CARIB Lit Plus (Mid to Late July 2020)

Acclaim

A couple of Caribbean writers have been named among the Hurston Wright Award nominees for 2020. I spot among the Fiction nominees Jamaican writers Nicole Dennis-Benn (Patsy) and Curdella Forbes (A Tall History of Sugar). Read the full list here.

Book News

Not book news but screenplays are the books of the film world and the last CREATIVE SPACE focused on Antiguan and Barbudan films available online. The series runs every other Wednesday in the Daily Observer and on my blog.

Caribbean Literary Heritage used the inaugural Caribbean Literature Day as an opportunity to kick off its Caribbean A – Z of lesser known books series. A is for Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam, and Tulip (1983) is presented by Keja Valens @kvalens, who writes, “Kincaid’s story narrates a moment of first contact between Caribbean natives and conquistadors, from the point of view of the Caribbean natives who are also constituted by the history that will result from that meeting. It features the stylistics, themes, and even characters for which Kincaid is well known: a deceptive simplicity, a deep concern with the colonial and post-colonial experience of Caribbean girls and women, and Annie and Gwen.” They’ll be doing the whole alphabet – including an F entry by me, so check them out by clicking on the page name above.

Myriad Publishing in the UK has lots of news re the global anthology New Daughters of Africa, featuring more than 200 Black women writers from around the world, and edited by Margaret Busby. First, the recipient of the Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa award, made possible because all participating authors waived their fee, went to Iza Luhumyo of Mombasa. Additionally, 500 copies of New Daughters have been donated to schools in the United Kingdom via The Black Curriculum, a social enterprise that campaigns for black British histories to be taught from reception through to A Levels. Myriad’s publishing director Candida Lacey said, “It feels more urgent now than ever to improve the way we educate our children and young adults and to share with them the richness, range and diversity of African women’s voices and across a wealth of genres.” The paperback edition of New Daughters will be out in September.

Caribbean Reads Publishing has announced that it is actively seeking #ownvoices manuscripts for middle grade readers, roughly 8 to 13 years, with a Caribbean setting. There’s no published cut off date but don’t sleep on it. Go here for submission details. Caribbean Reads has also recently released a reading guide for its Burt Award winning title Musical Youth. Download it for free here.

A reminder that Caribbean Reads publishing is accepting middle grade manuscripts. “What’s a middle-grade novel? These are books for readers in the last years of primary school and early years of high school. These readers are beyond picture books and early chapter books but not ready for the themes in YA novels. Age range of readers: 8-13 years. This is a large range and will include simpler, shorter books for the 8-10 range and slightly longer, more involved ones for the 11-13 year olds. Length: 15,000 – 50,000 words. This is a guide. There are longer middle-grade books. Character ages: 10-14 years old. Generally children like to read up, so the protagonists should be slightly older than the children in your target age range. They can’t be too old or the concerns that are most realistic for your characters will be too advanced for your readers. General features: The story must have a compelling plot line and at least one sub-plot (this is one of the features that distinguishes the middle-grade novel from the earlier books).
Adults should have minor roles. They should never step in to solve the children’s problem. The book should show a clear understanding of the protagonist’s point-of-view and concerns as a child. The books may be one of a variety of sub-genres: realistic, fantasy, historical, humorous, etc.” For more, go here.

The Voice of the People’s reading of Keithlyn and Fernando Smith’s To Shoot Hard Labour continues all July (July 10th, 17th, 24th, 31st). Don’t forget the youth tie-ins.

And the live trivia, prizes for which include copies of books by local authors

ETA: I’ve uploaded week 1 of the reading club discussion to my AntiguanWriter youtube channel

Carnival 

What’s there to say? Carnival is cancelled. Or is it? As we settle in to this new normal the news that Carnival has been cancelled has morphed in to some aspects of Carnival is going online. There will be a t-shirt mas via zoom and a party monarch with a $15,000 purse. Registration is ongoing at this writing. I’m going to link the Antigua Carnival page though I was not able to find, with a little digging around, info on these announced events – it is a (too) busy page though so I maybe missed it; either that or it’s not updated yet which would be confounding considering it’s already been in the news. But here’s the page– otherwise, google.

Black Lives Matter

Yes, here in the Caribbean too. A recent addition to the conversation – the part of it having to do with the dismantling of racist iconography – is an op-ed by writer-publisher Mario Picayo, who resides in the VI and in the US.

Mario Picayo’s Little Bell Caribbean published my book With Grace, which centres a dark-skinned Black girl in her own faerie tale.

Entitled Healing the Present by Owning the Past, it was published in the St. Thomas Source and took shots at things in public spaces named for slaver-pirate Francis Drake, colonialist ruler King Christian IX of Denmark, and other things European (and American).

‘Francis Drake was a pirate for the English Crown, and an early slave trader. Together with merchant John Hawkins, a relative, Drake made several trips to Africa between 1561 and 1567 and participated in the triangular trade. During their first trip they reported capturing “at the least” 300 Africans in Sierra Leone through a campaign of destruction and violence. As late as the 1580’s Drake enslaved people during his trips through the Caribbean. In one instance he took “300 Indians from Cartagena, mostly women” as well as “200 negroes.” In Marin County, California, Drake’s statue will be removed and the name Francis Drake Boulevard will be changed.’

Antigua and Barbuda actually has some experience with this – the changeover of European names to one of more local significance, more generally, but the changeover of things named for Drake and Hawkins specifically as well. When I was a child there were streets named for them. Post-Independence, King Obstinate did a song, ‘Sons of the Soil/True Heroes’ that as a child and still I believe changed attitudes and policy regarding some of the things named for European colonists and enslavers. There are still many things named for them, of course, but gone were Drake and Hawkins streets, and two other parallel streets in St. John’s City, and in their place were streets named for legendary cricketers Sirs Vivian Richards and Andy Roberts, and future national heroes King Court and Nellie Robinson. Still no Short Shirt Village nor Swallow Town though.

Read Mario’s full article here.

RIP

Dame Edris Bird (born 1929), former resident tutor of the University of the West Indies Open Campus (Antigua and Barbuda)/University Centre, has died. She has been offered an official funeral “in celebration of (her) selfless contribution to nation building”. In an obit I recommend reading in full, the Daily Observer newspaper speaks of her considerable (and little known to those of us who came after) arts advocacy (for example for the details of the time she stood up to then Prime Minister and Father of the Nation and her brother in law Papa Bird in defense of free expression on the nation’s station).  “The University of the West Indies under her leadership was a mecca for education, the arts, cultural expression, and exploration of self-awareness and self-fulfillment. She encouraged theatrical performances (see RULER IN HIROONA and CEREMONIES IN DARK OLD MEN), and nurtured great playwrights and actors like Dorbrene O’Marde, Edson Buntin, Eugene ‘Rats’ Edwards, Irving Lee, Dr. Glen Edwards, and the cast of Harambee Open Air Theatre. Pan blossomed and flourished, as did African drumming and creative and contemporary dancing. Public speaking and debating thrived; poetry and prose performances all found room for expression at the University Centre. It is without fear of contradiction that we declare that the University Centre under Dame Edris Bird was the cultural and educational hub in Antigua and Barbuda.”

Lit Events

ETA The read2Me_TT bedtime readings are ongoing. Happy to have been included  sure to check out their channel.

Intersect is a Caribbean gender justice advocacy group out of Antigua and Barbuda which recently invited me to participate in a discussion on colourism and more in my Burt award winning teen/young adult novel Musical Youth. Here’s the full instagram live video.

ETA: Weekes is part of the faculty of the new Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts on the UWI Cave Hill campus. It launches online August 1st 2020 at 6 p.m. our time with performances and speaches. Here’s a link.

 

ETA – this event has come and gone; here’s a report. ETA: And here now is the uploaded video of day one of the event – subscribe to the page for notifications re day 2 and more going forward. View my reading during the event on my page AntiguanWriter which you are invited to subscribe to as well

As with all content on Wadadli Pen, 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/Perdida! Una Aventura en el Mar Caribe, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on 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.

Mailbox – Rita Dove & Glory Edim to receive Hurston/Wright Merit Awards

www.hurstonwright.orgWASHINGTON, D.C. – The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation will present merit awards to two luminaries in their fields at the 2019 Legacy Awards Ceremony on Friday, October 18 at the historic Washington Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Receiving the North Star Award—the foundation’s highest honor for career accomplishment and inspiration to the writing community—is Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S Poet Laureate. Glory Edim, founder of the Well-Read Black Girl book club, will receive the Madam C.J. Walker Award for her dedication to supporting and sustaining Black literature.

Legacy Awards for books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry also will be presented during the ceremony, from a slate of 18 nominees chosen in a juried competition.

Rita Dove is one of America’s most accomplished living writers. A prolific poet whose work is known for its lyricism and attention to history, Dove was U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993-1995 and Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress—the first African American and the youngest person to have been appointed to that position. In 1987, her verse-novel Thomas and Beulah won the Pulitzer Prize. Her other books of poetry include Collected Poems 1974-2004, American Smooth, and Sonata Mulattica, for which she won the 2010 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in poetry, and many others. In 1996 her verse drama, The Darker Face of the Earth, had its premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was produced at the Kennedy Center and the Royal National Theatre. Dove has promoted poetry throughout the United States and the world and is known to mentor younger generations of writers. Currently she serves as poetry editor of The New York Times Magazine.

Glory Edim is founder of  Well-Read Black Girl, a Brooklyn-based book club turned into a literary vital space/digital platform for Black women readers and writers. A social media mass phenomenon, Well-Read Black Girl now brings the literature of Black women to thousands of people around the world while still retaining the intimacy of its first in-person book club. In fall 2017, Edim organized the club’s first festival. She also edited the recent anthology Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves (2018). “Our goal is to showcase the universality of Black women through literature,” Edim says. “Through reading, our community addresses racial inequity in publishing and pays homage to the literary legacies of Black women writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Maya Angelou.”

The 2019 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards continue the foundation’s tradition of recognizing literary excellence by Black writers from the United States and around the world. The evening will culminate in the announcement of the winners of the juried awards for books by Black authors published in 2018 in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. More than 150 books were submitted by publishers and self-published authors. The judges – all Legacy Award Honorees in previous years – worked independent of the foundation to evaluate the books for artistic excellence and contribution to the literary canon.

The Nominees for the 2019 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards are:

Fiction
Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Mariner, a Houghton Mifflin Harcourt imprint)
A Lucky Man, Jamel Brinkley (Graywolf Press)
Brother, David Chariandy (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Washington Black, Esi Edugyan (Alfred A. Knopf)
She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore (Graywolf Press)
Heads of the Colored People, Nafissa Thompson-Spires (37Ink/Atria, a Simon & Schuster imprint)

Nonfiction
Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster, Stephen L. Carter (Henry Holt and Company)
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, Brittney Cooper (St. Martin’s Press)
Tigerland: 1968-1969 A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing, Wil Haygood (Alfred A. Knopf)
Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon (Scribner, a Simon & Schuster imprint)
May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, Imani Perry (The University of North Carolina Press)
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart (Oxford University Press)

Poetry
Approaching the Fields, Chanda Feldman (Louisiana State University Press)
Divida, Monica A. Hand (Alice James Books)
American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, Terrance Hayes  (Penguin Books, a Penguin Random House imprint)
Pardon My Heart, Marcus Jackson (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)
Mend, Kwoya Fagin Maples (University Press of Kentucky)
Crosslight for Youngbird, Asiya Wadud (Nightboat Books)

The judges
Fiction: Lesley Nneka Arimah, Patricia Elam, and Reginald McKnight
Nonfiction: Debra J. Dickerson, Keith Gilyard, and Kali Nicole Gross
Poetry: Adrian Matejka, Myronn Hardy, and Donika Kelly

The Legacy Awards celebration is a two-day event that begins on Thursday, October 17th with a reading and book signing featuring the nominated authors and culminates in a ceremony on Friday, October 18th, that draws an audience of more than 200 literary stars and representatives of the publishing industry, media, arts, politics, and academia. Previously announced winners of the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers, under the sponsorship of Amistad books, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, also will be honored. Visit www.hurstonwright.org for event details.

About the Hurston/Wright Foundation: The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation was founded in 1990 in Washington, D.C., and is dedicated to discovering, mentoring and honoring Black writers. Through workshops, master classes and readings, the organization preserves the voices of Black writers in the world literary canon, serves as a community for writers, and continues a tradition of literary excellence in storytelling established by its namesakes. The Hurston/Wright Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

From the Mailbox – Hurston Wright Legends

You know I love Zora Neale Hurston (pictured) and respect Richard Wright as an important part of our African diasporic canon, and you’ve seen me post here before about the programme named for these African American literary heavyweights (e.g their Hurston Wright Writers Week). This latest post is the announcement of the winners of this year’s Hurston Wright book awards – a programme that recognizes and lifts up writers from the aforementioned diaspora, in fact, Kwame Dawes a child of both Africa and the Caribbean, resident in America, was a nominee in the poetry category this year, and Antigua and Barbuda’s own Marie Elena John (Unburnable) is a past nominee. I’m late but still pleased to announce this year’s winners some of whom are already on my TBR and will no doubt find their way on to yours. Also, here’s a link re submission guidelines for the next round of nominees. Finally, walk good and rest in power to Hurston Wright Legacy Award winner Ntozake Shange, whom you will know as the author of the seminal and influential choreopoem For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. – JCH blogger and Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator

The winners and finalists of the Legacy Awards are as follows:

Debut Novel
Winner: The Talented Ribkins, Ladee Hubbard (Melville House Publishing)
In the words of the judges: “Characters map family secrets and lore as they reckon with magical powers that bring both vulnerability and strength. For better or for worse, they learn who they are in solitude and as a collective.”

Nominees:
What We Lose, Zinzi Clemmons (Viking)
An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon (Akashic Books)

Fiction
Winner: Black Moses, Alain Mabanckou (The New Press)
In the words of the judges: “Set in the Republic of Congo, this funny, efficiently-rendered picaresque tale superbly traces the hero’s psychic collapse. The perils of tyrannical government are deftly interrogated throughout this seemingly simple and humorous narrative about an orphan boy.”

Finalists:
The Woman Next Door, Yewande Omotoso (Picador)
In the words of the judges: “Two squabbling octogenarian women on different sides of South Africa’s racial divide live out their rancorous days meditating on the pain of the past and the present. In telling the story of the feud between them, The Woman Next Door brings characters who are often overlooked to the center stage.”

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner)
In the words of the judges: “This Faulknerian tale (heavily influenced by As I Lay Dying) about broken lives and about how the past keeps haunting the present is written with lyricism and power.”

Nominees:
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah (Riverhead Books)
The Tragedy of Brady Sims, Ernest J. Gaines (Vintage Contemporaries)
Dance of the Jakaranda, Peter Kimani (Akashic Books)

Nonfiction
Winner: The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits, Tiya Miles (The New Press)
In the words of the judges: “Miles mines scattered and long-forgotten accounts to reconstruct a stunning, surprising and often-horrifying account of Native Americans and African Americans in 18th century Detroit.”

Finalists:
Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education, Noliwe Rooks (The New Press)
In the words of the judges: “Pulling back the veil of neoliberal ‘solutions’ to end the racial divide in our education system, Cutting School demonstrates that the demolition of public education reinforces rather than alleviates the so called ‘achievement gap’ between black school children and their white peers.”

The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South, Michael W. Twitty (Amistad)
In the words of the judges: “Following the food trail through his multiracial family history, DNA research, race, and traditional recipes, he creates a comprehensive re-evaluation of the meaning of food to African Americans and their ancestors.”

Nominees:
Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A., Danielle Allen (Liveright)
Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy, Sheryll Cashin (Beacon Press)
Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History, Camille T. Dungy (W.W. Norton & Company)

Poetry
Winner: Semiautomatic, Evie Shockley (Wesleyan University Press)
In the words of the judges: “Despite the ugliness of the violence around us, she has written a collection of poems that both chronicles it and decries it, all while offering us the beauty of her lines.”

Finalists:
Ordinary Beast, Nicole Sealey (Ecco)
In the words of the judges: “Sealey addresses our frailty, our fears, our folly, with grace, humor, the perfect timbre of understanding, steady in its conviction that love requires praxis.”

Incendiary Art, Patricia Smith (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)
In the words of the judges: “At once dexterous and transcendent, Incendiary Art digs far below surface issues to their roots, offering readers a rare glimpse into the nuances of characters’ lives with unmatched frankness and grace.”

Nominees:
City of Bones, Kwame Dawes (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)
Trophic Cascade, Camille T. Dungy (Wesleyan University Press)
In the Language of My Captor, Shane McCrae (Wesleyan University Press)

The judges
Debut Novel: Angela Flournoy, Donna Hemans, Ravi Howard
Fiction: Amina Gautier, Chinelo Okparanta, JJ Amaworo Wilson
Nonfiction: Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, E. Patrick Johnson, William P. Jones
Poetry: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, A. Van Jordan, Willie Perdomo

Mailbox – Hurston Wright

Below is the release from the Hurston Wright Foundation in Washington re their annual awards. For those not aware Hurston Wright, named for two towering figures in African American literature (Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright), is a programme that offers development programmes (like Hurston Wright week) and activities to celebrate literature by Blacks from America and the African diaspora. Past Antiguan-Barbudan nominees have included Marie Elena John for her novel Unburnable. This year, from the Caribbean, Kwame Dawes makes the list. Shout out to all the nominees. I think you will easily recognize other names and must-reads on this list; I know I do.

***

Ntozake Shange and Charles Henry Rowell To Receive Merit Awards
Legacy Award Nominees Announced for October Ceremony

The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation will present merit awards to two pioneers in their fields at the 2018 Legacy Awards Ceremony on Friday, October 19 at the historic Washington Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Receiving the North Star Award—the foundation’s highest honor for career accomplishment and inspiration to the writing community—is Ntozake Shange, poet and playwright who created the iconic For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf.  Charles Henry Rowell, founder and editor of Callaloo Literary Journal, will receive the Madam C.J. Walker Award for his dedication to supporting and sustaining Black literature.

Ntozake Shange is one of America’s greatest living writers—an acknowledged master in the genres of drama, fiction, memoir, and poetry. Her theater piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf (dubbed a “choreopoem” for its highly original combination of music, poetry, and dance) was a stunning success on Broadway in 1976-1977, and has been performed continuously since then both in the United States and abroad. It is a staple on the required reading lists of many major school districts, colleges and universities, and was made into a movie by Tyler Perry in 2010. In a hugely prolific career, Shange has written 15 plays, 19 poetry collections, 6 novels, 5 children’s books, 3 collections of essays, and a partial memoir called Lost in Language & Sound.  Among her more notable novels are Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo; Betsey Brown (about her childhood and the Civil Rights movement in St. Louis), and Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter. Her newest volume of poetry, Wild Beauty, was published in November 2017.

Charles Henry Rowell is editor of Callaloo, which he founded and first began publishing in 1976, when he was teaching English at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At that time, Callaloo focused on the literature and culture of the Black South, but the indefatigable Dr. Rowell soon extended the scope of the quarterly journal to include literary and cultural work by writers and visual artists throughout the African Diaspora. But Callaloo—now sponsored by Texas A&M University at College Station and published by the Johns Hopkins University Press—is more than an acclaimed literary journal or magazine. Callaloo and the outreach programs it sponsors have long been a veritable literary and cultural center, publishing an academic literary and cultural monograph series, a series of international annual Callaloo conferences, and annual creative Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops in Barbados, England, and the USA. Dr. Rowell has spent his long higher-education career teaching, editing and, most importantly, identifying, encouraging, supporting, developing, and publishing new and emerging, as well as established, writers in the USA and in other countries of the African Diaspora.

The 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards continue the foundation’s tradition of recognizing literary excellence by Black writers from the United States and around the world. The evening will culminate in the announcement of the winners of the juried awards for books by Black authors published in 2017 in the categories of debut novel, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. More than 140 books were submitted by publishers and self-published authors. The judges – all Legacy Award Honorees in previous years – worked independently of the foundation to evaluate the books for artistic excellence and contribution to the literary canon.

The Nominees for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards are:

Debut Novel
What We Lose, Zinzi Clemmons (Viking)
The Talented Ribkins, Ladee Hubbard (Melville House Publishing)
An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon (Akashic Books)

Fiction
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah (Riverhead Books)
The Tragedy of Brady Sims, Ernest J. Gaines (Vintage Contemporaries)
Dance of the Jakaranda, Peter Kimani (Akashic Books)
Black Moses, Alain Mabanckou (The New Press)
The Woman Next Door, Yewande Omotoso (Picador)
Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward (Scribner)

Nonfiction
Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A., Danielle Allen (Liveright)
Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy, Sheryll Cashin (Beacon Press)
Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History, Camille T. Dungy (W.W. Norton & Company)
The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits, Tiya Miles (The New Press)
Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education, Noliwe Rooks (The New Press)
The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South, Michael W. Twitty (Amistad)

Poetry
City of Bones, Kwame Dawes (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)
Trophic Cascade, Camille T. Dungy (Wesleyan University Press)
In the Language of My Captor, Shane McCrae (Wesleyan University Press)
Ordinary Beast, Nicole Sealey (Ecco)
Semiautomatic, Evie Shockley (Wesleyan University Press)
Incendiary Art, Patricia Smith (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)

The judges
Debut Novel: Angela Flournoy, Donna Hemans, Ravi Howard
Fiction: Amina Gautier, Chinelo Okparanta, JJ Amaworo Wilson
Nonfiction: Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, E. Patrick Johnson,William P. Jones
Poetry: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, A.Van Jordan, Willie Perdomo

The Legacy Awards celebration is a two-day event that begins on Thursday, October 18th with a reading and book signing featuring the nominated authors and culminates in a ceremony on Friday, October 19th, that draws an audience of more than 200 literary stars and representatives of the publishing industry, media, arts, politics, and academia. Previously announced winners of the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers, under the sponsorship of Amistad books, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, also will be honored.Visit http://www.hurstonwright.org for event details.

About the Hurston/Wright Foundation: The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation was founded in 1990 in Washington, D.C., and is dedicated to discovering, mentoring and honoring Black writers. Through workshops, master classes and readings, the organization preserves the voices of Black writers in the world literary canon, serves as a community for writers, and continues a tradition of literary excellence in storytelling established by its namesakes. The Hurston/Wright Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Learn more at http://www.hurstonwright.org.

This program was supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

***

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 10th Anniversary Edition and Other Writings, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, With Grace, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on 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.

 

From the Mailbox – Hurston Wright Winners

Hurston/Wright Foundation Announces 2016 Legacy Awards

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation announced the winners and finalists of the 2016 Legacy Awards and paid tribute to celebrated authors Ernest J. Gaines and Junot Díaz on Friday, October 21st in Washington, D.C.

Dominican-American author Junot Diaz at the 2016 Hurston Wright Legacy Awards (Hurston Wright image)

More than 200 literary stars and representatives of the publishing industry, media, arts, politics, and academia attended. National Public Radio’s Michel Martin served as Mistress of Ceremony and novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez delivered a tribute to the foundation’s namesakes. The highlight of the evening was the naming of the winners of the juried awards for books by Black authors published in 2015 in the categories of debut fiction, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Mitchell Jackson, author of The Residue Years and a former Legacy Awards finalist, presented the North Star Award — the foundation’s highest honor for career accomplishment and inspiration to the writing community — to Ernest J. Gaines, the award-winning author of A Lesson Before Dying. Marita Golden, co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, presented Junot Díaz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and founder of Voices of Our Nation, with the Ella Baker Award for championing diversity in MFA programs, his leadership in creating workshops for writers of color, and social justice advocacy.

The winners and finalists of the Legacy Awards are as follows:
Debut Fiction

Mourner’s Bench by Sanderia Faye (The University of Arkansas Press) – Winner
Fiction

Delicious Foods by James Hannaham (Little, Brown and Company) – Winner

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) – Finalist

The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) – Finalist

 

Nonfiction

Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk (Amistad) — Winner

The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander (Grand Central Publishing) — Finalist

Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic by Gerald Horne (Monthly Review Press) – Finalist
Poetry

Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press) –Winner

Honest Engine by Kyle Dargan (The University of Georgia Press) — Finalist

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (University of Pittsburgh Press) – Finalist

 

The Award for College Writers, under the sponsorship of Amistad books, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, also was presented Friday night.  Princeton University’s John S. Wilson III won for fiction and Joy Priest of the University of South Carolina won for poetry, both of whom read from their winning works. Honorable mentions were awarded to Clynthia Burton Graham for fiction, and to Vanity Hendricks-Robinson and Latasha D. Johnson for poetry.
The 2016 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards continue the foundation’s tradition of recognizing literary excellence by writers from the United States as well as the international Black writing community.
The additional nominees, all of whom were announced in June, were:
Debut Fiction

The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson (Penguin Press)

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Little, Brown and Company)

Fiction

The Sellout by Paul Beatty (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson (William Morrow)

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

 

Nonfiction

Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America’s Black Colleges and Culture by Ron Stodghill (Amistad)

Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We “Catch” Mental Illness by Harriet A. Washington (Little, Brown and Company)

The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America by D. Watkins (Hot Books/Skyhorse Publishing)

 

Poetry

How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes (Penguin Books)

It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time by Angela Jackson (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)

Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis (Alfred A. Knopf)
About the Hurston/Wright Foundation: The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation was founded in 1990 in Washington, D.C., and is dedicated to discovering, mentoring and honoring Black writers. Through workshops for adult writers and teens, master classes and readings, the organization preserves the voices of Black writers in the world literary canon, serves as a community for writers, and continues a tradition of literary excellence in storytelling established by its namesakes. The Hurston/Wright Foundation is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit. Learn more at http://www.hurstonwright.org

 

p.s. you may have noticed a few people with Caribbean roots mentioned, folks like Junot Diaz, Caryl Philips (fiction finalist), and Naomi Jackson who has Barbadian and Antiguan roots (nominee for debut fiction). Congratulations to them and all the winners and nominees. And to all of us writing and dreaming, continue to strive.

 

Hurston Wright…and some musings

Just as we share with you the Opportunities and remind you of the upcoming submission deadlines, we like to share with you the accolades and achievements. This time, it’s the Hurston Wright Legacy Awards named for two of the giants of African American literature, Harlem Renaissance Writers Zora Neale Hurston

A good read.

(Their Eyes Were Watching God) and Richard Wright (Native Son) – p.s. if you haven’t read both books you need to correct that immediately; though my favourite is Their Eyes Were Watching God of Janie and Teacake fame (you can also read her story Conscience of the Court in Reading Room 19 to get you started), Bigger Thomas in Native Son is a character that seared himself in to the American psyche and in to mine when I read him many decades later at the University of the West Indies (UWI).

But back to the 15th Annual Legacy Awards, the ceremony of which is planned for October 21st in Washington D.C.

Recipients listed below.

North Star Award Recipient:
Ernest J. Gaines –  the award-winning author of A Lesson Before Dying, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and numerous other acclaimed novels.

The North Star Award, the foundation’s highest honor, pays homage to the beacon that guided enslaved Africans to freedom. The recipients of the award are individuals whose writing careers represent brilliant accomplishment and whose service to the writing community inspires others.

Ella Baker Award Recipient:
Junot Díaz -the Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, will receive the Ella Baker Award. Díaz is also the author of Drown and This is How You Lose Her, and the co-founder of Voices of Our Nation Arts workshop.

The Ella Baker award, named for the heroic civil rights activist, recognizes writers and arts activists for exceptional work that advances social justice.

I’ll admit (though I’m not proud of this) that Mr. Gaines is still on my to-read list but his work has so permeated the collective consciousness that I am very much aware of A Lesson Before Dying and the Autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman, the latter of which was made in to an award winning film starring the incomparable Cicely Tyson.

Díaz, meanwhile, had me at The Brief Wondrous Life is Oscar Wao, the Pulitzer prize winning book is a mind-blowing experience. I’ve read other excerpts from his writing since, and been impressed with how he uses his voice to speak on issues that matter like the treatment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic (and specifically, in partnership with another literary rock star and shero of mine Haitian-American writer Edwidge Dandicat, the planned deportation of Haitian-Dominicans due to a retroactive and regressive law) and the lack of diversity (or “the unbearable too-whiteness”) in the reading material in the creative writing programmes at US universities and colleges. Kudos to both men.

Following are those now in contention (thanks to submissions and nominations) for the 2016 Legacy Awards.

DEBUT FICTION
Mourner’s Bench by Sanderia Faye (The University of Arkansas Press)
The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson (Penguin Press)
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Little, Brown and Company)

You’ve heard me talk about Naomi Jackson, who is American of Antiguan and Barbadian heritage, around these parts before; so you know which book I’m rooting for:

Cover art by Bajan artist Sheena Rose.

 

FICTION
The Sellout by Paul Beatty (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Delicious Foods by James Hannaham (Little, Brown and Company)
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson (William Morrow)
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

T. Geronimo Johnson has been on my to-read list since I read about him a year ago in a literary magazine en route from New Orleans – in my mind he’s a part of that experience and from the interview, his narrative voice tugged at me. Beatty’s The Sellout, Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees, and Hannaham’s Delicious Foods were also already on my to-read list – in the so many books so little time category. It’s worth noting that St. Kitts-born writer Caryl Phillips is also one of ours; I haven’t read this one (as I have The Final Passage and Dancing in the Dark) though the synopsis suggests a high concept, highly literary read which is what I’ve come to expect.

NONFICTION
The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander (Grand Central Publishing)
Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic by Gerald Horne (Monthly Review Press)
Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk (Amistad)
Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America’s Black Colleges and Culture by Ron Stodghill (Amistad)
Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We “Catch” Mental Illness by Harriet A. Washington (Little, Brown and Company)
The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America by D. Watkins (Hot Books/Skyhorse Publishing)

POETRY
Honest Engine by Kyle Dargan (The University of Georgia Press)
Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (University of Pittsburgh Press)
How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes (Penguin Books)
It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time by Angela Jackson (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)
Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis (Alfred A. Knopf)

Elizabeth Alexander and Vievee Francis would maybe get my vote by default here (you know, if my vote counted) as, with the exception of these two, I’m not familiar with the names in these last two categories. But, of course, non/awareness of the writer is no way to judge a literary comp so I have no doubt the judges will do better due diligence than that. As for me, I have additional names for my to-read list, which, at this rate, I’ll be reading in to the hereafter as it keeps growing. But I’ll end simply with the reminder that these comps matter not to say your art is better than mine but really to boost the recognition of a valuable piece of art; so where we have the opportunity to pay it forward by helping to boost a writer whose work we respect and like, we should. And, as always, wherever the opportunity presents itself, we should go for ours as well. See Opportunities and Opportunities Too links for how you can do both.

Finally, since this site is about youth and arts, I should note that College Writing Awards in Fiction and Poetry will also be presented during the Hurston Wright Legacy Awards. Hurston Wright supports developmental initiatives like the Hurston Wright Writers Week and you can support them by purchasing tickets to the awards (if you are in the D. C. area)  at www.hurstonwright.org

-post by Joanne C. Hillhouse (readily admitting that I know nothing, Jon Snow). You can read about my own writing at jhohadli

 

 

Kincaid, Newland Among 2014 Hurston Wright Nominees

The Hurston/Wright Foundation announces the nominations for the 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. A winner and two finalists in each category will be honored at the 13th Annual Legacy Award Ceremony on Friday, October 24, at the Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C. Wil Haygood, award-winning biographer and journalist and author of the article and book that inspired the film The Butler will serve as master of ceremonies for the awards ceremony.

FICTION

•The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson (Bloomsbury)

•Every Boy Should Have A Man by Preston L. Allen (Akashic)

•The Gospel According to Cane by Courttia Newland (Akashic) – British writer with Jamaican and Bajan roots

•The Good Lord Bird by James McBride (Penguin)

• See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid (Farrar Straus and Giroux) – Antiguan born

•We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo ( Little Brown/Reagan Arthur Books)

 

NON FICTION

•Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home  by Sheri Booker (Gotham Books/Penguin)

•The March on Washington Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P. Jones (Norton)

•Ebony and Ivy Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of America’s Universities by Craig Steven Wilder (Bloomsbury)

•Kansas City Lightning by Stanley Crouch (HarperCollins)

•The Men We Reap by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury)

•Searching for Zion The Quest For Home in the African Diaspora by Emily Raboteau (Atlantic Monthly Press)

 

POETRY

•Darktown Follies by Amaud Jamal Johnson (Tupelo Press)

•The Cineaste by A. Van Jordan (Norton)

•Hemming the Water by Yona Harvey (Fourways Books)

•What We Ask of Flesh by Remica L. Bingham (Etruscan Press)

•Silverchest by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

•The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka (Penguin)