbean Women’s Writing”) by Jacqueline Bishop of Jamaica, Invisible to Invaluable co-authored by Carol Russell, and Indo-Guyanese poet Rajiv Mohabir’s Antiman. (Source – Kei’s facebook)

Accolades

Various recipients of Antigua and Barbuda Gospel Media Awards, to be conferred in October, have been announced. They are Clephane ‘Mr. Terrific’ Roberts, a well known media personality, and Everton ‘Mano’ Cornelius, an athlete – both receiving legacy awards for education and athletics, respectively; Guyanese national Malika ‘Nikki Phoenix’ Moffett, a radio host across several stations in Antigua and Barbuda, Mario ‘DJ Bless’ Connor, a disc jockey, Thalia Parker-Baptiste, an activist – receiving impact awards, respectively, for activism, arts, and humanitarian work. These are only some of the announced awardees which includes Jamaicans Onika Campbell, known in Antigua and Barbuda as a former journalist with the Daily Observer newspaper and current honorary consul from her home country, another Jamaican, coach and therapist Jermaine Gordon, and Americans James C. Birdsong Jr. and Lillian Lilly, both singers. Announcement of competitive media awards is also scheduled for the October 22nd event, with music awards scheduled for October 23rd. (Source – The Daily Observer newspaper)

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Sharifa George has been announced as a 2021 recipient of one of a handful of coveted British Chevening scholarships and will use it to pursue a Masters in strategic marketing. Sharifa was part of the 2017 Wadadli Pen judging pool. The application deadline for the next round of Chevening scholars is November 2nd 2021. (Source – The Daily Observer newspaper)

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Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa editor Margaret Busby is set to receive the 2021 London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award in September. (Source – personal email invite)

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Gayle Gonsalves My Stories have No Endings has placed second for the Colorado Independent Publishers Association and CIIPA Education and Literacy Foundation’s award in the Women’s Fiction category. The book was previously a finalist at Canada’s National Indie Excellence Awards. “I was so thrilled to learn of the award. …Special thanks to the cover designer (Lucy Holtsnider) for representing the book at the Awards. I feel blessed that the book continues to find new readers who enjoy Kai’s story. I’m thankful to the Universe for these blessings.” (Source – Gayle Gonsalves’ instagram)

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Bocas has this amazing contest for young writers and the people get to choose the winner. That’s an inspired approach to the popularization of reading and writing, and both the prize and the young writers, and you, the voters, deserve all the accolades.

Here’s where you go to listen and vote. (Source – Bocas’ twitter)

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The winners of the BLLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean and in the US, and honourable mentions have been announced. Main prize winners are both Trinis, Akhim Alexis for writers resident in the Caribbean and Patrice Grell Yuseik for those resident overseas, respectively.

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See the short list below and the long list in the previous Carib Lit Plus. (Source – facebook, initially via Diana McCaulay who is one of the two finalists for the resident writer prize)

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The Legacy Award nominations – a project of the Hurston Wright Foundation in the US, named for Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright – are out, and include, in the fiction category, Book of the Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma, born in the US to immigrants from Trinidad. (Source – Twitter)

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The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Caribbean resident and Caribbean American short story prize short lists have been announced. After the long list posted in the last Carib Lit Plus update, which included Antigua-Barbuda, the territories left standing are Jamaica (1), Trinidad and Tobago (2), Sint Maarten/Saint Martin (1), Guyana (1), Barbados (1), St. Vincent and the Grenadines (1), and Dominican Republic (1) for the prize for America-based Caribbean writers; and Trinidad and Tobago (4), Barbados (1), Jamaica (2), and Dominica (1) for the prize for Caribbean-based Caribbean writers. (Source – Facebook)

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Book Publishing/Industry News

Caribbean Reads Publishing is promoting study guides for its titles – and they’re free. (Source – Caribbean Reads on instagram)

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Past Commonwealth Short Story Prize and Burt Award winner, Trinidad and Tobago’s Kevin Jared Hosein announced earlier this year that his forthcoming book, Devotion (his fourth), sold in a five way auction (wow) and is scheduled for release in August 2022. It will reportedly be released simultaneously in the US and UK, with Bloomsbury and Ecco/HarperCollins, backed by a major marketing campaign. (Now, that’s the dream!) It’s noteworthy that KJH did this all while being resident in TnT, one example that you don’t have to live abroad to make it internationally. For how he did it, we invite you to revisit his facebook post, republished, as ‘Hosein Breaks It Down‘, with his permission on this site. (Source – the author’s facebook)

Conversations

This is the latest addition to the data base of Antiguan and Barbudan Artistes Discussing Art, see who else is featured.

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Jazz vocalist, instrumentalist, and creator Foster Joseph talks jazz in the August 18 2021 CREATIVE SPACE. Watch

and read. (Source – Jhohadli)

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Joanne C. Hillhouse of Antigua and Barbuda and Wadadli Pen in conversation with M J Fievre, the Haitian-American author and host of the Badass Black Girl vlog, the second episode of season 5 after Nikki Giovanni (that and other interviews also worth checking out), has been added to the Antiguan and Barbudan Artists Discussing Art data base. (Source – YouTube)

Also ICYMI Hillhouse also has a recent interview with Andy Caul, both added to the Reading Room and Gallery, and has been longlisted for the BCLF short story prize for Caribbean writers resident in the Caribbean, as noted in the last Carib Lit Plus, now added to the Antiguans and Barbudans Awarded page.

Events

The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival is almost here, September 10th – 12th 2021. This year’s theme: A Tapestry of Words and Worlds. Day 1 – Event 1 – Author’s Note with Tiphanie Yanique of the US Virgin Islands, Andre Bagoo of Trinidad and Tobago, and others; Event 2 – A Calabash of Wonder with contemporary writers of unapologetically Caribbean and African YA and children’s literature such as Barbados’ Shakirah Bourne and others; Event 3 – Laureates of the Caribbean: Our Common Heritage featuring the likes of St. Lucia’s Canisia Lubrin, Jamaica’s Velma Pollard and Tanya Shirley, among others. Day 2 – Event 4 – The Joys of Motherhood with Trinidad and Tobago’s Ayanna Lloyd-Banwo and Lisa Allen-Agostini, and Jamaica’s Diana McCaulay in the line-up; Event 5 – Espiritismo y Superstitions looking at Caribbean mythology; Event 6 – I belong to the House of Music with recent Commonwealth short story award winning Roland Watson-Grant of Jamaica among others talking about how music influences the creative consciousness. Day 3 – Event 7 – Women of the Resistance with Barbados’ Cherie Jones and others; Event 8 – Bards and Badjohns with Jacob Ross, a Britain-based Grenadian writer, Courttia Newland, a British writer of Jamaican and Bajan descent, and others explore masculinity in the region; Event 9 – Beti, which will comb through the thread of Indo-Caribbean womanhood. (Source – BCLF email)

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Joanne C. Hillhouse from Antigua and Barbuda was invited to participate in the Medellin International Poetry Festival, its 31st iteration, which has been going on all month, virtually, featuring writers from all over the world. Hillhouse’s panel included Ann Margaret Lim of Jamaica and Sonia Williams of Barbados.

See also AntiguanWriter. (Source – me)

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Jamaica-based Rebel Women Lit continues its Verandah Chats on August 21st with award winning speculative fiction writer Nalo Hopkinson who has Trinidadian roots. You can join from anywhere. Get your tickets here. (Source – RWL email)

You should know about

The Montserrat Arts Council facilitating songwriting masterclasses for local artists. “Local musicians joined more than 50 participants logged on to Zoom for Writers’ Delight – A song writing masterclass. Hosted by Trinidad-born and US-based Darryl Gervais, alongside Montserrat-born and UK-based Vallis ‘Shaker HD’ Weekes, the session ran for a total of five hours. Topics covered included Song Structure, What Makes a Good Song, Writing Better Lyrics, The 7 C’s of Song Writing and much more.” Read all about it here. (Source – Just Write facebook page)

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That the Opportunities Too page has been updated with opportunities for visual artists and writers alike, deadlines pending.

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A series of Conversations on Intellectual Property videos have been posted to the Antigua and Barbuda Intellectual Property and Commerce Office Facebook page. Check their video page for presentations by Carol Simpson, head of the World Intellectual Property Office in the Caribbean, parliamentary secretary Senator Maureen Hyman, magistrate Conliffe Clarke, and ABIPCO registrar Ricky Comacho and staffer Colleen Roberts. Beyond that it features eight business owners and their use of intellectual property: Andrew Doumith of ACT and AllMart; Gabby Thomas of The Vanilla Orchid; Debbie Smith of The Pink Mongoose; Terryl Howell also known as Guava De Artist; Writer, trainer, and Best of Books manager, Barbara Arrindell, Monique Sylvester- Rhudd of JMVI; Patrick Joseph of Stooge Co; and Kurt Carter of QuikServe.

This image of Wadadli Pen team member Barbara Arrindell is not from the Conversations series but from a World Intellectual Property zoom event in which she served as a presenter. I have asked but I haven’t been able to find the video for sharing. Sorry. (Source – Facebook)

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, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.

Carib Lit Plus (Early to Mid August 2021)

Happy Emancipation Day (August 1st 1834).

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)

Philanthropy

How can you help the arts?

For one, the Bocas Lit Fest has a Friends of Bocas initiative, inviting participation from individual stakeholders (regular people). For a contribution, you get access to a whole host of exclusive activities. Our winning Wadadli Pen writer of 2021 was gifted membership access as part of his prize thanks to Bocas, in addition to workshop access to some of our other finalists. Want to get in on the action while supporting the work? Details here.

Passings

Flags are being flown at half mast after the August 9th announcement of the passing of former Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister and National Hero Lester Bird in early August. Bird who was only the country’s second prime minister after Independence, and successor to his father, often referred to as Father of the Nation and National Hero Vere Bird Sr., was also author of two books found in our literary database of books by Antiguans and Barbudans on this site: Antigua Vision – Caribbean Reality: Perspectives of Prime Minister Lester Bryant Bird and The Comeback Kid: An Autobiography of Sir Lester Bryant Bird K.N.H. with Lionel Max Hurst.

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Milton Benjamin, veteran journalist from Antigua crossed over late in July. His passing in part inspired me to write about Antigua and Barbuda’s media culture in my first CREATIVE SPACE of August which you can read here.

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Kassav, the Guadeloupe band whose ‘zouk-la’ had the ability to enliven any soca fete I’ve been to has lost co-founder Jacob Desvarieux, also in late July. His passing brought forth an outpouring of tributes, like this one that landed in my inbox from Karukerament.

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Jamaican writer Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, associated with the early dub poetry movement, has also passed on the ancestral plane. The Jamaica Observer reports.

(Source – the local news I heard about locally, the others via social media)

Events

Antiguan and Barbudan author and Wadadli Pen founder-coordinator Joanne C. Hillhouse will be reading at the Medellin World Poetry Festival (virtually) on Augutst 10th 2021 at 8 p.m. AST. Here’s how you can watch.

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The Caribbean Style & Culture Awards. See site.

Accolades

ETA: The BCLF list below is of Caribbean writers resident in the Caribbean. Above is the long list of Caribbean writers resident in the Caribbean. It includes 9 writers from Trinidad and Tobago, 5 from Dominica, 5 from Jamaica, 3 from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 1 from Barbados, 1 from Puerto Rico, 1 from St. Lucia, 1 from Guyana, 1 from Grenada, and 1 (Joanne C. Hillhouse) from Antigua and Barbuda. Click images to enlarge.

The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s short story competition has been one to watch. And we’re watching this incredible 2021 long list.

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Congratulations to the 22 long listed writers. The wealth is spread on a list that includes 7 writers from Trinidad and Tobago, 5 from Barbados, 3 from the Dominican Republic, 2 from Jamaica, 2 from Guyana, 1 from Dominica, 1 from Puerto Rico, 1 from Haiti, 1 from St. Lucia, 1 from Sint Maarten/Saint Martin, and 1 from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. No your math isn’t wrong, you know how it is in the Caribbean – some writers are from multiple places. (Source – Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival facebook page)

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Belated congratulations as well to St. Lucia’s Canisia Lubrin, who with The Dyzgraphxst (poetry, McClelland & Stewart) becomes the third St. Lucian to claim the main Bocas prize after Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott (White Egrets, poetry, Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2011) and Vladimir Lucien (Sounding Ground, poetry, Peepal Tree Press, 2015). Other winners of this coveted main book prize and its considerable purse have been the British Virgin Islands current Poet Laureate Richard Georges (Epiphaneia, poetry, Out Spoken Press, 2020), Jamaica’s current Poet Laureate Olive Senior (The Pain Tree, fiction, Cormorant Books, 2016) and, also of Jamaica, Kei Miller (Augustown, fiction, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017), and Trinidad and Tobago’s Earl Lovelace (Is Just a Movie, fiction, Faber & Faber, 2012), Monique Roffey (Archipelago, fiction, Simon & Schuster, 2013), Robert Antoni – of Trinidad descent and raised in the Bahamas -(As Flies to Whatless Boys, fiction, Peepal Tree Press, 2014), Jennifer Rahim (Curfew Chronicles, fiction, Peepal Tree Press, 2018), and Kevin Adonis Browne (High Mas: Carnival and the Poetics of Caribbean Culture, non-fiction, University Press of Mississippi, 2019.

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Canada-based Gayle Gonsalves of Antigua and Barbuda was a National Indie Excellence Awards finalist for her latest book My Stories have No Endings. (Source – the author’s social media)

Publications

Barbados’ Shakirah Bourne is now out in the world even as she works on its follow up.

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New Anansi

The author is from Trinidad and Tobago. I haven’t been able to find more information about it, which is odd. (Source – JRLee email)

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It occurs to me that I’ve, not by design, reviewed a number of books by Dominica’s Papillote Press – perhaps more than any other Caribbean press, because they proactively reach out with ARCs, no pressure if I can’t read the books right away. I generally have enjoyed their catalogue, what I’ve read of it and thought I’d share my reviews.

Dangerous Freedom by Lawrence Scott – currently reading
Guabancex by Celia Sorhaindo
Home Home by Lisa Allen-Agostini
The Art of White Roses by Viviana Prado-Nunez
Gone to Drift by Diana McCaulay

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impact-may-2021Download

Impact Magazine dropped in May 2021 (I believe). I thought I’d mention it as it describes itself as the newest source of entertainment and lifestyle news from Antigua, the Caribbean and the world at large. (Source – N/A)

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, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.

Carib Lit Plus (Early to Mid June 2021)

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)

Wadadli Pen News

Wadadli Pen has donated 4 copies each of the Collins Big Cat #ownvoices Caribbean titles to the Public Library. Donations were also made to the Cushion Club, and the Wadadli Pen Challenge winning author has received copies to contribute to a school of his choice.

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The Wadadli Pen Awards were held on May 30th 2021. For the second year, it was virtual due to COVID-19 safety concerns. But you can see clips from the awards on this Playlist on the Wadadli Pen YouTube Channel, you can read all the winning stories from this and past years, You can read who won what?, and You can see our photo gallery of people collecting their prizes, as well as our video gallery.

Second placed writer Ashley-Whitney Joshua collecting her prizes at the Best of Books bookstore.

Congrats to our first ever father-daughter winners and all finalists; thanks to our patrons.

(Source for all Wadadli Pen news – in-house)

Other Awards News

Barbudan Go had an animation competition to raise awareness about fisheries regulations. Entrants were required to create an animation for their favourite existing ad, and post with #booyardfisheries. The announced winners are Eshe Mussington for a parrotfish closed season animation and Dell Dell for a special area fishing permit animation. The prize is $1000. Barbudan Go is a registered community non-profit. (Source – facebook) Per the Daily Observer, Barbudan Go also organized an exhibition at Barbuda’s fisheries complex for World Oceans Day, featuring students from the McChesney George Secondary School.

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(Source – Prince Claus Fund website)

See Opportunities for more on the Prince Claus Fund.

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At Night All Blood is Black has been adjudged winner of the International Booker Prize, given for the best work in translation. Written by David Diop and translated by Anna Moschovakis. It is “a short novel about a Senegalese soldier’s descent into madness while fighting for France in World War I”. Writer and translator will share the 50,000 pounds prize. Chair of judges Lucy Hughes-Hallett said during the virtual ceremony, “The whole of tragedy depends on the dichotomy between the awfulness of what you’re being told, and the beauty of the way it’s being expressed…You feel like you’re being hypnotized. It’s an extraordinary novel.” (Source – BookTuber Eric Karl Anderson and details from The New York Times)

Book + Art Events

Okay, the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival is a ways off but this promo poster debuted recently and I thought I’d share it (in great part because the art is by Trinbagonian Danielle Boodoo-Fortune, whom you may remember is the illustrator of my books Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure and The Jungle Outside, with whom I participated in a Live chat on my AntiguanWriter YouTube channel about those projects and the creative process on World Book and Copyright Day). (Source – Don’t remember)

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CARICON is described as a celebration of Caribbean Literature; it runs online from June 4th to 6th. The event is a diaspora-focused Caribbean American Heritage Month in Southern California. The line-up of participants includes, on June 4th, St. Kitts-Nevis Dr. Robertine Chaderton (One Caribbean Story event), Jamaica’s Dr. Amina Blackwood-Meeks (So You want to be a Storyteller! interactive workshop), Montserrat’s Myrle Roach (The Poetry Hour); on June 5th, Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley (a conversation on New Horizons among the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars) and Dr. Opal Palmer Adisa (a panel on Rebirth: a Journey of Political and Social Change, Renewal, Revival, and Cultural Identity) – both of Jamaica; and on June 6th, Jamaica’s Diana McCaulay (in a discourse on Confronting Climate Change in the Caribbean – Inside a Dry-weather House) and Guyana’s Fred D’Aguiar (a workshop on How to write a Winning Beginning). For more and to register for CARICON visit here. (Source – online somewhere)

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The Barbados Art Collective is holding a fundraiser for St. Vincent and the Grenadines which has been disrupted thanks to volcanic activity. A number of artists have contributed pieces to an art auction running from June 4th – 5th. Cherise Harris who illustrated With Grace (my book) is contributing a development sketch (i.e. one of those pieces that didn’t make it in to the book). The exhibition is being held at the Art Splash Gallery in Barbados. (Source – Cherise Harris’ facebook)

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Antiguan-Barbudan New York resident Carol Tonge Mack had a book signing event at the Best of Books bookstore for her memoir Being Bernadette: from Polite Science to Finding the Black Girl Magic Within. (Source – Best of Book’s facebook page)

See also the database of Antiguan and Barbudan Writing and Antiguan and Barbudan Non-Fiction.

ICYMI

Celebrating one of the great ones George Lamming who celebrated a birthday, his 94th, in early June. The Barbadian is one of the lions of the Caribbean literary canon.

“The depths of Lamming’s understanding of social, political and historical issues were soon revealed in his first four novels: In the Castle of My Skin, (1953), The Emigrants, (1954) Of Age and Innocence (1958) and Season of Adventure, (1960).” – read more at Barbados Today (Source – Facebook)

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Here’s what you missed so far this year if you missed CREATIVE SPACE: Articles on arts support, fashion, books, gardening, cinematography, artisans and artrepreneurship, visual arts on canvas and in illustration form. (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!, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure and Spanish language edition Perdida! Una Aventura en el Mar Caribe, The Jungle Outside, With Grace, and Musical Youth). All Rights Reserved.