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.
A reminder that the process with these Carib Lit Plus Caribbean arts bulletins is to do a front and back half of the month, updating as time allows as new information comes in; so, come back, or, if looking for an earlier installment, use the search window. (in brackets, as much as I can remember, I’ll add a note re how I sourced the information – it is understood that this is the original sourcing and additional research would have been done by me to build the information shared here).
Transitions &Remembrance
I wasn’t going to write about Calvin Holder. This letter I came across in Guyana’s Staebrok News when googling to see if news of his passing was true (it was, February 7th 2022) changed my mind. Mr. Holder was a teacher of mine and one of the mentors along the way to me becoming the writer that I am. His English classes (at the Antigua State College) drew me out, I shared my writing with him and received feedback, I wrote plays for the college drama group he led. After college we lost touch – though we reconnected from time to time, though not in a long time. The writer of the February 21st 2022 letter, Roy Brummel, referenced Mr. Holder’s PhD thesis, Victim and Vehicle: The Political, Cultural and Intellectual Contexts of Martin Carter’s Poetry, which he successfully defended on April 5th 2007: “Calvin had served as a teacher in different parts of the hinterlands and, after graduating from UG, he returned, giving more years before being transferred to work as an education official on the East Coast of Demerara. Calvin migrated to Antigua to teach, but he came back to UG to read for his Masters in English and later completed his PhD at the University of the West Indies, with his thesis being on Martin Carter….I have been informed that Dr. Gemma Robinson of England has written a thesis on Martin Carter, but I don’t know of any Guyanese besides Calvin who has written a PhD thesis on Guyana’s national poet. Therefore, Calvin’s work is very significant. I’ve asked people whether they have knowledge of a Martin Carter biography, and they said no. Assuming there is no Martin Carter biography, the works of Drs. Robinson and Holder are even more important as they are the closest to that biography.” Sounds like a good idea to me. Rest in Peace to Mr. Holder. (Source – a friend)
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Sarah White, who was the co-recipient of the first Bocas Henry Swanzy Award in 2013, has passed. She was described by Bocas as co-founder of New Beacon Books with her partner John La Rose, and “a true and practical friend to generations of Caribbean writers, artists, and activists…Her death is a great loss to Caribbean and Black British publishing and bookselling, writers and readers.” Sarah was born in 1944 and died in 2022. (Source – JRLee)
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On Thursday, February 3, 2022, the Rex Nettleford Foundation celebrated Professor Nettleford’s life and legacy with a viewing of “Renaissance Man” A Documentary of the Life of the late Jamaican professor. Nettleford (full name Ralston Milton “Rex” Nettleford) was a scholar, social critic, choreographer, and vice chancellor emeritus of the University of the West Indies.
Tim Tim Bwa Fik podcast discussion with Rilzy Adams part 2 (2022) – “When writing, where this was concerned, the one thing that I really wanted it to feel like and be like was Antiguan… I was very intentional with everything from the food choices to the music…but I also wanted them for the most part to be not necessarily heartwarming but …my general brand, for everything I write…Antiguan, full of love, and spicy.” She added that while so much of our Caribbean fiction deals with our historical trauma she just wants to write about people meeting, falling in love, and having sushi.
Click here to watch the full Tim Tim Bwa Fik series by podcaster Maëlla K on Apple podcasts. It includes interviews with several Caribbean writers. (Source – WordPress feed)
You can now view ‘The Journey of a Book’, a webinar co-organized by The Antigua and Barbuda Intellectual Property and Commerce Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization, online. The presenters were Antigua and Barbuda’s Barbara Arrindell, Award winning authof of Love after Love Ingrid Persaud, Barbados’ Erica Smith, CEO of COSCAP – a collective management organization, and Brian Wafawarowa of South Africa, chief content and product officer, Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd.
Pictured during the webinar, above, are, left, Ricki Camacho, registrar of Intellectual Property and Copyright, and, right, Ingrid Persaud.
“Own your work and find your voice…voice is the key,” – Ingrid Persaud said during the webinar, held on February 10th 2022, giving the writer’s perspective. Arrindell, an author and bookseller, spoke about practical resources for writers (what we have and what we need in Antigua and Barbuda). Camacho hinted that one of the things writers have been asking for, the ability to legally copyright their writing locally, may be in the works. But don’t take my word for it. Watch the entire video. Follow this link and use this password (&F9+t1&r). Thanks to the organizers for making this available. (Source – Me)
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The Filmmakers Collaborative of Trinidad and Tobago has announced an online workshop with Los Angeles based South African writer/director Phumi Morae. It will cover screenplay titles, loglines, taglines, and short impactful synopses. Dates February 22nd and 23rd 2022. More here. (Source – Ministry of Culture, Trinidad and Tobago on Facebook)
Events
The PEN Out Loud series which has booked a number of Caribbean and/or Caribbean diaspora writers for conversations over the years has Aida Rodriquez who is American of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent coming up on March 22nd 2022.
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After a two-year break due to the pandemic, Antigua’s Carnival is coming back. No, the pandemic isn’t over (at February 17th 2022, our dashboard shows 135 lives lost to date , 76 active cases, 75 isolated, 5 new, and blessedly only one hospitalized, with vaccine numbers around 60 percent) but (keeping in mind that a vaccine is not a get out of COVID unscathed card, we can still get it and transmit it) hopefully we’ll find ways to party safely to avoid a post-fete surge. (Source – Antigua Festivals Instagram)
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‘Dreadness: the Mystic Power, Philosophy and Performance of Shadow 1941-2021’, in celebration of Trinidad calypsonian the Mighty Shadow’s 80th birthday, is a virtual symposium announced for March 3rd and 4th 2022. Organizers are the Groundation Foundation and the University of the West Indies St. Augustine. Go here for details and registration information. (Source – Amilcar Sanatan email on this issue of Tout Moun Caribbean Journal of Cultural Studies)
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The NGC Bocas Lit Fest has been set for April 28th 2022 to May 1st 2022. The events will be live streamed. Stay tuned. (Source – Bocas email)
Accolades
The short list of books for the Bocas Prize has been announced.
They are Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer (Cuban-American), Things I have Withheld by Kei Miller (Jamaican), The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (American of Barbadian descent) contesting for the Non-Fiction prize; Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed (Trinidad and Tobago), How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones (Barbados), What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J. A. Chancy (Haitian-Canadian) competing for the Fiction prize; Thinking with Trees by Jason Allen-Paisant (Jamaican), What Noise Against the Cane by Desiree C. A. Bailey (Trinidad and Tobago), Zion Roses by Monica Minott (Jamaican) in the running for the Poetry prize.
The judges will announce the winners in the 3 genre categories on 27 March. These will go on to compete for the overall #OCMBocasPrize2022 of US$10,000, to be announced on 30 April, during the 12th annual NGC Bocas Lit Fest. Each category winner will receive US$3,000. (Source – Twitter)
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Late last year the Antigua and Barbuda JCI Youth Empowerment Programme recognized a number of young people. They are humanitarian award winner and Red Cross volunteer Daniela Mohamed, entrepreneurship award winner and Dadli Dose juice brand owner Kwesi Jarvis, sports awards winner and professional bikini fitness athlete Kimberly Percival, agriculture award winner and beekeeper Jamaul Philip, music award winner and pannist Jah-fari Joseph-Hazelwood, education award winner whose sede project is Eat ‘n Lime Tours Tiffany Azille, mental health activist awardee and associate clinical psychologist Regina A. Apparicio, leadership award winner and history teacher Kamalie Mannix, and culture award winner and translator Alfonsina Olmos.
(Source – Facebook)
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Guyana born British based writer John Agard in late 2021 became the first poet to win the Booktrust Lifetime Achievement Award. “I feel happy that I’ve stuck with this craft since I was a 16-year-old boy writing in a classroom in a Caribbean ex-colony. It’s not just me receiving this award, but all the people that inspired me,” Agard said. Read the full article here. (Source – Repeating Islands blog)
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Jamaican writer Kei Miller (Things I have Withheld) was on the Baillie Gifford Prize long list late last year. The prize ultimately went to Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Industry by Patrick Radden Keefe. The prize recognizes the best in non-fiction. (Source – JRLee email)
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Twenty early-career writers from seven different Caribbean territories have been shortlisted for the 2022 Bocas Emerging Writers Fellowships, to be awarded in two genre categories for poetry and prose. Scheduled to run for a period of six months, and offering tangible support for emerging writers to advance or complete a body of work, the two Bocas Emerging Writers Fellowships will include a cash award of TT$10,000, six months’ mentorship from an established author, participation in an intensive online workshop hosted by the UK literary organisation Arvon, and publication of a chapbook by Peekash Press. From a total of over 100 applicants, the shortlisted writers are, in alphabetical order:
POETRY
Topher Allen (Jamaica) Xan-Xi Bethel (The Bahamas) Neala Bhagwansingh (Trinidad and Tobago) Johanna Gibson (British Virgin Islands) Ubaldimir Guerra (Belize) Jannine Horsford (Trinidad and Tobago) Jay T. John (Trinidad and Tobago) Gillian Moore (Trinidad and Tobago) Ruth Osman (Guyana/Trinidad and Tobago) Allyson Weekes (Trinidad and Tobago)
PROSE
Tracy Assing (Trinidad and Tobago) Heather Barker (Barbados) Ayrïd Chandler (Trinidad and Tobago) Rachael Amanda Espinet (Trinidad and Tobago) Amir Denzel Hall (Trinidad and Tobago) Michelle John (Trinidad and Tobago) Garvin Tafari Parsons (Trinidad and Tobago) Rajiv Ramkhalawan (Trinidad and Tobago) Ark Ramsay (Barbados) Alexandra Stewart (Trinidad and Tobago)
The shortlists were selected by authors Andre Bagoo of Trinidad and Tobago (whose essay collection The Undiscovered Country was the winner of the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction) and Ann-Margaret Lim of Jamaica (whose book of poems Kingston Buttercup was shortlisted for the 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry).
“Caribbean Lit is in good hands,” remarked Lim of the fellowship applications. “Good, serious writers from the Caribbean, unafraid of subjects traditionally ‘taboo’ in their countries, are writing their truths, and doing so beautifully and as well as any international poet or fiction writer…. The voices are not stilted or affected. They are bold, true, and indeed shaped by skill and attention.”
“These writers all demonstrate a mastery of language in service of an artistic vision or point of view,” added Bagoo. “Their writing samples provide glimpses of a future in which Caribbean literature is bolder, more exhilarating than ever.”
The call for fellowship applications asked for writers working in innovative, genre-crossing forms, exploring themes of individual and personal identity, and ideas of belonging, displacement, and home.
The two successful fellows, selected from the shortlists, are expected to be announced in late March 2022, and will present their work in progress during the 2022 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, running from 28 April to 1 May.
The fellowships are made possible by generous donations from Canisia Lubrin, winner of the overall 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature; Dionne Brand, winner of the 2019 OCM Bocas Prize in the fiction category; Christina Sharpe, judge for the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize in the fiction category; and Allyson Holder, Friend of the Bocas Lit Fest. (Source – Facebook)
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Motion, Wendy Braithwaite, a Canadian writer of Antiguan and Barbudan descent, is a Canadian Screen Awards nominee for her writing on the drama series, ‘Coroner’. From Motion’s Facebook: “Wow! So much of our heart and souls went into this one! To see Ruby (played by talented Avery Grant) on screen. To write a story inspired by the culture. To integrate the sounds and the artwork of our artists in this city. To tell a story about art, family, legacy and a courageous girl – young, creative and Black. To work with an awesome room of writers, and create/collabo once again with visionary Charles Officer! 10 Canadian Screen Award noms for Coroner, and 2 for this special episode – DRAMA SERIES, BEST WRITING and DRAMA SERIES, BEST DIRECTING!” Motion’s nomination is for the episode ‘Eyes Up’. (Source – Facebook)
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Shouting out artrepeneur Barbados’ Nikisha Toppin, winner of the MicroPitch Best Female Entrepreneur Award at Micro Pitch Caribbean with her business Elaine’s Caribbean Crochet – “a registered social enterprise that provides Caribbean crochet artists with the knowledge, tools and resources needed to help their businesses be sustainable”.
Image from @elainescaribbeancrochet instagram
MicroPitch is a combination of entrepreneurship trainings and a business plan competition that gives entrepreneurs and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) of the Caribbean region the opportunity to boost their business by offering them capacity building and a platform to present (“pitch”) their business plans, solutions or ideas to a jury and audience, receiving personalised and instant feedback. Other finalists (more in the entrepreneur lane) are Jamaica’s Venice Irving, winner of the MicroPitch Export Award with her business Happy Teachers and Kavelle Hylton, winner of the MicroPitch Jamaica Award with her business STEM Builders Learning Hub; Dominica’s Jodie Dublin Dangleben, winner of the MicroPitch Best Entrepreneur Award with her Jaydie’s Naturals; Belize’s Miguel Huertas, winner of the MicroPitch Audience’s Favourite Award with his business Apilife and Mark Jacob, winner of the MicroPitch Belize Award with his business DML Foxtail Bamboo Straw; and Haiti’s Joseph Kendy Jules, winner of the MicroPitch Haiti Award with his business Haispot. (Source – N/A but finalists pulled from Micropitchcb Facebook)
Books
Rise up, Sista by Kristine Simelda came out late last year. It tells the story of a Jamaican reggae artist and a British rocker who meet in London in 1963, sparking a powerful story of friendship and cultural revolution. . It is dedicated to the life of Nelly Stharre, a Dominican reggae artist who passed away in 2015 andexplores the amazing diversity of music written and broadcast during the 1960s and beyond—rhythms that served as a uniting force during times of change and political unrest. The book was published by Simelda, an American who has lived in Dominica since the mid-1990’s, River Ridge Press.
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Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean & African Women’s Cultural Critique of Nation by Andrea A. Davis was released in January 2022. Calling for new affiliations of community among Black, Indigenous, and other racialized women, and offering new reflections on the relationship between the Caribbean and Canada, Davis articulates a diaspora poetics that privileges our shared humanity. In advancing these claims, she turns to the expressive cultures (novels, poetry, theater, and music) of Caribbean and African women artists in Canada, including work by Dionne Brand, M. NourbeSe Philip, Esi Edugyan, Ramabai Espinet, Nalo Hopkinson, Amai Kuda, and Djanet Sears. Davis considers the ways in which the diasporic characters these artists create redraw the boundaries of their horizons, invoke the fluid histories of the Caribbean Sea to overcome the brutalization of plantation histories, use sound to enter and reenter archives, and shapeshift to survive in the face of conquest. The book will interest readers of literary and cultural studies, critical race theories, and Black diasporic studies. (Source – Twitter)
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Rohan Balkin and The Shadows by Juleus Ghunta with illustrator Rachel Moss was an end of year Caribbean Reads release.
Rohan Bullkin is haunted by sinister Shadows that fuel his fear of reading. He hates books so much that he often rips their pages. But when the Shadows become intolerable, Rohan accepts an offer of friendship from a special book. This marks the beginning of a remarkable journey during which he not only learns how to conquer Shadows but also develops a love of books and life. (Source – Caribbean Reads email)
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You know we’re all about promoting Antiguan and Barbudan books via our book lists, including Antiguan and Barbudan children’s literature. You know that we also promote Caribbean literature. Here’s a new one (or new to us), Jako Productions’ listing of St. Lucia Children’s Books. Just scrolling through it, I’m fascinated by Talking Talia Tattles or Tells – do I know the difference between tattling and telling? do you? this may be a book not just for children; lots of adventure tales – go Wyetta; love the use of the French creole – sak sa…sa ka fet…did I use those right?; the folklore – compere lapin to soucouyan… who looks as frightful as I remember from childhood tales in Antigua (my mother’s family is French creole from Dominica). Anyway, check out the listing of books for children and #readCaribbean (Source – Jako Productions email)
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This is book news more than books, and the news is that American author of Haitian descent Roxane Gay has a new (new in 2021) imprint and a fellowship programme to provide opportunities to publish and/or learn the business, respecitively, to underrepresented voices. Read the announcement in this article in Poets & Writers, and then do your research. (Source – Poets and Writers email)
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US based Trinidad and Tobago author Danielle Y. C. McClean’s The Whisperer’s Warning is the second book in her Secrets of Oscuros series after the Burt Award winning The Protector’s Pledge. It is illustrated by Rachel Moss and published by Caribbean Reads Publishing. Twelve-year-old JV has discovered that he’s one of a select few entrusted with preserving the balance between the world’s natural and unnatural realms and is now more driven than ever to know who his birth parents are. But there’s another mystery in the usually quiet village of Alcavere that he can’t ignore. He and his friends, Carol and Riaz, have received a cryptic warning from a supernatural being who dwells in the Oscuros Forest, launching them into a high-stakes mission. (Source – BCLF email)
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The second book in Jamaican writer Marlon James’ Dark Star Trilogy Moon Witch Spider King landed in February. It follows on National (US) Book Award Finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf. In Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Sogolon the Moon Witch proved a worthy adversary to Tracker as they clashed across a mythical African landscape in search of a mysterious boy who disappeared. In Moon Witch, Spider King, Sogolon takes center stage and gives her own account of what happened to the boy, and how she plotted and fought, triumphed and failed as she looked for him. It’s also the story of a century-long feud—seen through the eyes of a 177-year-old witch—that Sogolon had with the Aesi, chancellor to the king. It is said that Aesi works so closely with the king that together they are like the eight limbs of one spider. Aesi’s power is considerable—and deadly. It takes brains and courage to challenge him, which Sogolon does for reasons of her own. Moon Witch, Spider King delves into Sogolon’s world as she fights to tell her own story. James is a US-based author whose many accolades include the Man Booker Prize (only one of two Caribbean authors to claim that coveted prize) for A Brief History of Seven Killings. (Source – BCLF email)
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Sabine, the first short story collection from Hazel Simmons-McDonald, St. Lucia-born linguistics professor emerita, first head of the UWI Open campus, and poet, was published in December 2021. The book presents a deft exploration of class, of how values are shaped by religion, and of the tensions that undergird family life. She makes a place for voices hitherto not heard and creates characters who closely guard the secrets of their hearts but who through her narrative dexterity come to experience moments of truth and clarity of memory. Sabine is published by UWI Press. (Source – JRLee email)
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Co-founder of gender activist group Intersect Antigua and Barbuda Sarah Gresham has created a free online library. The purpose, to share reading recommendations from the Intersect team on each theme of the Caribbean Feminist Stories project. Access podcasts, articles, videos, blog posts, and books that illuminate the themes Resilience in the Face of Natural Disasters, Critical Green Theory, and Black in Environment! As the weeks progress, more resources will be added. (Source – Twitter)
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Ana Portnoy Brimmer’s To Love an Island came out in late December 2021. Portnoy Brimmer is a poet and organizer from Puerto Rico. To Love An Island begins with the aftermath of Hurricane María and spans the summer insurrection of 2019 and subsequent earthquakes in Puerto Rico. It was originally the winner of the YesYes Books 2019 Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest. (Source – N/A)
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A Lantern in the Wind: A Fictional Memoir was released in 2021 by Hansib. It was written by Ameena Gafoor and offers rare insight in to Muslim life in Guyana. Additionally, her description of being an immigrant in London is a relatively rare revelation of the female experience. Ameena Gafoor is the Founder of The Arts Forum Inc; the Founding Editor of The Arts Journal; and author of Aftermath of Empire: The Novels of Roy A.K. Heath (2017). She has received two National awards as well as recognition from the Guyana Indian Commemoration Trust and the Guyana Cultural Association of New York for her outstanding contribution to the literary arts of Guyana and the Caribbean. She has also received an award from Caribbean Voice for her social work with Support for Vulnerable People through The Gafoor Foundation. Her critical articles are published in selected Journals. (Source – Hansib email)
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One Day, One Day, Congotay by Trinidad and Tobago’s Merle Hodge is described, on the website of publisher Peepal Tree Press, as ‘A novel, like George Elliot’s Middlemarch that celebrates the small, hidden lives that make the world a better place. Like any richly documented historical novel, it has much to say, by implication, about the present’. It was released in January 2022. (Source – JRLee email)
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St. Lucian writer Mac Donald Dixon’s A Scream in the Shadows launches this month. It is a crime story set in the rural Caribbean where traditional allegiances and a flawed criminal justice system provide a backdrop to the rape and murder of a young girl. When her father is accused of the crime, her brother joins the police to try and clear their father’s name. While the suspect languishes in jail on remand, the young detective makes some alarming discoveries. (Source – Jako Productions email)
As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. Subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.
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).
Christmas
The latest CREATIVE SPACE is the story of Christmas in the Caribbean. Read it here and share. And check out the CREATIVE SPACE Christmas playlist here.
(Source – me)
Accolades
The Caribbean Writer award winners for volume 35 have been announced. St. Lucian Cecilia Valasse was the Cecile de Jongh literary prize winner for a writer whose work best expresses the spirit of the Caribbean for ‘Castor Oils Seeds’. Antigua-born, Virgin Islands-raised Elaine Jacobs won the Marvin E Williams prize for an emerging writer for ‘Going away without Shoes’. St. Lucian McDonald Dixon, ‘Beloved Country’, Virgin Islander Clarissa Gillard, ‘A Muted Conversation between Races and Social Injustice’, David O’keefe, ‘Caribbean Blues’, and Jamaican Rohan Facey, ‘Not Ordinary Days’ were all short listed for this prize. Short listed for the Canute A. Brodhurst prize for best short fiction were Dominica’s Yakima Cuffy, ‘Truths about Coconuts’, and Canada-based Trinidadian Priya Ramsingh, ‘Pies for Lunch’. The winner is Grenadian Claude C. Allick for ‘The Replacement’. The Vincent Cooper literary prize to a Caribbean writer for exemplary writing in nation language goes to Sherese Francis, who is Dominican and Barbadian American, for ‘SomNuh/Mbulist (Patois Possession). Shortlisted was Eassah Cortez Diaz for ‘No Soy de Aqui; Ni de Alla’. (Source – press release)
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Antigua and Barbuda’s Jamaica Kincaid has been named an inaugural fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. The RSL International Writers programme was announced last year as part of RSL 200, a five-year festival launched in 2020 with a series of major new initiatives and 60 new appointments championing the great diversity of writing and writers in the UK. The programme is a new award recognising the contribution of writers across the globe to literature in English, and the power of literature to transcend borders to bring people together. At a time of rising nationalism, RSL International Writers celebrates the many ways in which literature can shape a future world. A life-long honour, new writers will be invited to join the RSL’s International Writers each year forming an ever-expanding global community of authors. While the RSL is the UK’s charity for the advancement of literature, we recognise and seek to celebrate the power of literature to bring us together, beyond borders and across cultures. They invited public recommendations of writers (I actually made a nomination) and the inaugural 12 RSL International writers are: Don Mee Choi, Annie Ernaux, David Grossman, Jamaica Kincaid, Yan Lianke, Amin Maalouf, Alain Mabanckou, Javier Marías, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Claudia Rankine, Olga Tokarczuk and Dubravka Ugrešić. They’re now inviting new nominations of witers not resident in nor citizens of the UK, who have published at least two works of outstanding literary merit. submit by 29th April 2022 here.
Events
Some CREATIVE SPACE news. Antiguan and Barbudan artist Heather Doram had her first full art show since 2006 on December 18th 2021 at Henre Designs Studios in Belmont – a small, fully vaxxed event.
Anderson Reynolds book signing in St. Lucia for December 17th and 18th. The books include No Man’s Land, My Father is No Longer Here, The Stall Keeper, The Struggle for Survival, and Death by Fire – all published by St. Lucian publisher, Jako Books. (Source – Jako Productions email)
Opportunities
This is the 2022 schedule for my Jhohadli Writing Project creative writing workshops. Email antiguanwriter@gmail.com if you’d like to be added to the mailing list or have questions. (Source – me)
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There is a call for submission of fiction and poetry on gender based violence in the Caribbean for a forthcoming Peepal Tree publication. Details here. This and other opportunities are listed in Opportunities Too here on the Wadadli Pen blog. (Source – Twitter)
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Did you catch Caribbean Books Foundation celebration of Caribbean Folklore all October? How about their author of the month series? Well, that’s just some of what they’re doing that might be of interest to the Caribbean literary community. “In our continued efforts to promote Caribbean literature, Caribbean writers, and Authors, we’re beefing up our book launch section with a monthly list of books coming out the following month from Caribbean writers.” So add them to your mailing list if you are a Caribbean writer with a book coming out. The list posts the 15th of every month and will include both self-published and traditionally published books. “We will also follow the book launch and post the actual launch on our Social Media networks and Weekly Blog.” They also do author interviews (I have one of these forthcoming with Dance on the Moon author Floree Williams Whyte for my CREATIVE SPACE art and culture series) and book reviews (as do I btw in my Blogger on Books series). To get your forthcoming book listed by the Caribbean Books Foundation, email caribbeanbooksfoundation@gmail.com, your country, book cover, book name (if it’s a part of a series, publisher information, genre, target age group), author name or pen name, blurb or short book summary of 200-250 characters, release date, and pre-order links (max. 2). Caribbean Books Foundation is a registered non-profit in Trinidad and Tobago founded by Marsha Gomes-McKie. (Source – CBF email)
Film
Caribbean Loop recently did an article entitled ‘Antiguan Films that should be added to Your Must-See List’ that led off with the country’s first feature length film, HAMAfilms’ The Sweetest Mango, on which I served as associate producer. Written by D. Gisele Isaac, the romantic dramedy is also “the first indigenous film for the Eastern Caribbean”. There are three other HAMA films (No Seed, on which I was production manager, also written by Isaac; Diablesse, co-written by Allen and Jermilla Kirwan who starred in this and The Sweetest Mango; and The Skin, written by Howard and Mitzi Allen) on the list; all produced by the husband (Howard, also the director) and wife (Mitzi) that make up HAMA. Nigel Trellis’ Working Girl makes the short list. He was writer, producer, and director of the film about a teenage girl struggling with multiple problems including a dying mother. Short film Dadli by rising star Shabier Kirchner (featured earlier this year in my art and culture column CREATIVE SPACE), award winning for his cinematography on Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series and tapped to make his directorial debut with Kei Miller’s Augustown. Read the article and find out where and how you can view the films. See also my CREATIVE SPACE on Antigua and Barbuda films from 2020 and the Antigua and Barbuda film data base on this site. (Source – facebook)
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Poetry is an Island, a film about the poetry of Derek Walcott, Nobel Laureate from the Caribbean, and specifically St. Lucia, is actually a few years old but I’m only learning of it after news of an online screening (during an event called Curfew Cinema). While I missed the viewing window, I looked up the movie anyway and you can see the trailer below, and this is the link to the website. The director (and producer with Aruban Rebecca Roos) is Ida Does out of Suriname.
(Source – JRLee email)
Books
Jamaica’s Poet Laureate Olive Senior has a newish collection, Hurricane Watch, dropping in January 2022. It is collected (previously published) and new works.
And here’s a preview of my interview with her for the first installment of CREATIVE SPACE for 2022.
(Source – me)
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Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows is the latest from Jamaican writer Juleus Ghunta (Tata and the Big Bad Bull), once again with Caribbean Reads Publishing. The illustrator is Rachel Moss. “Rohan Bullkin is haunted by sinister Shadows that fuel his fear of reading. He hates books so much that he often rips their pages. But when the Shadows become intolerable, Rohan accepts an offer of friendship from a special book. This marks the beginning of a remarkable journey during which he not only learns how to conquer Shadows but also develops a love of books and life.” (synopsis) (Source – Caribbean Reads email)
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‘Willow’, a story earmarked for my short story collection in progress has been previewed in new publication The Perito Prize’s 2021 anthology. Find information on it on my updated Books page. (Source – me)
As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. 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.
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.
The 2021 Virgin Islands Lit Fest was virtual. Here are all the panels, in case you missed it.
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“If you’re a regular here, you know I’m a Caribbean author, reader, and blogger, and I stay reading Caribbean, but I could stand to read a lot more and I’d bet you could too (so consider yourself recc’d).” – from my blog, Top Ten Tuesday #ReadCaribbean
REPORTING
“Although not the traditional form of storytelling, video games, like any other game reflect the culture in which it was forged. Video games, however, get a bad rap, because the associations we give to them such as encouraging antisocial and sedentary behaviours and lifestyles. However, video games provide a particularly unique opportunity to incorporate elements of Caribbean culture through their unique method of interactive narrative during gameplay.” – The Creolisation of Video Games. ‘If We are to preserve Culture, We must continue to create It.’ by Christal Clashing
POETRY
Ann-Margaret Lim
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‘and the takeoff/when the body comes fully in to play/is the throwing off of shackles” – ‘Dear Phibba’ by Ann Margaret Lim
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“It’s work, it’s work, my cousins told me when I complained about too many yachts in the sea,
how I didn’t feel safe swimming anymore.
It’s work, it’s work, I tell myself when I clock in my time for the day.” – from ‘Solastalgia‘ by Catherine-Esther Cowie
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“The day her practised palm cracked my cheekbone, I crawled into grief.” – from ‘Mother suffered from Memories‘ by Juleus Ghunta
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I say, Mr. Jno Baptiste Maybe you’re just not crazy about this world anymore Maybe you’re just mad, mad, mad about something But what do I know
-from ‘What do I know’ in Guabancex by Celia Sorhaindo
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“Run. You have 58 seconds from the end of this message. Your house is next.” – Running Orders by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
FILM + OTHER VISUAL ART
‘Isolation‘ by Carl Augustus of Antigua and Barbuda is a hybrid water colour and poem about mental health, published to the Intersect Antigua-Barbuda platform.
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CONVERSATIONS
“We don’t like the word misogyny. We don’t like the word sexism and we don’t like the word misogyny (in the Caribbean)…there’s all this talk about gender based violence…this is misogyny…this is directed at women.” – Jamaican writer Jacqueline Bishop on the Rippling Pages podcast.
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Two iconic producers discussing how they did it from teenhood to an epic music catalogue.
“I’ve loved poetry for many years, reading and listening to it. I’ve always found it a powerful and connecting literary form, but I was relatively new to writing it.” – Celia Sorhaindo interviewed by Kahini
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“One night, I felt this feeling I’d been having my whole life: wake up, can’t see, can’t breathe.” – Courttia Newland in conversation with Johnny Temple of Akashic about out of body experiences, his new book, and the award winning Small Axe anthology series on which he was co-writer.
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“My mother being from the Caribbean and my father being from the South, and me having a huge need to fit in and low self-esteem, I lost my identity very quickly, trying to fit in, to go under the radar…the disconnect from getting to know who Michael was…and the ability to chameleon myself…that also started very early…I got addicted to fantasy very quick.” – Michael K. Williams (RIP) in one of his last interviews discussing his craft, his addiction, his background (which is part Caribbean on his mother’s side – she was an immigrant from the Bahamas), his love of cooking and trying new things, and more. Michael K. came to fame first as a back-up dancer and choreographer and later playing iconic roles like Omar in The Wire, and as a strong character actor in films like Bessie and When They See Us.
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“The Federal Art Project was part of something called Federal One, which had projects not just for the fine arts but also for theater, for writing, for music. There was a design index. It was one aspect of a really diverse and wide-ranging kind of project…the government saw it as an obligation, part of its duty, to provide artists in need with economic support. So they commissioned them to produce public art…The arts, for Roosevelt and the New Dealers, were seen as a fundamental component of a truly democratic society. A democracy could not call itself as such without art, music, theater, poetry, writing, design, photography, film.” – Alison Wilkinson in conversation with Jody Patterson for Vox
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“In the same ways that women were expected and didn’t slip in high school in reading Shakespeare and be expected to get all sorts of things from Shakespeare and from Walcott and from Brathwaite – men can get enormous things from this book and from reading these women as well and that’s what I’ll say to that. There is a stance that, “oh we have to think about the men’s feelings here, and whatnot,” but we don’t think about that when it comes to women reading male writers, right? Male writers, they have achieved, it seems, a kind of universality that “women have not”… Bullshit. I cry bullshit to that. Women, too, are universal. Right? So if you want good writing, if you want good interviews, if you want all of that, women can provide it as well. So male writers will get the exact same things and male readers will get the exact same things here that they would get from any good book.” – Jacqueline Bishop in conversation with Jamaica Creates
FICTION
‘I just thought we’d be in a better position,’ she said. ‘You know. By this stage in our lives. I thought we’d have made more of ourselves.’ – from ‘Attention‘ by Catherine Chidgey; it was shortlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story prize.
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“I arrived with kosher tacos, made from scratch with chicken liver and mole, and by the end of the night, all sixteen of them sat untouched in the pan, the sauce congealing beneath the foil.” – from ‘The Orphan Disease‘ by Jake Wolff in Kenyon Review
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“The sun hot like it beating your skin with a rubber strap.” – from ‘Cash and Carry‘ by Sharma Taylor, shortlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth short story prize
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“This is how you discover that you fall into that select category of People For Whom Ganja Is Useless.” – from ‘Hunger‘ by Andre Bagoo. This story was shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. It is posted on the Commonwealth Writers Adda platform.
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Jamaica Kincaid reading her short story ‘Girl’
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“‘I sit down waiting on the bed, and I hear he start to cry. And I know I in for lash. But he come quiet quiet in the room, lie down and say, “Aditi, I sorry.” I wanted to walk out that house then and there, but I ask him for what. He say everything. He say he sorry for everything. The word so stink and nasty after all he do, but he bawling sorrysorrysorry like he feel it go fix something. Like he feel I go start feeling sorry myself.’” – English at the End of Time by Rashad Hosein, shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize
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“Don’t get me wrong: Long Island boys look good. When the Anglican Diocese host Jamboree here, all the girls from Exuma and Eleuthera drool over our boys like they ain’t got none back where they come from. But I ain’t never seen nothing like Demetri before. Brown sugar kiss his gilded skin. The sun blink at the golden glint of his hair. I almost drown in the cerulean waters that rise up to meet me when he look over. He got them eyes that shift with the light. Sometimes they so clear you could see right down to the bottom. Other times they froth with the Lusca’s rage.” – Granma’s Porch by Alexia Tolas
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“We meet our friends for happy hour, hand a twenty-dollar bill to the bartender, double-take when he quips, Still whiskey and Coke after all these years? We peer at him, recognize the brown boy we wrapped our arms around in a basement in Richmond Hill. While Aaliyah crooned on the radio.” – Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades, 2019 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest Winner
CREATIVES ON CREATING
The Daily Show has been doing a series ‘Beyond the Scenes’ – a how the sausage gets made series on the topical comedy segments on the show.
“I spent a couple of summers as a kid in Barbados, but probably eight or nine summers in Antigua; so I actually spent a lot more time in Antigua with my dad’s family. So it’s a bit ironic that I spent so much time writing about Barbados ’cause I actually know a lot less about it and I’m less connected to my family there. But I think that actually opened up a space for me imaginatively to write about Barbados that wasn’t there for Antigua.” – Naomi Jackson on Writing Home: American Voices from the Caribbean
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“With all its horrors, the pandemic has led to a host of online workshops, open mics, events like poetry readings and literary festivals, virtual spaces to share, discuss and connect with other writers and writing communities, and a host of other opportunities. All of these have helped to improve my craft and my confidence. I have also been reading poetry voraciously from a diverse range of poets, and other articles that catch my interest, not just literary ones, from quantum physics to the amazing life and anatomy of an octopus. I assume it’s the same for everyone.” – Bocas longlisted poet (Guabancex) Celia Sorhaindo in conversation with US based Jamaican writer Geoffrey Philp on his blog.
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‘I’d had workshop earlier that day, and my professor, Elissa Schappell, said two pieces of advice that lodged in my brain: Don’t be afraid to take risks in your writing, and Write what only you could say. It was advice I needed to hear at that point in time; I’d been pursing art in an academic setting—the MFA—and the program had, ironically (or perhaps not-so-ironically), left me feeling creatively stifled. Elissa’s words reminded me of the thematic and formal risks I wanted, and absolutely needed, to take in my art. What she said helped me feel the freedom I needed to feel to begin “Brown Girls.”’ – Daphne Palasi Andreades, KR Conversations
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“Seabirds are a constant in my daily life. Along my daily commute frigates are flying overhead while pelicans rest on the waterside rocks. Just now, in the empty lot next to my apartment a lonely heron wanders about. When I ride the ferry over to the outer islands or over to St. Thomas, brown boobies chase the boat’s work. Sometimes I feel like my outstretched fingers may just graze their bellies.” – British Virgin Islands poet laureate and OCM Bocas prize winner Richard Georges in conversation with acclaimed and award winning Jamaican writer Jacqueline Bishop for her series in the Jamaica Observer Bookends supplement. Read the interview:
“She changed the requirement that actresses in the movies being invariably likeable or attractive. She lifted the veil of appropriate behaviour in women to expose what was scary, unexpected, or ugly; in other words, to do what was appropriate for the character” – Meryl Streep on Bette Davis for Turner Classic Movies
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.
Things I read 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.
– Joanne C. Hillhouse Catapult Caribbean Creatives Online #catapultartsgrant #AskMeAnything Q & A with readers
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Antiguan and Barbudan writers discuss To Shoot Hard Labour by Keithlyn and Fernando Smith as part of a month long reading series featuring the book. The series was produced by Beverly George for Observer Radio’s Voice of the People.
REPORTING
Excerpts, in no particular order, from Caribbean Time Bomb author Robert Coram’s A Reporter at Large: Ancient Rights in The New Yorker, 1989:
“Joseph, like most of the divers, is fond of having a drink now and then, and he is fond of rum, but he will not touch Cavalier rum, because it is made on Antigua.”
“And although the Barbudans had long ago learned to live together, so that there was little need for a judicial system, they were now technically bound by the laws of Antigua.”
“But the Antiguans, who saw Barbuda as a poor and backward island, did not want to finance medical facilities, schools, clergy, and courts on Barbuda.”
“The island is also ridiculed because the people are different; their quirky individuality standing out even in the Caribbean.”
“Barbudan slaves (enslaved Barbudans – my edit) even used Codrington boats to send their livestock and the fresh meat from their poaching to Antigua, and in 1829 the Codringtons’ island manager wrote of Barbudan slaves (enslaved Barbudans – my edit) wrote of Barbudan slaves, ‘They acknowledge no master, and believe the island belongs to themselves.’”
“Until 1961, when regular air traffic from Antigua began, it could take a week to reach Barbuda, even from Antigua.” – read the full article here: New Yorker 06 Feb 1989
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‘It was in form four, he says, that his work began to acquire an especially grim, menacing glint, layered with violence, tones of the macabre, and an arsenal of baleful sexual suggestion. His father, who dutifully printed off copies of the stories at work, gave him a sage kernel of advice that Hosein has never forgotten: “Even if you writing smut, keep writing. Just be careful of who you showing it to.”’ – Shivanee Ramlochan on Kevin Jared Hosein in Caribbean Beat
ESSAYS/NON-FICTION
– Yvonne Weekes reading from her volcano themed memoir
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“Georgetown is where some 90% of the population live today. We shouldn’t really be here. But in the 1700s, Dutch colonisers, bringing technology from their own low-lying country, decided to drain the swampy coast and install a ‘polder’ system of canals, sluice gates (known locally as kokers) and dams to cultivate sugar and other crops on the fertile land. Historian Dr Walter Rodney estimated that, in doing so, enslaved Africans were required to move 100 million tonnes of soil by hand. Ever since then, the sea has been trying to reclaim the land that was taken from it.” – Life on Stilts: Staying Afloat in Guyana by Carinya Sharples
‘In “Winged and Acid Dark,” Hass tells us directly what happens to the woman in Potsdamer Platz in May 1945, but he does this direct telling circuitously. The poet approaches the idea, then “suggests” the rape. Note the second stanza: “the major with the swollen knee, / wanted intelligent conversation afterward. / Having no choice, she provided that, too.” The poem suggests the before by describing the “afterward” and by describing what the woman has to do “too.” Later in the poem, Hass describes the prying open of her mouth and the spitting in it, and lets these moments stand for much more. The lightning strike of this poem, the one we would expect at least, would be a graphic description of the rape, and yet, Hass soothes us on that front while delivering alternatively terrifying truths. The thing we prepare ourselves for, because we’ve heard that old war story repeated so many times, is only alluded to. Instead, Hass focuses on something else we are surprised by and therefore have to hear.’ – Tell It Slant: How To Write a Wise Poem by Camille T. Dungy
CREATIVES ON CREATING
“I wanted not simply to record but to interrogate what was happening and my response to it, to use poetry the way it can function at its utilitarian best: offering ways of seeing, of examining, of challenging complacency, and of contextualising the current situation within broader life considerations. …I am surprised at what I am doing because I normally spend a huge amount of time thinking about, writing, and then editing everything that I write before sending it into the world, so this speed of composing, followed by a click of Send and then almost immediate response is something new for me. I am less concerned with literary values or aesthetics than I am with memorializing the historic moment that I am living through. I want to capture the zeitgeist, literally, ‘the spirit of the time’.” – Cross Words in Lockdown by Olive Senior
“I would sit and talk to them, get to the essence of who they were…because it would help me to figure out how to write for them.” -Babyface
FICTION
“On his knees, hands behind his head, he asked for a cigarette. I gestured that he be given one. Our eyes met, we held each other’s gaze. What was he thinking? He must have been the same age as me. The same dark skin and stature. In another time, another place, we might have been neighbours, colleagues, friends. But here, now, he is one of them. ” – from The Debt by Nicholas Kyriacou
“Sunny stayed up the entire night, mopping the floors of her living room and bedroom as the heavy winds forced water through the shutters and windows. It was silly, in hindsight. The water was coming anyway, and fast. But she had to pass the time. Once every half hour or so, she would run to the hallway, frightened by the loud crashing noises from outside, anticipating that one of the shutters would give way and the kitchen window would burst wide open. They never did that night.” – Four Women at Night by Schuyler Esprit
“Somewhere or other there must surely be
The face not seen, the voice not heard,
The heart that not yet—never yet—ah me!
Made answer to my word.” – from Somewhere or Other by Christina Rossetti
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“But grief,
it wrings out your soul-case” – Grief by Yvonne Weekes in Barbados’ Arts Etc.
‘Like other poets of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay, though a powerful advocate of black liberation, took the dominant “voice” of traditional culture, mastered it and made it accommodate his different ways of seeing, his visions and his anger. The fusion of urban realism with more traditional Romantic tropes in Harlem Shadows still leaves room for clear blasts of rage against “the wretched way / Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace”.’ – re poem of the week Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay (poem and analysis)
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“She forgave grandma, then a single mother of six,
who fed her children with one hand
while choking them with the other.” – from Mother Suffered from Memories by Juleus Ghunta in Anomaly 28
This blog is maintained by Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator, and author Joanne C. Hillhouse. Content is curated, researched, and written by Hillhouse, unless otherwise indicated. Do not share or re-post without credit, do not re-publish without permission and credit. Thank you.
Earlier this year, I shared audio of my reading on Chapel FM (in Leeds, England) programme Angles of Light. The Juleus Ghunta (author Tata and the Big Bad Bull author) production will broadcast part 2 on March 23rd as part of Chapel FM’s annual arts festival, Writing on Air (WOA). It will feature readings by 26 poets, including John Robert Lee, Nancy Anne Miller, Marion Bethel, Mervyn Morris, MJ Fievre, Chadd Cumberbatch, and Ann–Margaret Lim. The show will be one and a half hours long.
Here’s the day’s programme:
Angles of Light 2 is at 9:45 p.m. Here’s where you can listen live.
As someone who tries through Wadadli Pen to nurture and showcase the literary arts in Antigua and Barbuda, one way being through this platform, Juleus Ghunta (my list buddy: we both have books – my Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure and his Tata and the Big Bad Bull – with Caribbean Reads publishing) deserves credit for bringing Caribbean writers to a platform to which he has access. Respect.
As with all content on Wadadli Pen, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (founder and coordinator of the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize, and author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Oh Gad!, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight 10th Anniversary Edition and Other Writings, Musical Youth, With Grace, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure). All rights reserved. Subscribe to this site to keep up with future updates.
The Reading Room and Gallery is a space where I share things I come across that I think you might like too – some are things of beauty, some just bowl me over with their brilliance, some are things I think we could all learn from, some are artistes I want to support by spreading the word, and some just because. To read the full story or see all the images, or other content, you will need to go to the source. No copyright infringement is intended. Let’s continue to support the arts and the artistes by rippling the water together. For earlier installments of the Reading Room and Gallery, use the search feature to the right. This is the 29th one which means there are 28 earlier ones (can’t link them all). Remember to keep checking back, this list will grow as I make new finds until it outgrows this page and I move on to the next one. – JCH
“Long after the laugh track, it seemed
only rational, practical: this new thing.
Not because we were too stupid to know
what was sad, but because, as in the logic
of the canned guffaw, the producers
knew something about us we did not…” – The Invention of the Cry Track by Bruce Bond
CREATIVES ON CREATING
“This fall I want to start a Short Story Club. I want to read them and then write them with students. Since I’m all about mentor texts stories, writing them is right along with my teaching style.” – Tammy L. Breitweiser
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“It’s a matter of feeling and it’s also a matter of sound.” – Aretha Franklin (on creating)
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“WARNING: I know amazing writers who struggle to progress because they don’t know their novel’s essence. Maybe something in us resists summing up our complex book in simple terms because we’re DEEP, don’tchaknow. Yeah, yeah. Find out. Say it. Commit.” – Leone Ross
VISUAL
A video dissecting the artistry of Aretha Franklin
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“Black women are the beginning and the end. Black women are the law. Black women are the ground and the sky, the horizon. Black women are the lucky number seven.
Black women are all the books in the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Egypt. Black women are Hammurabi’s code and the Rosetta stone: vexation and answer, secret and revelation.
‘Her (Roxane Gay’s) advice to writers? “You have to be relentless and you have to find a way to grit your way through all that rejection. … It’s OK to feel dejected and hopeless, as long as you don’t let that keep you from continuing to write and continuing to try and put yourself out there.”’ – 10 Writers and Editors who have changed the National Conversation
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“That was the beginning of the end of Jacob’s poetry writing, but the poet himself never disappeared, animating each novel and short story he was to write. Jacob himself has been astounded by people talking of the ‘amazing lyricism’ even in the noir whodunnit (The Bone Readers)- amidst all its raw grittiness. This semi poetic mode of his style is an unconscious part of him, stemming from his eye for the metaphor, the sharp, clearly defined and unusual image, and an unusual way of seeing things and saying things.” – The Sunday Times on UK based Grenadian writer Jacob Ross
‘And now? The practical value of the prize he’s just won is significant. “There’s not many publishing opportunities in the Caribbean”, and name recognition is vital to attract foreign publishers. Would he go live in London, though, as VS Naipaul did? Would he quit the teaching job, and abandon small, problematic Trinidad? Kevin pauses: “Yeah, people ask me this”. He pauses again: “Yes and no, right?”.’ – Prize-winning Trinidadian Writer (Kevin Jared Hosein) Leads Double Life in Cyprus Mail Online
***
‘I explained to him (Austin Clarke) that I wanted Brother to be about the generation after the one he was the first to chronicle, about children growing up in a land their immigrant parents needed to imagine as one of clear promise, but which the children knew also posed often unacknowledged dangers. I wanted my novel to be about youth shadowed by poverty, by the racist gaze, by the threatened violence of those in authority. But I also needed my book to reveal beauty, and to show how toughened youths and young men could brave great acts of tenderness and love. I wanted it to be a novel of painstaking attention to both language and narrative form. And as Austin drew inspiration from the music of his generation, from the legacies of jazz, soul, and reggae, I wished to honor the music that was closest to me as a youth—the hip hop of the late 80s and early 90s, including the advent of turntablism, all set within a Toronto that had rocked and found its own voice years before the “breakthrough” emergences of artists like Drake and the Weeknd. I dreamt of celebrating the completion of this novel with Austin, but he died before it was published. I ended up dedicating it posthumously to him.’ – David Chariandy
INTERVIEW
“I had posted some stories just on my Tumblr, and she read them, and shared them, and Jacques who runs The White Review asked me to send in some stories for consideration, accepted “Agata’s Machine” for his website then signed me for a collection based off “Agata’s Machine” and “Waxy” with his publishing house.
Then I wrote him a bunch of new stories over a period of several months in 2016. I sent them off to him as I finished them, and he edited them as I wrote more and sent them back to me with notes, which is perhaps an unorthodox way for a short story collection to be written. I imagine most writers have a polished collection to present to an editor at the beginning. Jacques chose which ones he wanted to include in a collection and I insisted on the title. It was an intense seven months, at least for me. It was all through email, I’ve never met Jacques. I guess he is some sort of 21st-century European James Laughlin. Now I have a box of blue books in my bedroom, that’s about it. It doesn’t feel any different to be published. It’s all happened in Britain which is quite far away. You have to just focus on the next writing project if you are to keep your sanity.” – Camila Grudova interviewed by the Culture Trip
***
“Philip Levine advised his students: don’t be in a rush to find your ‘voice’. I am in my mid-fifties, and I try to not bore myself by writing poems that are always in the same voice, form and style. I want continually to be learning and surprising myself as I write. Still, something of a recognisable voice emerges in my first book, The Twelve-Foot Neon Woman. The second book, Ricantations, is different in approach: there are more marvellous and speculative elements: mythic creatures, animals and anomalous beings, such as a flying gargoyle, a man who wears a Green Lantern suit at his wake, a Spanish Baroque girl with hyperphagia and a circus family of high-wire walkers. However, in both books the voice combines the quotidian and the luminous, the beautiful and the atrocious, grim humour and what Vidyan Ravinthiran, remarking on Ricantations, has called the ‘exact, terrible word’ to portray the realities of a colonised society ransacked by debt, mass migrations, narcoculture, gender violence and hurricanes.” – Loretta Collins Klobah
***
“The poem presents, word for true word, what different men said to me when I was walking on the street, riding a bus or taking a taxi. I could have included so many other instances that got left out of the poem; for example, once I was walking on Hope Road when a man driving past leaned out of the window to say some kind of sweetness to me (while a woman was in the passenger seat of his car!). I truly felt bad when he mashed up his car, hitting the back bumper of the car in front of him.” – Loretta Collins Klobah in an interview with Jacqueline Bishop for the Bookends series in the Jamaica Gleaner Loretta Collins Klobah interview – the first part
Part 2 of the interview is below in two parts: Jacqueline Bishop interviews Loretta Collins Klobah 1 Jacqueline Bishop interviews Loretta Collins Klobah 2
***
“The majority of people on this earth work a job they hate all their lives and life is precious…how many lives have been ruined because their parents told them you can’t make any money being a musician, you can’t make any money being a writer, you can’t make any money dancing, and we know the sacrifices that our parents have made so we bend in to parental pressure and we end up choosing a major, choosing a direction in life, choosing a job that is now what we want to and we end up miserable and hating our parents…and that’s why I thank my parents who from a very early age, they didn’t know I was going to be a filmmaker, but they wanted to give us exposure to the arts, so everything I’m doing today is because my mother was dragging me to the movies.” –Spike Lee with Pharrell Williams
***
“The Caribbean population is small but it is teeming with writers – has been for a long time.” – Pamela Mordecai
***
“TC: On the plus side, I think it’s made it easier to connect with other critics—and, in many cases, link up with editors, which is useful for a host of reasons. On the negative side, I worry that social media has changed the perception of book reviews in some unhelpful ways as well. I have no issues with GoodReads (I’ve had an account there for years) and I understand why a lot of people review books on Amazon, but I am more than a little alarmed at the idea that those can or should be viewed as a replacement for a good book review.” – Tobias Carroll on Geek Love, Goodreads, and the Books that Haunt Him
***
“Gowdy: I return to the childhoods of one or two of my main characters in most of my books, I think. It’s nothing I plan on doing ahead of time, but I guess it’s as if I need to establish certain propensities in the child before I can fully create the adult. And then there’s the joy of writing about children because they haven’t yet formed a shell sturdy enough to hold in their souls. Children are so expressive and hilarious. They’re all poets in that they’re trying to get a fix on the world, so they’re comparing everything to everything else, sounding out words, taking what you say too literally, even as they believe in magic. I hope the young Rose is recognizably the grown Rose, but neither is quite the other, and that’s where I live as a writer, in the place between the living, personal self and the remembered self. Or in the place between the living self and the different self.” – The Impossible is Now Possible: A Conversation by Barbara Gowdy and Helen Phillips
“Maria has a big ass. My grandmother tells Maria this regularly. She has reached that age where she lacks tact. Despite my grandmother’s concern about the size of Maria’s ass and her unwillingness to call Maria by her given name, they get along quite well. Maria treats my grandmother like her own. She brushes my grandmother’s thin, silver hair each night before bed. They love to argue about the shows they watch. They talk about the islands where they were born, the warmth of suns they once knew.” – Sweet on the Tongue by Roxane Gay
***
“But this is a good book, he said. And he explained the plot to me: the story of a young Muslim, polygamous, with four wives, a revolutionary and a terrorist, but who one day finds himself calling into question the Koran and its teachings and ends up converting to Christianity and casting off three of his wives. Except that some time later he’s assassinated by a conspiracy of the abandoned women who subsequently roll dice to decide which of them should keep his penis that they’d severed at the base . . .” – The Bestseller by Germando Almeida translated by Daniel Hahn
***
‘“Sorry, no one’s allowed through,” he said in a rough manner, while raising the window to keep the conditioned air from reaching me.’ – Cat’s Eyes by Ahmed Alrahbi
“It’s 4 a.m. in Zagreb, Croatia, and you’re wide-awake. You and your husband are on your honeymoon. While he sleeps, you admire his black curly hair and thin nose, envious of his ability to rest. As he rotates to his side, you wonder what images are crossing his unconscious and whether he’s ferried a phantom of you into his dreams.” – Last Chapter on Hotel Stationery: A Short Story by Ursula Villarreal-Moura
***
“Bills gather in heaps at my feet. I watch them beat about on the paint encrusted tiles, in the slight breeze seeping in under my door through a space big enough to let in the lizards, centipedes and mice which use my house for shelter when the rains come. But the rains have not come. A week to Easter, and still no rain. Not even back to back cricket matches, usually enough to entice the rains to douse the field just when our team is winning, can sweeten the rain to fall. Young fruit die sunburnt under confused mango trees that flower and bear at the same time. The plants look like when you drink something sour and your face falls into itself. The cow itch vine, whose windblown fibres make me want to scratch skin off my bones, head in the ground. Even the weeds are seeing trouble.” – A Whiff of Bleach by Suelin Low Chew Tung
***
“In those days, it was the custom to roll out a lemon from the delivery room. The midwife in charge always had a lemon at hand. As soon as the baby arrived she would roll it out of the room. The exact moment that the fruit exited the room would be registered and used to cast the horoscope. Ayya did not have much faith in this fruit-rolling practice. He would wait for the baby’s first cries. He contended that the wail was enough to give him the time of birth. Amma’s vote was for the fruit. The accident that followed my birth made Ayya change his stand.” – Horoscopes by Appadurai Muttulingam, translated from Tamil by Padma Narayanan
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, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page Jhohadli or like me on Facebook. Help me spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.
The Reading Room and Gallery is a space where I share things I come across that I think you might like too – some are things of beauty, some just bowl me over with their brilliance, some are things I think we could all learn from, some are artistes I want to support by spreading the word, and some just because. Let’s continue to support the arts and the artistes by rippling the water together. For earlier installments of the Reading Room and Gallery, use the search feature to the right. This is the 26th one which means there are 25 earlier ones (can’t link them all). Remember to keep checking back, this list will grow as I make new finds until it outgrows this page and I move on to the next one. – JCH
NON-FICTION
“When the blackness of winter descends, small signs of ordinary life are especially pleasing. People use the decorative rituals of Christmas as if to wave at their neighbors and call out, “We are still here!” The human race resists obliteration; our spirits are not so easily destroyed.” – Leslie Kendall Dye
***
“So he argues that it was natural for Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was farsighted, to create poems that themselves capture a wide scope, with their far-off vistas, mountain ranges, and expansive landscapes. Nearsighted Keats, on the other hand, favored images that are self-limiting, close-up, and auditory rather than visual. The sense of hearing, Trevor-Roper suggests, is intensified in Keats’s work for neurological reasons: when the sense of sight is damaged or limited, the other senses develop greater sensitivity in order to compensate for the loss.” – Myopic Keats by Ann Townsend
WRITERS ON CRAFT
“Some of my fiction is set in Southeast Asia. You’ve probably heard the writing advice: Write what you know. I know this region. But stories don’t just arise from the known. They come from things that make you stop and go: “Whoa. WTF?” Stories grow from questions.” – Location and Writing: A Guest Post by Elka Ray, Author of Saigon Dark
***
“The place where someone grows up molds a person. So does an era. Fiction is no different; setting is deeply embedded in the history of a character, and therefore integral to the story’s development and the character’s journey.” – Lorena Hughes
POETRY
“Caesar’s double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.” – The Fall of Rome by W. H. Auden
***
“After Gilbert, father brought a woman to survey my face.
She pressed my broad nose against his, dark skin against skin,
told him a fi yuh damage dis—this damage is yours.” – Damage by Juleus Ghunta
– “I ain’t one of you all peers/I’m the sum of all fears” – Black Thought of The Roots, planting his boot in the Greatest Of All Time debate #topfive
VIDEO
– Black Thought, “who is he?”
***
“They don’t see creative industries as serious. We dissuade young people from pursuing the arts as careers. We dissuade them from studying literature, we dissuade them from studying film, or art. We shepherd them in to industries that we think are more conducive to the two main revenue streams that we see in our budget – financial services and tourism…they don’t see the economic value to the country; what do we benefit by having theatre, books…” – Richards Georges’ TEDx in the BVI
FICTION
“If it’s that serious . . . ,” said the younger woman. She paused a moment. “Then you’ll have to make some concessions.” – from The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi, translated from Arabic by Jonathan Wright.
***
“The child she was carrying seemed to grow twice as heavy, and the sky, whose clear blue had been such a welcome contrast to the gray clouds of the past few days, began to stir with an unseasonal southerly wind. As they turned out of the alley where the clothes shop was situated, the contrast could not have been greater: from a lonely place where gusts of wind pursued fallen leaves and scraps of plastic lay idle in the gutter, to the vast expanse of the central road.
There, where the mass celebrations would soon be taking place, the street looked like some fierce wild beast, shaking its mane and roaring. Bristling with posters and placards, strong sharp lines of red writing that made the eye wince to look at them; lined on both sides with innumerable flags, their fabric snapping taut in the wind; pierced by shrill whistles, underlining each new announcement or command; rent down the middle by a dark blue broadcast car, blaring slogans through its loudspeaker, again and again so that the whole street rang with them. Punctuated every so often by a plane looming low in the city’s skies, rising from takeoff or coming onto land; even their engines seemed to explode into an unprecedented roar, agitating the figures who moved below, causing them unconsciously to quicken their step.” – A short story smuggled out of North Korea. From Bandi’s (aka ‘Firefly’) Newly Translated Collection of Fiction.
***
“Hyacinth Ike wanted to kill himself because he had lived a fulfilled, successful life and couldn’t think of anything else he was loitering in the world for.” – By Way of a Life Plot by Kelechi Njoku
INTERVIEWS
‘People think they are interested in women who don’t play by society’s rules, but when they see it in action, it is too disturbing. A question I kept getting was why is she “like that”? My question was “like what?” After all, in my view, Celestial is a person who wants the same things that anyone wants—to live her life in a way that fulfills her. This emotional limbo of being married but not really, of having one foot in her life as an artist and one foot emotionally serving the needs of her husband—it was too much.’ – Tayari Jones
***
“I wanted to include self-published works because it can be hard for those authors to get readers to discover their work. A lot of authors who are self-published have reached out to me in hopes that We Read Too can be a place for them to get more reader discovery for their work. I know that for authors of color it can be hard to get into the publishing world, so I want to support those who haven’t gone through the traditional routes. I want all authors of color to have their work highlighted in We Read Too, regardless of how they got their work out there.” – We Read Books Too app founder Kaya Thomas
***
‘I have a beanbag chair in my office, and there are days when I am sitting in it, looking from my window overlooking Central Park from the 36th floor of the Hearst Building and thinking, “They’re paying me to read?”’ – Leigh Haber
***
“CaribbeanReads …How did that day dreaming influence your illustrations, Danielle.
“Always close to home, it has been a delight seeing a private student, a little girl of eight whom I tutor, experiencing the antics of Anansi for the first time through Philip M. Sherlock’s Anansi the Spider Man. She had never before read or been read the stories. An essential primer, the book can be enjoyed either way. I was told by Ayesha Gibson-Gill, the National Cultural Foundation’s literary arts officer, that the Bajan book stall at Carifesta XI in Suriname couldn’t stock enough Anansi titles by our authors: everyone was after the trickster. One of the other books I have on Anansi is actually a Dutch title purchased in 2003 at Carifesta VIII, also in Suriname.” – Robert Edison Sandiford on Carifesta Xlll
LISTS
“The IndyList, as we like to call it, is a selection of 12 Barbadian books to make friends with over the coming year.” Check them out.
The Reading Room and Gallery is a space where I share things I come across that I think you might like too – some are things of beauty, some just bowl me over with their brilliance, some are things I think we could all learn from, some are artistes I want to support by spreading the word, and some just because. Let’s continue to support the arts and the artistes by rippling the water together. For earlier installments of the Reading Room and Gallery, use the search feature to the right. This is the 25th one which means there are 24 earlier ones (can’t link them all). Remember to keep checking back, this list will grow as I make new finds until it outgrows this page and I move on to the next one. – JCH
MISC.
– re storytelling lessons from the screenplay.
“If I had been deterred or demoralized by the initial rejections, if I had given up then, the manuscript would still be sitting in some drawer.” – Leonard Chang
***
‘Thick Skin. I wish you the covering of the cascadura, since you must endure many disappointments and discouragements. Rejection slips are never welcome, and, unless you are very lucky, you will get many of these. Harder, though, may be the tossing-aside of people who dismiss your work, or folks, some of whom you may count as supporters or friends, who pigeonhole you. “A genre writer! Good at fantasy!” “Not bad at children’s stories.” “Good at travel writing — not much else.”’ – Pamela Mordecai
INTERVIEWS
“Most poems begin for me with the very basic, almost physical need to write. Then comes the process of finding the right words, finding images that are both unexpected and easy to relate to. I write, then roll the words around in my mouth a bit, make sure that the texture is right. Read, edit, re-read and repeat!” – Danielle Boodoo Fortune. The post includes three of her poems.
***
“This was one of the things I learned about creativity. You have to let go of self-consciousness. When I started thinking about this book, I knew that if I felt self-conscious while writing, it would probably come out bit by bit and it would not be as honest.” – Amy Tan
***
“We were just in an atmosphere …that said it was okay to write…there was no separation for me from the West Indian street outside and the work that I was reading, sometimes even in French….I would say that it’s the duty of any parent to check out the talent of the child and to make sure that that talent is not smothered, that you don’t divert that child’s ambition, especially in terms of a writer; we would have more writers if we didn’t have a system that said you have to be a doctor or engineer.” – Derek Walcott in conversation with CBC Radio
***
“When you’re creating, it’s not always automatic. Many days in the studios were just days of talking and listening to music that had nothing to do with our music. Sometimes she’d say she wasn’t coming in. We treated it much more as a creative thing than an emotional process, but we knew there was a lot of emotion involved. Literally she’d sometimes say that she just was not coming in, so we’d create new tracks or tweak something or comp a vocal. We always had things to do even when she didn’t come in and we’d pick up where we left off.” – Jimmy Jam (producer) discusses the making of Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope
“My advice to aspiring writers is the short story is a fantastic form to commit yourself to, but don’t to put all your eggs in the competition basket. Subscribe to your local literary journals, read them, submit your own stories: when accepted, add a line to your literary curriculum vitae; when rejected, take another look at the story and see if there’s anything you want to change before submitting it elsewhere.” – Confessions of a Prize Winner by New Zealand writer Craig Cliff, at Commonwealth Writers
***
“Foreshadowing can be a little confusing. It’s a single word used to describe a narrative technique that can be used for two different purposes. Probably there should be two different words—one for each purpose—but there isn’t. So to make this discussion a bit clearer, I’m going to borrow a word from film studies: planting (as in: planting and payoff).” – Don Allmon
***
“To me, structure always comes about as a result of trying to answer the issue of point of view.” – Christopher Nolan discussing Dunkirk
“I am the great mother boa
turning the soft egg of the world
beneath my ribs. I will tear myself in two
and heal before morning.” – Danielle Boodoo Fortune
***
“I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with Allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe
to cool my thirst.
My oldest daughter is Nefferttiti
the tears from my birth pains created the Nile
I am a beautiful woman” – Ego Trippin by Nikki Giovanni
***
“The night she tried to beat me, I slept on the veranda
of the shop in the square. At dawn, a man hauled
me home. She dragged me to school, whipped me
with the principal’s cane.” – Wounds by Juleus Ghunta
FICTION
“Hyacinth Ike wanted to kill himself because he had lived a fulfilled, successful life and couldn’t think of anything else he was loitering in the world for.” – By Way of a Life Plot by Kelechi Njoku
***
-excerpt from The Wide Circumference of Love by Marita Golden
***
“I remember a Haitian radio show I was on years ago, after my first book was published. This woman called in to say, ‘That’s all fine and good, but you better get your nursing degree.’” – Edwidge Dandicat
***
‘It doesn’t matter what pisses you off, she says, as long as you pay attention to that feeling. “Writing against” is a good compass “until you know what you’re writing for,” she said.’ – Katherine Boo’s 15 Rules for Narrative Non Fiction
***
“Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world.” – The Creative Process by James Baldwin
***
Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I a Woman speech is a powerful piece of speechmaking (note the use of tone and rhetoric in the words and in this Cicely Tyson interpretation of them).
***
“You stay because it’s your home, you have to stay and take care of it.” – Luis by Jo-Anne Mason
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 my Appearances page on Jhohadli, and I discuss Don Charles presentation with him in an entry from my CREATIVE SPACE column. (Source – Me)
who looks as frightful as I remember from childhood tales in Antigua (my mother’s family is French creole from Dominica). Anyway, check out the listing of books for children and #readCaribbean (Source – Jako Productions email)
– from 
Wadadli Pen 