Things I read or view or listen to that you might like too. Things will be added – up to about 20 or so – before this installment in the Reading Room and Gallery series is archived. For previous and future installments in this series, use the search feature to the right.Possible warning for adult language and themes.
Video
Documentary film by Dr. James Knight – The Making of the Monarch –
“Though she thought in an utterly non-nationalistic, pan-Caribbean way, Jennifer’s writing was always deeply immersed in the Trinidadian landscape. In Songster, the final piece reflects on what it means to stay and live in the land of her birth. Her Trinidad is ‘not a world in my head like a fantasy’, but the island that ‘lives and moves in the bloodstream’. Her reflections on the nature of small island life is as fierce and perceptive as Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, but it comes from and arrives at a quite opposite place. What she found in her island was a certain existential insouciance and the capacity of its people, whatever their material circumstance, to commit to life in the knowledge of its bitter-sweetness. In her most recent published collection of poems, Sanctuaries of Invention, much of which was written under the curfew of Covid-19, there’s a brilliant sequence of poems, (“mapping home”) that chart journeys (made in the head) from Valencia, through Salybia, Balandra, Rampanalgas, Cumana, Toco and L’Anse Noir – places that these poems bring to sensuous geographic, human and historical life. You sense that this was her Trinidad, her places of resilience and hope.” – “A Season of Sorrow: Jennifer Rahim (1963-2023)” on Peepal Tree Press’ Wha’ppen blog by Jeremy Poynting
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‘It’s important to point out that because I’m a shameless self-promoter who’s also fairly friendly that sometimes many people that I don’t know reach out to me because they like my work and offer to assist me with random things. (That’s tip number four — network, network, network) That’s also how I got funding for my very first audiobook, The Secrets of Catspraddle Village, an anthology of award-winning short stories. A Bookstafriend sent me a link about a seminar for an audiobook class which the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) was hosting. I signed up because I thought “eh, why not?”. What I thought would just be an informative seminar turned out to be an even bigger blessing. Every single person who attended was given studio time to help them record their audiobooks. (Shout out to the NCF for supporting Bajan culture, btw!) BUT please note that (a) I already had material written which was deemed good enough for my application to the writing retreat (b) Catspraddle Village was already compiled since I had planned to release the anthology this year. I say that to say this: (tip five) you don’t have to get ready if you stay ready. In both of those instances, I was (unknowingly) prepared.’ – Callie Browning guest post: Callie Browning has “done everything wrong” and That’s All Right: The Bajan Author on the Secrets to Her Success
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“There’s a story behind every image in the segregation series, each doing its part to answer the question: What does it look like when Black women are othered and yet refuse to allow that othering to destroy them? The series became a rejection of the status quo, a denial to be deemed less than.” – ‘Through Gordon Parks’ Photographs, I Found My Beauty Outside the White Gaze‘ by Khalisa Rae in Jezebel
Interviews/Conversations
“I was in a daze, I think, when I was in Yale.” – ZZ Packer (Drinking Coffee Elsewhere) on Ursa Short Fiction podcast with authors Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) and Dawnie Walton (The Final Revival of Opal & Nev)
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“I wrote what felt true to the character and the world of the story.” – Joanne C. Hillhouse
One correction: On the second page where it says “where the lick”, it should say “were the lick” (from the Antiguan-Barbudan vernacular). Pointed out as the error changes the meaning of the sentence.
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“Again there is a theme, it’s like people seeing some potential in me and me going ‘okay’…and also you have to do a bit yourself; luck is hard work meets opportunity” – Jacob Anderson, Black British actor and singer with Caribbean roots (currently appearing as Louis on Interview with the Vampire)
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“I will never forget my dad holding my face, looking me in my eyes, and letting me know how beautiful I am,” Tasheka said. “He told me my skin, the power that is in my melanin; he told me about my hair, how beautiful my hair is; and then he went on to speak about my African culture and specifically how powerful my ancestors were…he allowed this spark to light up within me.” – Tasheka Lavann in CREATIVE SPACE – BACK TO AFRICA
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“I’m happier writing about women’s lives, particulary their inner lives. Women’s outer lives are so much more owned by others. They have a great deal of responsibility for making sure the world runs for the maximum benefit for the maximum number yet often have little agency or power. How they manage responsibility and relative outward powerlessness makes for rich, complex inner lives.” – Barbara Jenkins in conversation with Jacqueline Bishop for her #InConversation series in the Bookends section of the Jamaica Observer.
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, To be a Cheetah, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my blog, including my CREATIVE SPACE art and culture column, which is refresthed every other Wednesday, 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.
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)
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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.)
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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)
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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.
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)
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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.
Things I read or view or listen to that you might like too. Things will be added – up to about 20 or so – before this installment in the Reading Room and Gallery series is archived. For previous and future installments in this series, use the search feature to the right.Possible warning for adult language and themes.
Presentations
The Antigua and Barbuda Conference has been held each year since 2004/5 with papers and various reviews subsequently published in the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books. More about these activities here https://bartiguastudies.org This is my third time presenting at this event. My paper was entitled: “The New [Caribbean] Daughters of Africa: A Review Focused on Caribbean Women’s Voices in New Daughters of Africa”.
Conversations
“As a writer, I don’t think it’s my job to create characters that people love or hate, but to create a scenario where a character’s motivation is believable, to make sure readers understand why a character takes a certain action.” – Donna Hemans in conversation with Jacqueline Bishop, both Jamaican, for the Jamaica Observer’s Bookends
Two from CREATIVE SPACE, my art and culture column – the first with independent romance and erotica author Kimolisa Mings & the second me with two of my girls from the Cushion Club, now young women talking –
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Jacqueline Bishop in conversation with Jamaican-Brit Hannah Lowe for Jamaica Observer’s Bookends.
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Marita Golden celebrates 40 years as a published author with a conversation on her journey as a writer, mentor, and literary activist.
Music
The way I had hoped to see this song (featuring American singer Jessy Wilson and Beninese-American singer Angélique Kidjo) performed at the 2022/2023 Academy Awards but I don’t think the song even made the long list. In fact, the entire film, The Woman King, about the Dahomey warriors who inspired Marvel’s Black Panther all-female dora miloji, irl the Agojie (which I wrote about in my She’s Royal series some time ago), produced by and starring Viola Davis and directed by Gina Prince Bythewood (here’s how she did it), both Black women, not a small point (as Bythewood points out in this Hollywood Reporter article), was completely shut out of this year’s Oscars, though deserving across multiple categories. See for yourself. It’s coming to Netflix on February 16th 2023 though; check it out.
Poetry
“I don’t take long drives to nowhere anymore, West Bay doesn’t follow the coast anymore, I don’t always know where I am anymore, Only that I’m in a place where no one knows me. Fifty three years I have lived here, Anonymous as a pig on a factory farm, Invisible as the breath of a ghost long gone, My hands can’t take hold of the dark sunlight, My voice calls out without answer or echo, I am the only one for a thousand miles to hear it Even as the faceless crowds press closer, Like each one of them, I am lonely as a moon.” – “Erasure” in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters by Lynn Sweeting (RIP)
Creatives on Creating
“The book or author I came back to The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Though short, it was absolutely unbearable as a teenager. I never even made it to the part with the sharks. A decade later, however, after an unlucky streak of story submissions, the tale became much more relatable.” – Kevin Jared Hosein in The Guardian’s The Books of My Life series
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“It’s increasingly valuable to just have that headspace where if I want to take the time and do some thinking, then I do it.” – Alberta Whittle (10 years ago) on her Fresh Milk (Barbados residency)
“I was born and raised in Haiti; Celeste Rita Baker is from the Virgin Islands; and Tonya Liburd is from Trinidad and Tobago. The three of us gathered together over a few months and designed a unique fictional universe deeply inspired by Caribbean culture and society—synthesizing its folklore and mythology and shared history that culminated in a seventeen-page “Story Bible” that housed the world. Thereafter, we three invited Joanne C. Hillhouse from Antigua and Barbuda to write within this world.” – Fabrice Guerrer in “ON CARIBBEAN FUTURES, SPECULATIVE FICTION AND THE “SKY ISLANDS” FICTIONAL WORLD” introduces stories – “Magic Mangoes“, “Rock, Feather, Shell“, “Ixie and Izzy” – published in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters.
Essays/Non-Fiction
“You would not have loved him, my friend the scholar decried. He brushed his teeth, if at all, with salt. He lied, and rarely washed his hair. Wiped his ass with leaves or with his hand. The top of his head would have barely reached your tits. His pits reeked, as did his deathbed.
‘By the time she was 15, Hinton had already been churning out stories and poems for eight years. She wrote about what she knew: the ongoing battles between the haves and have-nots. In interviews over the years, Hinton described herself as an observer who grew up in North Tulsa “greaser” (slang for their greased-back hairstyles) territory but wasn’t beholden to any one group. She was a tomboy who loved to read and yearned for honest teenage representation.’ – “S.E. Hinton Is Tired of Talking About ‘The Outsiders.’ No One Else Is” by Pat Sauer for Smithsonian Magazine
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“I literally exclaimed “nooo” when Aycayia’s scales started coming back, though conflicted about the limitations that being a woman would impose on her – something she herself was contemplating as she transitioned from one life to the other…and then back again, mournfully. It’s the paradox of the thing you’re not sure you want, until you have to let it go, a part of your heart breaking at the loss.” – from my review of Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch on Jhohadli Blogger on Books 2022 main page.
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“[Earl] Lovelace (The Wine of Astonishment) taught me about creating empathy in the reader for an anti-villain…I love how [Jamaica] Kincaid (A Small Place) made the personal political for me…In it (Miguel Street) I think [V S] Naipaul demonstrates his mastery of characterisation and also his ability to capture Caribbean life in all its beauty, lyricism and complexity…Haunting is the word I’d used to describe [Edwidge] Dandicat’s work (Everything Inside) and its effect on me…Her (Olive Senior/Dancing Lessons) treatment of her subject matter is gentle, nuanced and economical…” – Barbadian writer Cherie Jones (How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House) writes on the website for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (which she was shortlisted for in 2021) about “5 Caribbean Writers to Discover“.
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On the Bocas 100 Caribbean Books that made Us podcast, contemporary Caribbean writers deliver audio essays on books making the list. At this initial writing (January 24th 2023), that so far includes Kevin Jared Hosein on fellow Trinidadian and Tobagonian novelist’s Harold Sonny Ladoo No Pain like This Body, Vashti Bowlah on fellow Trinidadian and Tobagonian short story writer Sam Selvon’s Ways of Sunlight, and aspiring Trinbagonian poet Desiree Seebaran’s of Canada-based M. Nourbese Philip’s Zong! The last is especially engaging from a presentation standpoint.
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 blog, including my CREATIVE SPACE art and culture column, which is refresthed every other Wednesday, 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.
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).
Accolades
Cuban performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is among the international winners of the first ever Prince Claus Impact Awards from among 94 nominations. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is an artist and human rights defender who has been using art and cultural expression to contest the ongoing violations of freedom of expression by the Cuban government. He has been arrested numerous times.
Other winners are Ailton Krenak of Brazil, María Medrano of Argentina, May al-Ibrashy of Egypt, Hassan Darsi of Morocco, and Alain Gomis of Senegal. How is this award decided? From my correspondence with the Fund while researching it (again) earlier this year, they send out invites to cultural experts from their global network to nominate candidates. This is followed by thorough research by the Fund to determine eligibility. Then an independent, international, and interdisciplinary jury consisting of cultural practitioners from across their working regions, disciplines, gender, and background deliberates on the shortlist presented by the Fund. For the Impact Awards, the first step is that we send out invites to cultural experts from our global network to nominate candidates. The Impact award is presented every two years. Luis was previously on the Time 100 2021 list. (Source – Repeating Islands)
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
Notebook of Words and Ideasby Juleus Ghunta has been out since late summer and seems like a good-get for young people, especially budding writers, with its original sketches and nourishing words about reading and books. It invites readers to be inspired to create and add their own words and sketches to its pages. (Source – Juleus Ghunta on Instagram)
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Antigua-based counselor and social worker Koren Norton has been busy publishing and her entries in Antiguan and Barbudan Writing and Non-Fiction Writing have been updated with books published between 2021 and 2022, five of them: Ask Koren: 101 Responses to Your Most Important Questions, The Successful Entrepreneur: Daily Planner, Remembering Paradise: A Journal and Activity Book on Antigua & Barbuda, The Successful Woman Daily Planner, and Tell It Like It Is: The Scoop on Life & Lessons from a Brother and Sister [the latter with Kelvin Grannum]. (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco/Antigua and Barbuda)
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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
African-American writer Jewell Parker-Rhodes, a past patron of both Wadadli Pen and the Cushion Club, continues to make strides in both publishing and Hollywood. The New York Times bestselling author’s Bayou Magic is one of the stories being adapted in to the Emmy Award winning Apple TV Ghostwriter series, alongside stories inspired by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Charlotte’s Web. Bayou Magic is a coming-of-age tale rich with folk magic, set in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, Bayou Magic. It celebrates hope, friendship, and family, and captures the wonder of life in the Deep South. (Source – AALBC email)
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).
Antiguan and Barbudan artist Heather Doram’s latest show returns to Henre Designs Studios in Belmont, December 18th – 2st.
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December 9th is V. C. Bird Day, an official holiday in Antigua and Barbuda – formerly Heroes’ Day. December 9th is selected because it is the birth date of the national hero widely regarded as the ‘Father of the Nation’, the country’s first Chief Minister, Premier, and Prime Minister.
Heroes Day has been moved to October 26th and is not a national holiday. Heroes Day activities for 2022 include prayers at the V C Bird statue (pictured) at the Public Market, a cricket match at the Sir Vivian Richards cricket stadium, named for another national hero, and the Taste of Wadadli, also at Sir Vivian Richards. (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco on Facebook)
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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.
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.
Internship In 2021, Andre W. became my first intern. I did work with one back in 2017 when former finalist Michaela H. interned with the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize of which I am coordinator. But I was more hesitant to take on someone in my personal capacity. As it happens, Andre is also a former […]
A reminder that my CREATIVE SPACE art and culture column is updated this and every other Wednesday. Catch up on all the past issues for 2022 or start with the latest, in which I discuss inflation with someone who broke it down for the regular people. & there’s video.
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.
Things I read or view or listen to that you might like too. Things will be added – up to about 20 or so – before this installment in the Reading Room and Gallery series is archived. For previous and future installments in this series, use the search feature to the right.Possible warning for adult language and themes.
VISUAL ART
I requested and received images from top (and consistently so over her decades spanning career) Antiguan and Barbudan visual artist Heather Doram‘s December 2022 show, held for a second year at the Henre Designs Studio in Belmont. If you missed the 2022 show, this is a selection capturing signature Doram – Colour, Caribbean, Culture, Nature, Life Vignettes, Ever Evolving, Women, and in particular Black women, and if we want to get to the nitty gritty Black Caribbean women whose every expression is a whole story.
Heather has been featured in several installments of my (author and Wadadli Pen founder Joanne C. Hillhouse’s) art and culture column CREATIVE SPACE:
Lost, a short film by Tananarive Due, African-American horror writer.
POETRY
“I go gently towards the ruin, cradling a lover.
mallet and a proem in my hands.
they seek destruction and prelude:
what way to acknowledge those we lost to this.
what sobbing tragedy.” – from “Chaos Theory” by Nnadi Samuel in Speak Out! 1 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers
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“ask the men who have feasted on me
if they ever had to dislodge
my bone from their throats” – from “Fish” by Topher Allen in Speak Out! 2 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers
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“Now, all across this archipelago are those no longer daunted by the world, no longer fearful of dismantling one history for another. Ancestral guardians everywhere open the gates of memory of origins we recognize at last as ours” (from “Archipelago”)
“We watch him reading silently. She, eyeing him all the while, waits with the rarest patience. Perhaps this book will teach him how to answer all the “Whys?” she’s heaping up or prompt him to another round of games.” (from “Meeting-Point”)
“I searched for calmer spaces. Somewhere inside these tangled forests there must be a tract where sunlight falls, soft rain nurtures green shoots, and the sound of the wind as it rises is the call of a heart – ” (from “You Another Country”)
From Leaving Atlantis (Peepal Tree Press, UK, 2015) by Barbadian poet and poet laureate Esther Phillips, editor of BIM: Arts for the 21st Century
“years later, Buju entrapped in Babylon, and you, telling me how you nearly forgot, but your voice broke into a gravelly chant when the bassline dropped” – from “After Buju’s Love Sponge since I was Never One” by Soyini Forde in ANMLY
CREATIVES ON CREATING
“We always would let her sing, then build the track in around her vocal” – Jimmy Jam on producing Janet Jackson
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“Combining the styles from old Hollywood movies – Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and we’re throwing it all in this wild setting.” – Amy Wright, choreographer of the fantasy dance sequence in the series The Boys.
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“Sometimes nature can mimic our deep need to belong to the world and that is what this scene is about.” – Denis Villeneuve, director, Dune
STORIES
“Atiya planned on delivering her baby in the privacy of her home, in water, guided by the spirits of her mothers.” – from “Atiya Firewood” by Lisa Latouche in Speak Out! 1 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers
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“‘Don’t worry jare. It is just a scare tactic.’ Dubem appeared unbothered, and so, I was unbothered.” – from “Dubem” by Priscilla Keshira in Speak Out! 1 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers
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“Jared thought to himself: Is you who could a shoot me. De man dem a drive away and is you fire after them. I was near the car.” – from “Things must Change” by Lloyd D’Aguilar in Speak Out! 1 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers
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“‘Close your eyes, and imagine you were riding a bus.’ I closed my eyes, and a flutter of ecstasy rose from my chest to my throat.
‘Imagine you were riding a bus, but remove the constant bumps and potholes.’” – from “A Matter of Time” by Kabubu Mutua in Speak Out! 2 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers
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“I picked up the hallway handset as Adada was screaming, ‘Doctors write, Lusubilo! Don’t doctors write? Doctors write useful things. Like prescriptions and medical books! What is this foolishness about wanting to be a writer? Better stop with this fucking nonsense!’ ” – from “A Doctor, A Lawyer, An Engineer or A Shame to the Family” by Mubanga Kalimamukwento in Speak Out! 3 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers
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“Opened up my eyes in Ward C one mornin’, and a broad-shouldered lady in hair curlers was grinnin’ down at me.” – from “Annabeth” by Rolli in Speak Out! 3 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers
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“We had a clear view of the horizon in any season.”
“So, you’ve tasted the fisherman, but you’re not satisfied. You are his secret. He tiptoes to your backdoor after dark. He only kisses you with the curtains closed. He makes love to you with the lights off. He leaves your bed to sleep in hers. You want more. You want to keep him all to yourself.” – The Fix by Alexia Tolas, 2022 winner-BCLF Elizabeth Nunez for Writers in the Caribbean
INTERVIEWS, CONVERSATIONS
“We, the artists, we need to be partnered with organizations who have the resources that can fund the work we do because creating the work is one thing, getting it out is another…the theatre production that we’d done, bits of it were taken like to schools… bits of it were done like in a rum shop…bits of it were done like at community meetings…more of that needs to happen but that takes funding, that takes money, we need to partner with who can help.” – Kendel Hippolyte, award winning St. Lucian poet and dramatist, during a panel entitled “Art and Climate Justice: Reimagining the Future” chaired by Jamaican writer Diana McCaulay, Commonwealth Foundation
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“Now, for instance, my showrunner Jenn Flanz…I’ll say to her, ‘hey, watch out for my blind spots. I’m not a woman, so let me know if I’m missing anything.’” – Trevor Noah in conversation with Alex Wagner about creating comedy
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“At 72, I guess I also am more aware of aging, death of friends and my own time of departure, whenever that comes.” – St Lucian poet John Robert Lee with Jacqueline Bishop an article in her series in the Jamaica Observer.
“The captain had been to West Africa: the captain knew Barbados – that’s where he found Samboo and picked him out as a gift for his wife. There were things that he and the captain shared. You read it as an unnatural attachment, but I had to fiture out what else did this nine- or ten- year old have. He’s overwhelmed with fear and panic, and he wants to be out of it, he wants to lie down and not wake up. But I couldn’t leave him there, so I gave an alternative, imagined ending of the return. Perhaps his last dream, a vision, perhaps his spirit travels home; I’d like to think it did.” – Dorothea Smartt in conversation with Jacqueline Bishop:
“My reaction sent me on a journey of further reading and thinking that led me to reevaluate a lot of my beliefs and realize the incompleteness, partiality, and, in some cases, dishonesty of many of the narratives that prevail around British colonialism in the UK. In addition to broadening my horizons, my reading quest remade my understanding of myself and my world. Although the journey wasn’t always easy and required me to shed some assumptions along the way, it taught me to see much further than I’d been able to do before. Even books that seem to have been written that have quite different views from us can deliver such epiphanies.” – Audio essay. Ann Morgan on BBC: Four Thought – Reading Outside Your Comfort Zone.
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Marita Golden, co-editor of Gumbo, revisits the making of the seminal anthology with some of its 70 contributors, all successful writers in their own right. They also discuss writing and publishing then and now. See also the Gumbo review in this site’s first Blogger on Books.
IPS interview (“Caribbean-American Artist depicts Chosen Family“) with Dominican-American Delvin Lugo about his first solo show in New York. ‘The exhibition, titled “Caribbean Summer”, pulled visitors in with its vivid colours and animated characters and also exemplified the success of alternative art events. The gallery space was provided by non-profit arts group Chashama, which describes itself as helping to “create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world by partnering with property owners to transform unused real estate”.’
NON-FICTION/ESSAYS/CREATIVE NON-FICTION
“Another thing my daughter taught me: surveillance is never neutral (Foucault).” – “Lettre a Simone” by Sonya Moor in Speak Out! 2 on Adda published by Commonwealth Writers
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“So when Babylon, like a raging bulldozer, tramples over your daughter’s rights to wear her hair as she pleases, when it wields shears like a weapon and turns her scalp into a scarred hill, woman, don’t let the oppressors see you cry.” – “Hair/Her Emancipation” by Nadine Tomlinson in Speak Out! 3 on Adda published by Commonwealth Writers
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CREATIVE SPACE is an Antigusn and Barbudan/Caribbean art and culture column by Joanne C Hillhouse, Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator. It runs every other Wednesday in the Daily Observer and online. This Reading Room and Gallery (likely the last of 2022) seems a good time to recap the most popular CREATIVE SPACE of 2022:
“All this made me wonder the extent to which the diaspora represents an untapped market for St. Lucian literature, where the challenge is one of reaching readers.” – from “St. Lucians don’t read: Fact or Myth?” by Anderson Reynolds
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“In talking to someone recently about the new set of plates I had completed, The Market Woman’s Story, in which I traced the figure of the huckster, higgler, vendor from the period of slavery until today while enveloping her in fruits and flowers, he pointed out that my first collection of poems, Fauna from Peepal Tree Press, had a section that did a similar thing, for in it I was using local Caribbean flowers to tell Jamaican women’s stories. I suddenly realised that I had a long history of using floral imagery to represent female concerns.” – “The Market Woman’s Story” by Jacqueline Bishop in the Jamaica Observer
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“In an introduction to Steppenwolf (which I’ve not finished reading after all these years of trying, as much as I love Siddhartha), Hesse complained that his poetic writing was often misunderstood. But he nonetheless conceded it was up to the reader to interpret his work, declaring, “I neither can nor intend to tell my readers how they ought to understand my tale. May everyone find in it what strikes a chord in him and is of some use to him!” Who knows if Hesse would approve of my wayward ways. He would certainly not deny me my right to remember the version of the book I first found as a young, single student in London one balmy autumn day in 2004.” – “My Hundred-Year-Old Boyfriend: On Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha” by Trinidad and Tobago writer Andre Bagoo in LitHub
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.
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).
Art and Culture
Check the database of Antiguan and Barbudan Writings if you haven’t already and one of the sub-lists, Non-Fiction Antiguan and Barbudan Books, both just updated with a missed credit of a Natasha Lightfoot publication. Speaking of Professor Lightfoot was one of the voices called to weigh in recently after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Here she is on NPR.
“The Commonwealth, as a collective of former colonized nations, represents a kind of strength-in-numbers approach. To postcolonial statecraft, it fosters collective trade agreements. It, you know, encourages collective climate solutions. But it should be said that these member countries, as a conglomerate of mostly developing nations, need these collective solutions provided by the Commonwealth in part because of the centuries of extractive colonialism.”
(Source – Natasha Lightfoot on Twitter)
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Jhohadli’s art and culture column CREATIVE SPACE which runs this and every other Wednesday in the Daily Observer newspaper on October 19th 2022 features three Antiguan and Barbudan lyricists, composers, singers, players Laikan, Joy Lapps, and Asher Ottos’s latest releases.
The Bocas UK Tour continues to November 3rd 2022. The October 29th 2022 events will be available for viewing online for free. To access go to the British Library ticketing and use the discount code BOCASDIGI100. Programme highlights for Saturday include Ways in the World featuring Barbara Jenkins, Ira Mathur, and Grace Nichols; The Trouble with History featuring Cecil Browne, Ingrid Persaud, and Amanda Smyth; An Island is a World featuring Celeste Mohammed, Jacob Ross, and Celia Sorhaindo; Don’t call it Magic featuring Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, Karen Lord, and Pauline Melville; Mothers, Fathers, Daughters, Sons featuring Sophie Jai, Anthony Joseph, and Shivanee Ramlochan; and Beyond every Boundary featuring Canisia Lubrin, Tessa McWatt, and Nadifa Mohammed. There is a grand finale includes the performance of songs from Playboy of the West Indies: a Musical, adapted from Mustapha Matura’s original play, as long as presentations by Grace Nichols, Fred D’Aguiar, Shivanee Ramlochan, John Agard, Randolph Matthews, and Melanie Abrahams. (Source – Literary Arts Barbados/Ayesha Gibson-Gill email)
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Motion Picture Association Antigua & Barbuda.
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The University of Iowa’s International Writers Program will celebrate International Creole Day, on October 28th at 6:00 p.m. CDT, with a special reading: Rasanbleman Literè Kreyòl / World Creole Literature Gathering. Creole writers from countries around the world—including Jamaica (Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley) and Haiti (Jeanie Bogart, Patrick Sylvain, Jean Dany Joachim, Wilson Maceno, Jean-Andre Constant, Lokandya Fenelon) —will give readings in Kreyòl, live via Facebook. The event will be cohosted by Haitian journalist, novelist, and scholar Beaudelaine Pierre, whose debut novel Testaman was awarded the 2002 Prix Woman Kreyòl Jounal Bon Nouvèl, and IWP Director Christopher Merrill. (Source – IWP email)
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The Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies at University of Glasgow has announced that Antiguan-American historian Professor Natasha J. Lightfoot will deliver the 7th Annual James McCune Smith Lecture, set for 7pm on 17 November. Register to watch online. (Source – Natasha Lightfoot on Twitter)
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Late October to early November is Independence season in Antigua and Barbuda, the home country of the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize. We became independent on November 1st 1981 making this our 41st anniversary of Independence. Full programme below.
(Source – Ministry of Creative Industries and Innovation on facebook)
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These are some scenes from the inaugural Louise ‘Miss Lou’ Bennett-Coverley Festival was held on Saturday (October 15) in Gordon Town, St. Andrew. Named for the late Jamaican poet and activist who popularized folk storytelling and use of the local vernacular in said storytelling, the festival formed part of Jamaica’s 60th anniversary of Independence. The festival was organized by Jamaican writer Opal Palmer Adisa who in 2021 edited a book entitled 100+ Voices for Miss Lou: Poetry, Tributes, Interviews, Essays (pictured in the collage above; one of Ms. Lou’s books is pictured below).
Opal is quoted by the Jamaica Information Service as saying, “At a time, under colonial rule, when Jamaican language, Jamaican culture, and ‘Jamaicanism’ wasn’t respected, Miss Lou stood steadfast, and that is why we are here. I am here… because I want to make sure every Jamaican child understands the work that Miss Lou has done and that we continue to salute her and study her work, not in a one dimensional way, but in the nuance and multiple ways that Miss Lou wrote. She was a tremendous writer.”
If you’re Caribbean, not just Jamaican, you’ve likely heard if not read Ms. Lou. Do you have a favourite? (Source – various, online)
Children of the Sun: Caribbean Stories for Children (published by Frontline distribution International) by Eintou Pearl Springer (of Trinidad and Tobago), illustrations by Clinton A. Hutton
I write Rhymes: a Novel (published by 123 Mango Tree LLC) by Nadine Johnson (of jamaica)
The Land Below (published by JAV Publishing) by Aarti Gosine
Petra and The Pan Man’s Daughter by Philip Simon, illustrations by Lindell Lara
The Whisperer’s Warning by Danielle Y. C. McClean
Zo and The Forest of Secrets by Alake Pilgrim
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ABS TV’s director of news, Garfield Burford, originally of Jamaica but resident in Antigua and Barbuda, is in the US participating in the State Department funded International Visitor Leadership Programme, specifically the Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists. Burford was nominated by the Caribbean Broadcasting Union, as was Barbados-based Stetson Babb.
Deputy Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy Bridgetown, Simone Kendall poses with Garfield Burford following a meeting in Barbados
The US Embassy Bridgetown said in a press release, “Over the course of the two-week program, participants from several countries will review the history and importance of press freedom in the United States; examine the structure, practices, and future of broadcast journalism in the United States; illustrate how new technologies shape the way news is gathered, reported, distributed, and consumed; and explore the crucial role of responsibility and accuracy in reporting in a democracy.” I reached out to find out how any of you reading this might qualify for opportunities like this and was advised that participants for this programme are nominated by an Embassy representative (working closely with NGOs, GOs, and various civil society partners; to proactively seek out opportunities). See the Embassy Education and Exchanges link. (Source – ABS TV on instagram and email from the US Embassy in Barbados)
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Jamaican novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn has reportedly inked a deal for her next book. Per Publisher’s Weekly, “Nicole Dennis-Benn sold her new untitled novel to Random House’s Marie Pantojan at auction. Julie Barer at the Book Group represented Dennis-Benn in the North American rights agreement. The novel follows a young Jamaican girl named Faye who grows up with her family in a small coffee-farming village and returns home after a unhappy time as a model to find a community she no longer recognizes. Dennis-Benn is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Here Comes the Sun and Patsy, both published by W.W. Norton’s Liveright imprint. The former, her 2016 debut, was named a New York Times Notable Book and was a finalist for a 2017 Young Lions Fiction Award. Patsy, published in 2019, won a Lambda Literary Award.” (Source – Nicole Dennis-Benn on twitter)
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US-based Jamaican writer Geoffrey Philp will collect the Silver Musgrave medal in November 2022. Per Jamaicans.com, “Awarded annually in recognition of excellence in art, science, and literature, the Musgrave Medal is named in memory of Sir Anthony Musgrave, the founder of the Institute and the former Governor of Jamaica.” Philp’s award is for literature. The author of 12 books, he has another, Archipelagos, forthcoming, and is working ona Marcus Garvey themed graphic novel. (Source – Geoffrey Philp on Twitter)
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Jamaica has bestowed previously announced national honours on various recipients (143 of them) including a number of people in the arts. The list includes, among others, original Dreamgirls cast member Sheryl Lee Ralph, a veteran actress currently featured in an Emmy award winning role in Abbott Elementary on TV; dancehall artiste Agent Sasco; and jazz pianist Monty Alexander.
This blog – Site visits are down (no down credited in part to us not having a Challenge this year and to there being fewer new posts overall) and here too subscription/follows could be a lot more. Top content this year has been 1, “Nobody go run me” (a classic by calypsonian Short Shirt from our lyrics page), 2, Antiguan and Barbudan Cultural Icon – Paul King Obstinate Richards (proving that there’s interest in our calypso content), 3, and About WADADLI PEN.
A reminder to engage with and share our content. (Source – in-house)
Books & Other Reading Material
UK writer Ann Morgan has published a new edition, 10 years on from the first, of her book A Year of Reading the World. This new Vintage edition is paperback with a new foreword. Reading the world started out as a project Morgan blogged about during the London Olympics, and here we are. To get primed, you can read about Ann’s project in this previous Wadadli Pen post, and about the first Reading the World book and the Caribbean presence in it here. And remember, like Ann said on Twitter, “Indie bookshops, like indie publishers, are heroes of the book world.” (Source – Ann Morgan on Twitter)
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The winning stories in the 2022 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean and Caribbean-American Writers have been posted. Ther former is Bahamian writer Alexia Tolas’ “The Fix” and the latter is Haitian-American Yveka Pierre’s “Nadege goes Home”.
Alexia’s “The Fix” was described by judges as “a poetic story which deftly matches form to function with the verse format of the ‘spells’ driving the action forward. This psychological examination of an insecure lover embodies the scale of a fable while delivering an intimacy through the voice of the narrator. The Fix revels in its aurality and orality and delivers a full sensual experience that haunts the reader long after the final sentence.”
Pierre’s “Nadege goes Home”, meanwhile, has been praised for its “use of metaphor [which]invokes the poetry of Haitian Kreyol. The language of the story moves with a rhythm most strongly discernible in its dialogue. Metaphor, language and rhythm combine in this story about siblings to touch deep feelings and create a texture rich with the sense of lived experience.”
Hear more about these stories and other Caribbean literature on the BCLF Cocoa Pod[cast].
Per the BCLF website, “The BCLF Short Fiction Story Contest is an annual writing competition geared towards unearthing and encouraging the distinctive voice and story of the Caribbean-descended writer and expanding the creative writing landscape of Caribbean literature. It aims to provide a conduit through which writers of Caribbean descent find encouragement and empowerment to weave and share their stories. Both of the contest’s prizes are directed to the two distinct voices and perspectives which comprise the Caribbean identity – writers who were born and live in the Caribbean and those who reside in the diaspora.” (Source – BCLF email)
Viré: The English Version, a novella by Maëlla K., producer of the Karukerament podcast, hit the marketplace in September 2022.
This is her first novella. (Source – promotional author 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.
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).
Accolades
Cuban born Ada Ferrer’s Cuba: An American History is on the Cundill History Prize 2022 shortlist.
Already a Pulitzer Prize winner for history, Cuba “provides us with a front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation, with its dramatic record of conquest and colonization, of slavery and freedom, of independence and revolutions made and unmade.” (Source – Literary Hub email)
Events
The annual Antigua and Barbuda Conference takes place October 13th and 14th 2022. This is the full programme. It will be virtual. I don’t have link-up information at this writing (October 11th 2022), sorry. (Source – email from the project assistant)
Two dozen acclaimed Caribbean writers will be in residence at the British Library on October 29 for a day-long programme of stories, poems and music. There will be other events in Leicester, Norwich, Leeds, and Belfast.
Click this link for more and to book tickets if you are in the UK. (Source – Bocas email)
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The Bridgetown International Arts Festival (in Barbados) is produced and curated by artists. It’s a space to display new and contemporary work in the performing and visual arts. Artists can share new work, build their own audiences, and develop collaborations.
Go to the social media links to register or for more information. (Source – N/A)
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The Dominica Antigua Connection presents its first ever Kweyol in the Park on November 6th 2022, 12 – 10 p.m., on the Department of Environment grounds. It has been advertised as a day of music, cuisine, dance, art, and various cultural presentations. (Source – Daily Observer newspaper/Antigua and Barbuda)
Opportunities
There’s still time to get your submissions in for the annual Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Antiguan and Barbudan young scientists Teyanna Nathaniel, Deshini Charles, Leyla Reid, and Ethan Bailey will be among participants from 180 other countries facing off in Geneva, Switzerland in what’s described as a major robotics competition. From the Daily Observer, “Every year, FIRST Global invites nations to compete in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math)-themed game that is focussed on addressing various challenges facing the planet, including the 14 Grand Challenges of Engineering, in an effort to foster understanding and cooperation among students 14 – 18.” This year’s theme is Carbon Capture. The event runs from October 13 – 16. (Source – Daily Observer newspaper/Antigua and Barbuda)
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The October session of the Jhohadli Writing Project workshop has been rescheduled to October 21st 2022 which means more time to register. This and other opportunities in Opportunities Too.
(Source – Me)
Books
The Stranger Who Was Myself by Barbara Jenkins “is the kind of story best read in solitude to propel the beauty of its prose and of its wisdom from off its pages to land straight into your heart. One is sure to emerge a better mother (for the women who read it), a more astute observer and a kinder human when the last page of this novel is turned. The places, people, architecture, community, societies and culture were so wonderfully recalled and accurately outlined in stunning detail, it’s easy to believe that Barbara’s entire life and memory were preparing her for the act of writing this memoir, proving that the best storytellers, in fact, are born and not bred. This is a must for lovers of memoir or those who are seeking a first foray into the genre.” It is published by Peepal Tree Press. (Source – Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival on Facebook)
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US based Antiguan and Barbudan writer and artist Iyaba Ibo Mandingo has released a second edition of his last book Fu Yuh Tongue Heavy Laka 56. ““It has been four years since its original release. My baby sister Nicole lost her battle to cancer three days after the book signing. I tried, in her memory, to push on, but eventually the weight of the ‘whys’ took a toll on my enthusiasm, and a project I believed in with my everything slowed to a halt”. (Mandingo in an instagram posting) Despite the lag, the book is now getting a new berth. Mandingo described it as “more than a collection of poetry of thirty years of poetry. The first third is a look back at the work from the first poem in an Iowa jail, to my ‘Mykus’ reflecting on the fifty-five days with homeland security after my 9-11 poem. The rest of the book is my discovery of the joy of writing in my native tongue.”
Fu Yuh Tongue Heavy Laka 56 has been added to the Poetry page and the main data base of Antiguan and Barbudan writers. The previous edition was issued in 2018. (Source – Author DM)
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Trinidad and Tobago writer and editor Andre Bagoo has two new collections out since summer this year: The Dreaming, which is a collection of stories, and Narcissus, a poetry collection. From publisher of The Dreaming, Peepal Tree Press: “At one level, Andre Bagoo’s stories have the very real virtue of taking the everyday lives of his gay Trinidadian characters utterly for granted in their searches for sex, adventure, pleasure, self-realisation and all the enrichments of loving contact. There’s a neat balance between a highly enjoyable sharpness of perception and a relaxed and engaging personal voice, and room for humour in several of these stories. …The narrator of several of these stories is a writer who wants to focus on the personal satisfactions and inner dramas of these lives as the truth about gay experience. But at the back of his mind are the stories of the brutal murders of gay men reported with coy innuendo in the press. …Bagoo’s stories offer a witty and acutely drawn portrait of contemporary Trinidad in all its intersections of race, class and gender politics.” Narcissus, meanwhile, is described as “In this powerful collection, Bagoo examines the varied dynamics of the body and mind with the narcissism of the soul, while fully embracing the work of art as a critical reflection on the human condition.” The Broken Sleep publication is his sixth collection. (Source – Andre Bagoo on Twitter)
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English literary critic, novelist, and biographer Miranda Seymour earlier this year publishedI used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys about the famed Dominican writer (author of Wide Sargasso Sea). It is published by W. W. Norton & Company.
(Source – Papillote Press via instagram)
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Three authors launched their trio of books in Montserrat this summer. Titles above. (Source – N/A)
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Dominican writer Celia Sorhaindo has a new book after her critically acclaimed poetry collection Guabancex. Her Radical Normalization was published by Carcanet Press in September 2022.
Also, as seen above, CREATIVE SPACE which is my art and culture column currently platformed in the Daily Observer newspaper, made the front page for a second straight week – here’s the previous front page article. (Source – Me)
Arts and Culture
October is Black History Month in the UK and a project called The World ReImagined has been part of this year’s rollout. Quoting from KnowYourCaribbean on instagram “a community of Artists, Activists, Community Workers, Historians, Educators, Poets and all round kick ass committed believers – come together to change the world and how we view ourselves.” One of the more visible projects is the commissioning and scattering across the English landscape of 103 globes with artistic interpretations (including by some Caribbean-resident artists) of Black people’s legacies of slavery, resistance, resilience, and revolution.
The website includes a map allowing you to locate the marble looking art installations while also adding to the public knowledge of the history of Black people. It is an opportunity for learning. (Source – Know Your Caribbean on instagram)
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It’s October and Trinidad and Tobago writer and editor, and founder of the Caribbean Books Foundation, which platforms books by Caribbean writers, has, for another year running, branded it Caribbean Folklore Month. The calendar includes Jumbie Night, October 9th 2022; plus folklore features, book launches, author interviews, and book reviews. With the growing influence of America’s Halloween in the region, Caribbean Folklore Month is a reminder that we have our own traditions. The month in its premiere year, 2021, featured douens, papa bois, soucouyant, and more. You can get involved by sharing what’s posted by the Caribbean Folklore social pages and others, you can post about your folklore experiences and tag them. You can even read my jumbie story “Papa Jumbie” (published by Akashic Books online) or my zombie story “Zombie Island” (published in Interviewing the Caribbean), share the video of you reading it – I’d enjoy that as long as you credit and tag me. Use the hashtags #CaribbeanFolkloreMonth #JumbieNight (and if you’re reading one of mine #gyalfromOttosaAntigua). You can create a folklore video, artwork, event or celebration around a folklore theme. You can buy, read and recommend books on Folklore and share your reviews – Authors will appreciate this. If you are a Caribbean author or writer, you can add a folklore character or theme to your next novel or story.
Marsha Gomes-McKie’s newest title.
(Source – Marsha Gomes-McKie social media)
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.
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).
Projects
The latest NGC Bocas 100 Caribbean Books that Made Us latest project is a podcast. The first installment finds Trinidad and Tobago Commonwealth and Bocas award winning writer Kevin Jared Hosein ruminating on No Pain Like This Body by Harold Sonny Ladoo. Listen here. (Source – Bocas email)
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Antigua Communications Specialist – and former Wadadli Pen judge – Brenda Lee Browne has shared a call for submissions to the Interreg Caraibes Caribbean Digital Film Library project. This project aims to document, digitalise and create a comprehensive digital library of films by and about people living, working, creating in and about the Caribbean. Film in this context includes and is not limited to: family home movies; feature films; documentaries; news clips; special events, interviews etc. These films can be made by amateurs, film makers, individuals, news organisations, sports/community and institutions – no genre or format is excluded. Browne is the inventory officer for Antigua and Barbuda. Her deadline to submit a comprehensive report of what films are available here and if they require special attention due to age, format etc. is August, 2022.
The Interreg CINUCA project is a collaborative project supported by APCAG and their partners: the EPCC Tropiques Atrium Scène Nationale (Martinique), the association Guyane-Cinéma Audiovisuel et Multimédia (the G-CAM-Guyane) (French Guiana), the production company Lee Productions Inc. (Saint Lucia), and the production company Hama Films (Antigua and Barbuda). The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), under the Interreg V Caribbean programme. If you have films you’d like added to the library, contact Brenda Lee Browne at brendalee.browne@gmail.com (Source – Brenda Lee Browne email)
A screening of Dr. James Knight’s documentary Nobody Go Run Me at UWI (Mona) in Jamaica.
You may know that I have been building a play and screenwriting data base here on Wadadli Pen, which I will be sharing with Brenda Lee, as I look forward to how this project develops. Remember if we have missed any screenwriting credits in our database, please share.
Opportunities
An Antiguan and Barbudan poet and former Wadadli Pen finalist has an opportunity to pursue further studies and you have an opportunity to help. Her name is Hilesha S. Humphreys and she has received the opportunity to study Ceative Writing at California College of the Arts’ MFA programme. Her writing focuses on abuse and centers the feminine experience. To take advantage of this chance Hilesha is requesting assistance to fund her studies. For more information, please email: hileshashumphreys@gmail.com
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The Bocas Lit Fest’s Children’s Book Prize, sponsored by the Wainwright Family remains open to Caribbean authors resident anywhere in the world until the end of August. Started last year, the prize is given to one outstanding English-language children’s book for young independent readers. The Prize consists of a cash award of US$1,000. Last year’s winner was When Life gives You Mangoes by Jamaican writer Kereen Getten. The prize is judged by an independent panel of children’s literature experts. The panel is joined by a young reader who will contribute to selecting the winner at the second stage of judging. Eligible are works of fiction (including short story collections and books in verse), literary non-fiction and graphic novels written for independent readers ages 7 – 12. Works of drama, multiple-author anthologies, picture books, textbooks or instructional manuals are not eligible. Stories should be told primarily through prose. The book can include illustration, but should not rely primarily on visual storytelling and should have at least 1,500 words. Details here. (Source – Bocas email)
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This one is mine, my Jhohadli Writing Project; specifically, my once-a-month workshop session available to participants from anywhere and ideal for writers with works in progress. So far this year, participants have checked in from the US, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua and Barbuda, and participant goals have included advancing and receiving feedback on manuscript in revision, jump starting new writing, and learning more about the world of professional writing. What are your goals?
See this and other pending deadlines at Opportunities Too. (Source – Me)
Accolades
An Antigua Carnival update – Nekirah Nicholls of St. Kitts-Nevis won the Jaycees Caribbean Queen show ahead of runners up Trinidad and Tobago’s Chronna Khan and St. Lucia’s Wenia Verneuil.
The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Elizabeth Nunez prize longlists have, in short order, become one of the most anticipated rollouts of the year if you’re a short story Caribbean or Caribbean diaspora writer. These are the lucky ones in 2022 (Congrats to them all):
For the Caribbean prize (for Caribbean-based Caribbean writers)# – Bahamian Sara Bastien (“The Girl with Your Grandmother’s Eyes”) and Alexia Tolas (“The Fix”); Barbadian Martin Michael Boyce (“In the Secrets Place”), Callie Browning (“The Science of Garbage”), and Gregory Anderson Fitt (“Don’t Cry Precious Baby”); Bermudian Yesha Townsend (“Fishing”); Guyanese Jarryl Bryan (“Shemroy Cusbert”) and Cosmata Lindie (“Starchild”); Dominican/Kittitian-Nevisian Yakima Cuffy (“The Eleventh”); Jamaican Topher Allen (“A Familiar Friction”), Kellie Martine Magnus (“One for the Books”), Tonia Revers (“Hear Yah Now: Conversations”), Damion Spence (“Bull Buck and Duppy Conqueror”), Chaneka Taylor (“Salted Wounds”), and Stacy ann Williams-Smith (“Rio Cobre”); St. Lucian Alicia Valasse-Polius (“Beekeepers”); St. Vincent and Grenadinian Janielle Browne (“The Saddest Part”) and Denise Westfield (“The Valley”); Trinidad and Tobagonian Patti-Ann Ali (“Marley in a Maxi”), Lisa Allen-Agostini (“Meeting Beverley Jones”), Kirk Bhajan (“The La Diablesse of Ecclessville”), Christie Borely (“They lived Together”), Vishala Christopher (“Jumbie like Long Hair”), Rachel Espinet (“Davindra and the buck”), Lynette Hazel (“02.12.20 (Jumbie Make to walk the Road)”), Caroline Mackenzie (“Girls in the Dark”), Brandon McIvor (“Red Hand on a Smoking Gun”), Charmaine Rosseau (“A Real Place”), Portia Subran (“Please Take One”), Kwame Weekes (“Green Thumb”), and Sunil Whittle (“Rockette”).
For the Caribbean American Prize (for US-based Caribbean writers) – Barbadian Elizabeth Best (“Soup on Sunday”) and Rachelle F. Gray (“Peter 3:15”); Dominican Republican El Don (“Amaris Castillo”); Guyanese Elesa Chan (“Jumbie”); Haitian Yvika Pierre (“Nadege goes Home”); Jamaican Jazz Sanchez (“Cook Soup”); *Nicaraguan Marilyn Enriquez (“Devil’s Hole”); St. Lucian Catherine Esther Cowie (“Who wants to look like a Frenchman?”); Trinidad and Tobagonian Keisha Ali (“Uniform”) and Tricia Chin (“Genesis”).
*Nicaragua, I have learnt, despite being Central American, has a major Caribbean influence on its Atlantic coast – including Afro-descendant English speaking Caribbean towns and indigenous (e.g. garifuna) communities.
(Source – BCLF Facebook)
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Artistic director with the The Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts in the Bahamas for 40+ years, Philip A. Burrows, has been awarded the Order of Merit in the country’s 2022 Independence Honours list. Burrows has directed well over 100 productions, taught acting workshops, and written for the theatre; and is notably a founding member of Ringplay Productions and co-founder of the Shakespeare in Paradise theatre festival. Burrows has presented a number of Bahamian productions in the US, UK and throughout the Caribbean, and directed a number of National Events, from Cacique Awards to Independence shows, and both productions honouring Sir Sidney Poitier. There may be other people in Bahamas arts on the list – congrats to all. (Source – Facebook)
Content
You may know that this website tries to archive published reviews of books and other applicable content by Antiguans and Barbudans. The latest installment in this series includes reviews of my books Musical Youth (“a wonderful read” – RunWrightReads, “beautiful book” – Book of Cinz), The Jungle Outside (“masterful use of sensory details” – ACalabash), and (surprisingly) Oh Gad! (“an expansive page-turner” – ACalabash)as well as of the film The Sweetest Mango (“avante garde” – Karukerament), our first feature length film, and Pepperpot, a regional anthology in which I have a story, “Amelia at Devil’s Bridge” (“will make you shiver” – The Opinionated Reader). You can help build this and all of our data bases in two ways – applying to volunteer as a social media intern and sending us tips (and practicing patience when you do). (Source – Me)
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My CREATIVE SPACE art and culture series continues its every other Wednesday publishing schedule in the Daily Observer newspaper and online with extras at my Jhohadli blog. At this writing, the most recent installment asks “Do You know this Man?” while showcasing the careers of 1940s town crier and calypso pioneer Quarkoo and his all but forgotten 1800s to 1900s predecessor Thomas Joseph.
Working on this story, I am reminded of a friend’s feeling about firsts – that often someone did it before, we just don’t know or don’t remember.
(A humbling example of which for me is when years after I started Wadadli Pen certain I was doing something that hadn’t been done as there had been nothing like Wadadli Pen in my becoming, which was why I started it in the first place, I found out, on discovery of the 1979 publication Young Antiguans Write: Prize-winning Selections in Poetry and Prose from School Creative Writing Annual Competition, 1968-1978 , that an annual writing challenge for and publication of youth writing in Antigua and Barbuda for the primary purpose of literary development, was not new. Probably wasn’t new then. It only felt like I was inventing not reinventing the wheel because the car had broken down and been left to rot at the side of the road. I don’t know quite what happened but I do not remember this or any programme of this type (not counting Independence and Tourism essay competitions) existing as I came of age and came in to being as a writer in the 80s nor through my young adulthood in the 90s. And while this could very well be my ignorance, I had not even heard of it. This realisation in part fuels my motivation – though I don’t have institutional resources behind me as that project did – to create a record of our literary history and to not to be another start-and-stop-did-it-even-happen local arts initiative – there’ve been a few, stalled mostly due to lack of resources – but to find a way to keep it going with or without me, which is one reason I pushed for us to become a legal non-profit, daunting as that process has proven to be).
So, in the vein of things being lost, some of Thomas Joseph’s legacy has been folded in to Quarkoo’s, some has been all but erased. Notably, his authorship of “Man Mongoose” – a song popularized as “Sly Mongoose”, that was first recorded in Trinidad, and is thus credited as such, a song that has since been reproduced in many different genres and formats over the years and across the world. I must give credit to American researcher Dan Lanier, who on seeing my Quarkoo post on this site, reached out to ask me about Thomas Joseph and connected me to more about both men than I had previously known. This is one of my favourite CREATIVE SPACE articles of the year because of the connections it makes on and off the page; I hope you’ll give it a read. And if there’s to be intra-island beef over the authorship of “Sly Mongoose”, make it tasty. (Source – Me)
Events
The Antigua Jazz Project has announced a concert, “A Night for Statchel” Version 3.0, Vince McCoy and Friends, featuring Khadijah Simon and Mind Sound, Acoustic Infusion, and The Antigua Jazz Project. It’s 7 p.m. at Pink Mongoose Studio on Friars Hill Road on August 6th 2022. Proceeds in aid of the St. John’s Hospice and Asita Ngash. (Source – postcard picked up at Best of Books bookstore)
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No Panorama? No Problem! The Caribbean Union Bank Hells Gate Steel Orchestra presents it’s “Pan Rhapsody” competition on Saturday 6th August at the Villa Primary School, Antigua. 4 Groups, with up and coming Arrangers will contest this musical showdown.
(Source – Hell’s Gate on Facebook)
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Jamaica and specifically reggae and specifically Bob Marley is now in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and specifically the Black Panther verse with the release of the first trailer for the second Black Panther film: Wakanda Forever. The music featured is Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”, sung by Nigerian vocalist Sems, seamlessly segueing in to US rapper Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”. Of course, the box office breaking, critically acclaimed, and popularly embraced, rare Black-centered series already had a Caribbean presence with Tobagonian Winston Duke as Mbaku and Letitia Wright, Shuri, being Guyanese.
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Book of Cinz– a Caribbean book platform whose initiatives include a global Caribbean-focussed virtual book club and the #readCaribbean hashtag which promos the reading of Caribbean books in June – is having its first reading retreat in Dominica, with less than a handful of spots available. It will be at SeaCliff Cottages between October 15th and 20th 2022. Secure your spot here. (Source – Book of Cinz email)
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We are all invited to listen in on The Caribbean Development Bank funded Cultural and Creative Industries Innovation Fund Creative Talks on Festival Futures in the Caribbean.
(Source – CIIF email)
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It being Carnival season in Antigua, there will be a steady stream of events in the latter part of July in to early August. I can’t report on them all but I’ll share what I can, especially the new and unusual. Like the July 22nd 2022 Band Meet Band Showdown at Carnival City. It seems to be a project of the Antigua and Barbuda Jam Band and Soca Association and the Ministry of Creative Industries and Innovation. The listed line-up includes Sir Oungku and Red Hott Flames, Daddy Barlo and Revo Band, TKO Band featuring Laurena Davis and Ebony T, Byke and Enegee Band, High Tempa, and more. (Source – DJ Ibis on Instagram) & this massive event honouring the Monarch King Short Shirt:
(Source – Facebook)
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This event is passed but if you’re a regular here you know that won’t stop me from mentioning it, plus it continues to make news. Dotsie Isaac has donated proceeds from her showcase “Senses: an Evening of Poetry and Music” to the Antigua and Barbuda Heart and Stroke Foundation. Isaac, a former Wadadli Pen judge, has also revealed plans to make “Senses” an annual event.
Poet Dotsie Isaac is seen in this Laura Hall photo participating in a joint Wadadli Pen-Museum fundraiser (Word Up!) in 2006. Isaac has also served as a judge (2011) and as a special guest at the awards ceremony (2015).
(Source – Daily Observer/Antigua)
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July 20th 2022 is the red-carpet, invitation-only premiere of documentary film Redonda: the Road to Recovery. Wide public screenings begin at Caribbean Cinemas on July 21st (image from Lawson Lewis’ facebook) with advance tickets of only $5 available at the Environmental Awareness Group office or online via the Ticketing app. The doc which is about the recovery of the Antigua and Barbuda offshore island was teased when I interviewed director Lawson Lewis in May 2022 for my CREATIVE SPACE series.
Lawson Lewis on the job.
(Source – Daily Observer newspaper/Antigua)
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July 29th 2022 is African Dress Day in Antigua and Barbuda, the kick-off of the Reparations Support Commission’s Emancipation Day celebrations. The highlight of the celebrations will be, per usual going back 14 years, Watch Night. Date and venue is July 31st the Botanical Gardens. It will be a night of cultural performances, including staples the Nyabinghi drummers and various singers, dancers, and more.
Calypsonian/calypso writer King Zacari, seen here performing at the NVSP awards years ago, is one of the announced performers at this year’s Watch Night. (File photo by Joanne C. Hillhouse/do not reuse without permission or credit)
(Source – Daily Observer newspaper/Antigua)
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.
Ask Koren: 101 Responses to Your Most Important Questions, The Successful Entrepreneur: Daily Planner, Remembering Paradise: A Journal and Activity Book on Antigua & Barbuda, The Successful Woman Daily Planner, and Tell It Like It Is: The Scoop on Life & Lessons from a Brother and Sister [the latter with Kelvin Grannum]. (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco/Antigua and Barbuda)
and full paper are linked from 
Wide public screenings begin at Caribbean Cinemas on July 21st (image from Lawson Lewis’ facebook) with advance tickets of only $5 available at the Environmental Awareness Group office or online via the Ticketing app. The doc which is about the recovery of the Antigua and Barbuda offshore island 
Wadadli Pen 