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).
Opportunities
April 30th 2023 deadline for the Big Cat Writing Competition: Big Cat Writing Competition 2023 Flyer. This year the theme is ‘Celebrating Science’ – encouraging children to write what they love about science. The competition is open to schools worldwide. The maximum word count per story is 500 words and schools can enter two stories per age group (5-7 and 8-11 years). Schools can submit via the online form here. There is a downloadable Folder icon Creative Writing Activity Pack including a lesson plan for each age category, along with worksheets to help with the writing process and inspire students to write. A participation certificate is also available to download in the pack. The pack also includes a few recommended readers from the Big Cat programme around the theme of science across the different reading levels, these can be found here. Prizes up for grabs include a year’s access to the Big Cat ebook library for 1 of the key stages (depending on which age category they win), as well as the opportunity to have their story illustrated. Goodie bags and trophies will also be included. Here’s the link to the terms and conditions. We try to keep up with and share as many opportunities as I can. Go here to see more. (Source – Collins Learning email)
Books
This is the cover of an Ian Randle release by Jamaican writer Opal Palmer Adisa, The Storyteller’s Return: Story Poems.
A launch event was held in September 2022 with Kwame Dawes who said of the book, ‘Opal Palmer Adisa has perfected a woman’s grammar, and language rooted in the landscape of Jamaica, a landscape that she apprehends as compelling as a woman’s body: complex, vibrant, dangerous and beautiful—and her poems emerge with a thick, sensual intensity. In these poems, Adisa brings her sharp eye and rich language to bear on her return to the Jamaica of beauty, sexual and physical violence, loss, and memory—a place where “no one feels safe”, and yet a place where the arias of “maaanin-maanin” are restorative. Adisa summons the spirit of women to guide her through memory and the stories in poems that are vulnerable, fierce and revealing. Opal Palmer Adisa has been writing successfully for years, and yet in The Storyteller’s Return, one has the sense of a first and complete voice, a way of seeing that is urgent and powerful. Adisa’s grandmother tells her, “fi always have a good home/ dash you pee across you doorway”. In the woman’s grammar, transgression is liberation. This is an affirming and necessary meditation on the contradictory meaning of home by a gifted poet and storyteller. “Home,” writes the storyteller, “will always remain unfinished”.’ (Source – Ian Randle Publishers on Facebook)
Art and Culture News
Re Antigua and Barbuda Conference 2022, I haven’t been able to access the full video as yet but I did want to share that my (Joanne C. Hillhouse’s) presentation 
and full paper are linked from my Appearances page on Jhohadli, and I discuss Don Charles presentation with him in an entry from my CREATIVE SPACE column. (Source – Me)
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A question for Antiguans and Barbudans, all-yuh remmeber a movie that ran on ABS in the 80s. It was incomplete but locally made, and may have included Vaughn Walter and Edson Buntin. I have been struggling to remember the name of that film or find another person who can remember it existed at all. Help me out. It’s absence is a gap in the Playwrights and Screenwriters (the Antigua-Barbuda connection) database. Speaking of film databases, we have previously reported on the regional film preservation/archival initiative (Interreg CINUCA Caribbean Digital Cinematheque Heritage), and, to update, the Daily Observer recently reported on the participation of Antiguan and Barbudan film producers Howard and Mitzi Allen of HAMA in the Archive Film Festival in Guadeloupe, at which there were representatives from Canada, Dominican Republic, France, French-Guyana, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique, and Trinidad and Tobago.
In these images from HAMA Films on Facebook, the Allens are pictured accepting their flowers for 30 years in film (actually 30+ years as their first film and Antigua and Barbuda’s first feature length film The Sweetest Mango premiered in 2001) and, in the second image with Mariel Browne from Filmco in Trinidad and Tobago.
Observer quoted H. Allen as saying, “the main objective is to establish an audio-visual library content throughout the islands would be stored in one location.” The concerns include access for research and the high costs of doing so from foreign institution’s databases, and the lack of legislation to protect existing film content (e.g. in private collections) from being destroyed or from deteriorating (due to poor storage). To contribute to cataloguing for Antigua and Barbuda, I believe you should be able to reach out to Brenda Lee Browne (brendalee.browne@gmail.com). & if there are gaps in our own record keeping here on Wadadli Pen, let us know (wadadlipen@gmail.com).
(Source Daily Observer by Newsco)
Events
Artist Stephen Murphy comes to Abracadabra on December 15th:
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On the heels of the showcase reported in CREATIVE SPACE, Art in Antigua & Barbuda has announced A Christmas Art Fair for December 11th at Lucky Eddi’s in English Harbour. The event is free and runs from 5 to 9 p.m. (Source – Instagram DM)
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It’s the season for musical events and fundraisers to stoke the mood and here comes Ebenezer Methodist Fundraising Committee’s Carols in the City: A Pan Event.
(Source – VGB on Facebook)
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New Winthorpes, Antigua based music academy Le Chateau d’Or is teaming up with the Princess Margaret School Drama Club for a Christmas event.
(Source – LCD on Facebook)
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A couple of late November visual art events in Antigua and Barbuda that got media coverage are the Art in Antigua Exhibition at Catherine’s Cafe, included in CREATIVE SPACE #24 OF 2022: ARTING AROUND, and of the teacher-student showcase, the Secondary School Visual Arts Expo, reported in the Daily Observer newspaper.
(Source – Me + 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.
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