Let’s use Trinbagonian writer (still based in Trinidad) Kevin Jared Hosein’s current book tour (every writer dreams of such a publisher push!) and, in particular, his recent appearance on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom (live in studio, not no zoom t’ing), to big him up on the publication of Hungry Ghosts, which is already getting Booker Prize talk.
In Hosein’s British TV interview, we receive some insights and reminders re how story gets made. “In my childhood village, I was interviewing some elders including my grandfather about some of the literatures that had vanished over time and I wanted to make a small compilation of those moments that might have been lost in time or relegated to memory,” he said of the genesis of the book, set in 1940s Trinidad. Bringing his biology and environmental science training to the table, “I drew from a lot of what I knew of symbiotic relationships between animals and their relationship with landscape and habitat, and I fit that together because at the time this novel is set…(Trinidad) was kind of like a frontier.” The cowboys of that frontier, the interview suggests, were the British who saw their influence waning and the Americans who “brought with them a version of the American dream”, and, then, of course, the local people of varying ethnicities and their journeys there. The interview touched quite a bit on colonialism suggesting some exploration of that as a major theme. But for Hosein it was about reclaiming his country’s stories before they slip from memory. “I wanted to give life to those illustrations in the history books.”
Just in his late 30s, Hosein is already an accomplished writer, with milestones including the regional win for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2015 for “The King of Settlement 4”) followed by the main prize (2018, for “Passage”). He has been published in Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean (with “The Monkey Trap”, which was also shortlisted for the Small Axe Prize). He self-published his first book Littletown Secrets. Peepal Tree, a Caribbean focused press based in the UK, published his second book The Repenters, in 2016, and The Beast of Kukuyo was a Burt Award winning title published with Jamaica-based Blue Banyan imprint Blouse and Skirt Books in 2018. The Repenters was long listed for Bocas and nominated for the International Dublin IMPAC Award. Hungry Ghosts is published by Bloomsbury, a British worldwide publishing house.
Congrats to Kevin Jared Hosein and as a reminder of the journey, read “Kevin Jared Hosein breaks it down” published to Wadadli Pen in 2017. (Source – Kevin Jared Hosein on Facebook/image via Bocas on Twitter).
This report on Kevin Jared Hosein is the latest addition to the Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late February 2023) bulletin, a twice monthly round-up of Caribbean arts news here on the Wadadli Pen blog.
Remember to follow the blog and share our content, and if you want to support the work that we do either as a patron or volunteer, contact us at wadadlipen at gmail dot com
As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, and The Jungle Outside). All Rights Reserved. Subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.
A reminder that the process with these Carib Lit Plus Caribbean arts bulletins is to do a front and back half of the month, updating as time allows as new information comes in; so, come back, or, if looking for an earlier installment, use the search window. (in brackets, as much as I can remember, I’ll add a note re how I sourced the information – it is understood that this is the original sourcing and additional research would have been done by me to build the information shared here – credit and link back if you use).
Accolades
Antigua and Barbuda Cultural Director Khan Cordice co-arranged and drilled Republic Bank Exodus to a second place finish in the panorama of Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival. The presentation marked the return of local calypso legend King Short Shirt’s “Tourist Leggo”, their test tune, to TnT Carnival, after its popularity and outsider status resulted in it being banned from competition there in 1976. Khan and co-arranger Terrance ‘BJ’ Marcelle earned 280 points to the 283 points earned by winning pan orchestra Renegade. Khan holds the record as the youngest pan arranger to win in nantional competition, at 19, and ties with the late Victor ‘Babu’ Samuel for the most wins with eight. With this step, he is being hailed as a world class arranger. (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco)
Books and Other Reading Material
Let’s use Trinbagonian writer (still based in Trinidad) Kevin Jared Hosein’s current book tour (every writer dreams of such a publisher push!) and, in particular, his recent appearance on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom (live in studio, not no zoom t’ing), to big him up on the publication of Hungry Ghosts, which is already getting Booker Prize talk.
In Hosein’s British TV interview, we receive some insights and reminders re how story gets made. “In my childhood village, I was interviewing some elders including my grandfather about some of the literatures that had vanished over time and I wanted to make a small compilation of those moments that might have been lost in time or relegated to memory,” he said of the genesis of the book, set in 1940s Trinidad. Bringing his biology and environmental science training to the table, “I drew from a lot of what I knew of symbiotic relationships between animals and their relationship with landscape and habitat, and I fit that together because at the time this novel is set…(Trinidad) was kind of like a frontier.” The cowboys of that frontier, the interview suggests, were the British who saw their influence waning and the Americans who “brought with them a version of the American dream”, and, then, of course, the local people of varying ethnicities and their journeys there. The interview touched quite a bit on colonialism suggesting some exploration of that as a major theme. But for Hosein it was about reclaiming his country’s stories before they slip from memory. “I wanted to give life to those illustrations in the history books.”
Just in his late 30s, Hosein is already an accomplished writer, with milestones including the regional win for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2015 for “The King of Settlement 4”) followed by the main prize (2018, for “Passage”). He has been published in Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean (with “The Monkey Trap”, which was also shortlisted for the Small Axe Prize). He self-published his first book Littletown Secrets. Peepal Tree, a Caribbean focused press based in the UK, published his second book The Repenters, in 2016, and The Beast of Kukuyo was a Burt Award winning title published with Jamaica-based Blue Banyan imprint Blouse and Skirt Books in 2018. The Repenters was long listed for Bocas and nominated for the International Dublin IMPAC Award. Hungry Ghosts is published by Bloomsbury, a British worldwide publishing house.
Congrats to Kevin Jared Hosein and as a reminder of the journey, read “Kevin Jared Hosein breaks it down” published to Wadadli Pen in 2017. (Source – Kevin Jared Hosein on Facebook/image via Bocas on Twitter)
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Antigua-born, Virgin Islands-raised, Switzerland-based poet Althea Romeo-Mark has a summer 2023 release planned.
On the Borders of Belonging, she said, is dedicated to “my forefathers, the Finches, Marshes, Josephs, Hendriksons, Willetts and Maynards, who willingly and unwillingly crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean Islands from European and African shores; my parents, Gilbert Romeo, Daisy Marsh Romeo with whom my siblings and I had our first immigrant experience and whose animated storytelling lit my imagination; and immigrants who have sacrificed everything in search of new homelands. For most, these are havens, the secondhand homes, which, though ill-fitting at first, eventually become the accepted abode after several decades. Despite living on the edge of belonging, passing time, and survival instincts, allow most to settle well in heart and mind, in new SHELL/ters.” (Source – ARM in the Caribbean Writers group on Facebook)
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Barbadian writer Karen Lord‘s The Blue, Beautiful World – described as a space opera – has an August 29th 2023 release date.
Synopsis:
“The world is changing, and humanity must change with it. Rising seas and soaring temperatures have radically transformed the face of Earth. Meanwhile, Earth is being observed from afar by other civilizations . . . and now they are ready to make contact.
Vying to prepare humanity for first contact are a group of dreamers and changemakers, including Peter Hendrix, the genius inventor behind the most advanced VR tech; Charyssa, a beloved celebrity icon with a passion for humanitarian work; and Kanoa, a member of a global council of young people drafted to reimagine the relationship between humankind and alien societies.
And they may have an unexpected secret weapon: Owen, a pop megastar whose ability to connect with his adoring fans is more than charisma. His hidden talent could be the key to uniting Earth as it looks toward the stars.
But Owen’s abilities are so unique that no one can control him and so seductive that he cannot help but use them. Can he transcend his human limitations and find the freedom he has always dreamed of? Or is he doomed to become the dictator of his nightmares?”
Lord who has wracked up several awards (the William L. Crawford Award and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature) and nominations (the World Fantasy Award ) in her career has announced that two books from her backlist (Redemption in Indigo and Unravelling) have been acquired and are slated for re-release. “The reprints will have new covers, and extra material. I’ve written four short stories about our favourite characters from Cygnus Beta, filling in some offscreen events.” (Source – Karen Lord on Twitter)
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Jamaican writer Jacqueline Bishop has published her eighth book.
Patchwork: Essays & Interviews on Caribbean Visual Culture has been issued with the support of Intellect Publishing and the University of Chicago Press. On the cover is an image of the writer’s great grandmother Celeste Walker holding up one of her patchworks and it seeks to shine a spotlight on Caribbean women like Ms. Walker, whose art is ripped from cloth and reflects their African heritage. Bishop’s previous books are Fauna, My Mother who is Me, The River’s Song, Writers who Paint Painters who write, Snapshots from Istanbul, The Gymnast and Other Positions, and The Gift of Music and Song: Interviews with Jamaican Women Writers. (Source – the author via JR Lee email)
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“Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won’t have as much censorship because we won’t have as much fear.” – this Judy Blume quote inspired a post featuring Antiguan and Barbudan Children’s Literature <—check it out. (Source – in-house)
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“Notoriously, Caribbean slave owners extracted greater profits from working an enslaved person to death and purchasing a new one than from providing for a slave until old age and creating the conditions for natural reproduction.” – p7 from Troubling Freedom #whatimreading
Their are still spots – and financial aid to participate – in two of Breadloafs’ summer workshops. Worth it – I’ve been.
Though, alas, the fiction workshops are closed. See what’s still available in Opportunities Too. See also Opportunities. (Source – in-house)
Events
Antigua and Barbuda’s Ministry of Education, Sports, and Creative Industries will be holding the 2023 National Literacy Festival on March 2nd 2023 under the theme “Enriching Lives and Preserving Our Culture”. All citizens are invited to Drop Everything and Read for at least half an hour. The Ministry hopes that all business places and corporations will join the activity. We at Wadadli Pen hope that all participants will make it an Antiguan and Barbudan book.
(Source – Daily Observer by Newsco.)
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The classic Caribbean film The Harder They Come is having a stage run at The Public in New York. Twenty 22 was the 50th anniversary of the film’s 1972 release and activities included an exhibition in its country of origin Jamaica and this stage play whose run has now been extended.
Like the film, the play features the music of reggae legend Jimmy Cliff and other Jamaican artists, including the titular track. The film was produced and directed by Perry Henzell and co-written by Trevor Rhone. Pulitzer prize winning playwright, who has also written new music for the stage adapation, Susan Lori-Parks is responsible for bringing it to Broadway.
Choreography of this stage musical is Edgar Godineaux, and Sergio Trujillo and Tony Taccone are co-directors. (Source – The Public Theatre on Twitter)
Google them. (Source – St. Martin Book Fair email)
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HaMa Films will have the first local screening of their fifth feature film, Deep Blue, on Barbuda – this is after a screening during Montserrat’s Alliougana Festival of the Word. The local premiere is scheduled for Feburary 18th 2023, 7 p.m. at McChesney George Secondary School.
Call 776-3339 for tickets. HaMa’s previous films are The Sweetest Mango, a first for Antigua and Barbuda and the OECS, No Seed, Diablesse, and The Skin. (Source – Daily Observer by Newsco.)
As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, and The Jungle Outside). All Rights Reserved. Subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.
Things I read or view or listen to that you might like too. Things will be added – up to about 20 or so – before this installment in the Reading Room and Gallery series is archived. For previous and future installments in this series, use the search feature to the right.Possible warning for adult language and themes.
Presentations
The Antigua and Barbuda Conference has been held each year since 2004/5 with papers and various reviews subsequently published in the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books. More about these activities here https://bartiguastudies.org This is my third time presenting at this event. My paper was entitled: “The New [Caribbean] Daughters of Africa: A Review Focused on Caribbean Women’s Voices in New Daughters of Africa”.
Conversations
“As a writer, I don’t think it’s my job to create characters that people love or hate, but to create a scenario where a character’s motivation is believable, to make sure readers understand why a character takes a certain action.” – Donna Hemans in conversation with Jacqueline Bishop, both Jamaican, for the Jamaica Observer’s Bookends
Two from CREATIVE SPACE, my art and culture column – the first with independent romance and erotica author Kimolisa Mings & the second me with two of my girls from the Cushion Club, now young women talking –
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Jacqueline Bishop in conversation with Jamaican-Brit Hannah Lowe for Jamaica Observer’s Bookends.
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Marita Golden celebrates 40 years as a published author with a conversation on her journey as a writer, mentor, and literary activist.
Music
The way I had hoped to see this song (featuring American singer Jessy Wilson and Beninese-American singer Angélique Kidjo) performed at the 2022/2023 Academy Awards but I don’t think the song even made the long list. In fact, the entire film, The Woman King, about the Dahomey warriors who inspired Marvel’s Black Panther all-female dora miloji, irl the Agojie (which I wrote about in my She’s Royal series some time ago), produced by and starring Viola Davis and directed by Gina Prince Bythewood (here’s how she did it), both Black women, not a small point (as Bythewood points out in this Hollywood Reporter article), was completely shut out of this year’s Oscars, though deserving across multiple categories. See for yourself. It’s coming to Netflix on February 16th 2023 though; check it out.
Poetry
“I don’t take long drives to nowhere anymore, West Bay doesn’t follow the coast anymore, I don’t always know where I am anymore, Only that I’m in a place where no one knows me. Fifty three years I have lived here, Anonymous as a pig on a factory farm, Invisible as the breath of a ghost long gone, My hands can’t take hold of the dark sunlight, My voice calls out without answer or echo, I am the only one for a thousand miles to hear it Even as the faceless crowds press closer, Like each one of them, I am lonely as a moon.” – “Erasure” in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters by Lynn Sweeting (RIP)
Creatives on Creating
“The book or author I came back to The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Though short, it was absolutely unbearable as a teenager. I never even made it to the part with the sharks. A decade later, however, after an unlucky streak of story submissions, the tale became much more relatable.” – Kevin Jared Hosein in The Guardian’s The Books of My Life series
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“It’s increasingly valuable to just have that headspace where if I want to take the time and do some thinking, then I do it.” – Alberta Whittle (10 years ago) on her Fresh Milk (Barbados residency)
“I was born and raised in Haiti; Celeste Rita Baker is from the Virgin Islands; and Tonya Liburd is from Trinidad and Tobago. The three of us gathered together over a few months and designed a unique fictional universe deeply inspired by Caribbean culture and society—synthesizing its folklore and mythology and shared history that culminated in a seventeen-page “Story Bible” that housed the world. Thereafter, we three invited Joanne C. Hillhouse from Antigua and Barbuda to write within this world.” – Fabrice Guerrer in “ON CARIBBEAN FUTURES, SPECULATIVE FICTION AND THE “SKY ISLANDS” FICTIONAL WORLD” introduces stories – “Magic Mangoes“, “Rock, Feather, Shell“, “Ixie and Izzy” – published in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters.
Essays/Non-Fiction
“You would not have loved him, my friend the scholar decried. He brushed his teeth, if at all, with salt. He lied, and rarely washed his hair. Wiped his ass with leaves or with his hand. The top of his head would have barely reached your tits. His pits reeked, as did his deathbed.
‘By the time she was 15, Hinton had already been churning out stories and poems for eight years. She wrote about what she knew: the ongoing battles between the haves and have-nots. In interviews over the years, Hinton described herself as an observer who grew up in North Tulsa “greaser” (slang for their greased-back hairstyles) territory but wasn’t beholden to any one group. She was a tomboy who loved to read and yearned for honest teenage representation.’ – “S.E. Hinton Is Tired of Talking About ‘The Outsiders.’ No One Else Is” by Pat Sauer for Smithsonian Magazine
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“I literally exclaimed “nooo” when Aycayia’s scales started coming back, though conflicted about the limitations that being a woman would impose on her – something she herself was contemplating as she transitioned from one life to the other…and then back again, mournfully. It’s the paradox of the thing you’re not sure you want, until you have to let it go, a part of your heart breaking at the loss.” – from my review of Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch on Jhohadli Blogger on Books 2022 main page.
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“[Earl] Lovelace (The Wine of Astonishment) taught me about creating empathy in the reader for an anti-villain…I love how [Jamaica] Kincaid (A Small Place) made the personal political for me…In it (Miguel Street) I think [V S] Naipaul demonstrates his mastery of characterisation and also his ability to capture Caribbean life in all its beauty, lyricism and complexity…Haunting is the word I’d used to describe [Edwidge] Dandicat’s work (Everything Inside) and its effect on me…Her (Olive Senior/Dancing Lessons) treatment of her subject matter is gentle, nuanced and economical…” – Barbadian writer Cherie Jones (How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House) writes on the website for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (which she was shortlisted for in 2021) about “5 Caribbean Writers to Discover“.
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On the Bocas 100 Caribbean Books that made Us podcast, contemporary Caribbean writers deliver audio essays on books making the list. At this initial writing (January 24th 2023), that so far includes Kevin Jared Hosein on fellow Trinidadian and Tobagonian novelist’s Harold Sonny Ladoo No Pain like This Body, Vashti Bowlah on fellow Trinidadian and Tobagonian short story writer Sam Selvon’s Ways of Sunlight, and aspiring Trinbagonian poet Desiree Seebaran’s of Canada-based M. Nourbese Philip’s Zong! The last is especially engaging from a presentation standpoint.
As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my blog, including my CREATIVE SPACE art and culture column, which is refresthed every other Wednesday, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.
A reminder that the process with these Carib Lit Plus Caribbean arts bulletins is to do a front and back half of the month, updating as time allows as new information comes in; so, come back, or, if looking for an earlier installment, use the search window. (in brackets, as much as I can remember, I’ll add a note re how I sourced the information – it is understood that this is the original sourcing and additional research would have been done by me to build the information shared here)
Passings
Jamaican dub legend, Lee Scratch Perry, has passed. He was 85 years old. Details of his life and passing in this Pitchfork article. (Source – twitter)
Book Recs
In Issue 5 of Caribbean Reads’ Passport, in August 2021, Rebel Women Lit recommended five Beach Reads. They are Come Let us Sing Anyway by Jamaican author Leone Ross – “This collection shows her range as she tackles multiple worlds that brush up against the one we know”, Stick No Bills by Trinidad and Tobago’s Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw – “Walcott-Hackshaw shows how memory, bitterness, and pain can help us find power to see the light after tragedy”, The Sun’s Eye by various Caribbean writers, compiled by British editor Anne Walmsley – “It’s a brilliant way to sample the work of many stellar Caribbean writers like Olive Senior and Lorna Goodison (Jamaica), John Robert Lee (St Lucia), Earl Lovelace (Trinidad), Frank Collymore (Barbados), and so many more”, Motherland by Wandeka Gayle of Jamaica – “With characters that are equally as diverse and complex as the themes, we see women taking risks, having unexpected adventures daily, and finding their way as immigrants in their new worlds”, and A Million Aunties by Jamaican writer Alecia McKenzie – “a witty title that plays on the Caribbean’s culture of showing respect to older women who look out for you”. (Source – Caribbean Beat email)
New Books
“Yanique calls on themes from some of the best American, Caribbean and international fiction, using her signature lyrical writing style. This historical fiction travels throughout America, from California and Tennessee to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It explores intimacy through a generational, historical and societal lens. It provides a rare look into post-colonialism in America as well as the divergent experience of being black in America over the last 50 years.” – The St. Thomas Source writing on Virgin Island’s own Tiphanie Yanique’s latest novel Monster in the Middle. Though the book isn’t due out until October 2021, it has reportedly already won The Best American Short Story Prize and The O. Henry Prize. Selections from the book have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Harvard Review, and The Yale Review. Yanique’s previous prizes include the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry, the Forward/Felix Dennis Prize in the UK, the Phyllis-Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, among others. (Source – N/A)
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Celebrated Jamaican writer Kei Miller (latest publication Things I have Withheld) paid it forward on his social media some time ago by spotlighting new and upcoming Caribbean releases in what he described as “a bumper year of exciting publications”, and I thought I’d pay that forward by passing it on. Books mentioned in fiction included Popisho/This One Sky Day by Leone Ross (“a super lush, super expansive feat of imagination”) of Jamaica, How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (“the most gorgeous title ever”) by Cherie Jones of Barbados, Fortune by Amanda Smyth of Trinidad and Tobago (“seriously her best novel yet”), The Bread the Devil Knead (“so present and grounded”) by Lisa Allen-Agostini of Trinidad and Tobago, All The Water I’ve Seen Is Running by Elias Rodrigues of Jamaica, Dangerous Freedom by Lawrence Scott by Trinidad and Tobago, One Day, Congotay by Merle Hodge of Trinidad and Tobago (“everyone is looking forward!”), and Monster in the Middle by Tiphanie Yanique of the US Virgin Islands. Books mentioned in poetry included Mother Muse (“it sounds exciting!”) by Lorna Goodison of Jamaica, Thinking with Trees (“quietly beautiful”) by Jason Allen-Paisant of Jamaica, Like a Tree Walking by Vahni Capildeo of Trinidad and Tobago, Zion Roses by Monica Minott of Jamaica, and No Ruined Stone by Shara McCallum (“get back to reading her right now!”) of Jamaica. Books mentioned in non-fiction included The Gift of Music and Song (“a great resource for anyone interested in Caribbean Women’s Writing”) by Jacqueline Bishop of Jamaica, Invisible to Invaluable co-authored by Carol Russell, and Indo-Guyanese poet Rajiv Mohabir’s Antiman. (Source – Kei’s facebook)
Accolades
Various recipients of Antigua and Barbuda Gospel Media Awards, to be conferred in October, have been announced. They are Clephane ‘Mr. Terrific’ Roberts, a well known media personality, and Everton ‘Mano’ Cornelius, an athlete – both receiving legacy awards for education and athletics, respectively; Guyanese national Malika ‘Nikki Phoenix’ Moffett, a radio host across several stations in Antigua and Barbuda, Mario ‘DJ Bless’ Connor, a disc jockey, Thalia Parker-Baptiste, an activist – receiving impact awards, respectively, for activism, arts, and humanitarian work. These are only some of the announced awardees which includes Jamaicans Onika Campbell, known in Antigua and Barbuda as a former journalist with the Daily Observer newspaper and current honorary consul from her home country, another Jamaican, coach and therapist Jermaine Gordon, and Americans James C. Birdsong Jr. and Lillian Lilly, both singers. Announcement of competitive media awards is also scheduled for the October 22nd event, with music awards scheduled for October 23rd. (Source – The Daily Observer newspaper)
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Sharifa George has been announced as a 2021 recipient of one of a handful of coveted British Chevening scholarships and will use it to pursue a Masters in strategic marketing. Sharifa was part of the 2017 Wadadli Pen judging pool. The application deadline for the next round of Chevening scholars is November 2nd 2021. (Source – The Daily Observer newspaper)
Gayle Gonsalves My Stories have No Endings has placed second for the Colorado Independent Publishers Association and CIIPA Education and Literacy Foundation’s award in the Women’s Fiction category. The book was previously a finalist at Canada’s National Indie Excellence Awards. “I was so thrilled to learn of the award. …Special thanks to the cover designer (Lucy Holtsnider) for representing the book at the Awards. I feel blessed that the book continues to find new readers who enjoy Kai’s story. I’m thankful to the Universe for these blessings.” (Source – Gayle Gonsalves’ instagram)
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Bocas has this amazing contest for young writers and the people get to choose the winner. That’s an inspired approach to the popularization of reading and writing, and both the prize and the young writers, and you, the voters, deserve all the accolades.
The winners of the BLLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean and in the US, and honourable mentions have been announced. Main prize winners are both Trinis, Akhim Alexis for writers resident in the Caribbean and Patrice Grell Yuseik for those resident overseas, respectively.
See the short list below and the long list in the previous Carib Lit Plus. (Source – facebook, initially via Diana McCaulay who is one of the two finalists for the resident writer prize)
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The Legacy Award nominations – a project of the Hurston Wright Foundation in the US, named for Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright – are out, and include, in the fiction category, Book of the Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma, born in the US to immigrants from Trinidad. (Source – Twitter)
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The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Caribbean resident and Caribbean American short story prize short lists have been announced. After the long list posted in the last Carib Lit Plus update, which included Antigua-Barbuda, the territories left standing are Jamaica (1), Trinidad and Tobago (2), Sint Maarten/Saint Martin (1), Guyana (1), Barbados (1), St. Vincent and the Grenadines (1), and Dominican Republic (1) for the prize for America-based Caribbean writers; and Trinidad and Tobago (4), Barbados (1), Jamaica (2), and Dominica (1) for the prize for Caribbean-based Caribbean writers. (Source – Facebook)
Past Commonwealth Short Story Prize and Burt Award winner, Trinidad and Tobago’s Kevin Jared Hosein announced earlier this year that his forthcoming book, Devotion (his fourth), sold in a five way auction (wow) and is scheduled for release in August 2022. It will reportedly be released simultaneously in the US and UK, with Bloomsbury and Ecco/HarperCollins, backed by a major marketing campaign. (Now, that’s the dream!) It’s noteworthy that KJH did this all while being resident in TnT, one example that you don’t have to live abroad to make it internationally. For how he did it, we invite you to revisit his facebook post, republished, as ‘Hosein Breaks It Down‘, with his permission on this site. (Source – the author’s facebook)
Joanne C. Hillhouse of Antigua and Barbuda and Wadadli Pen in conversation with M J Fievre, the Haitian-American author and host of the Badass Black Girl vlog, the second episode of season 5 after Nikki Giovanni (that and other interviews also worth checking out), has been added to the Antiguan and Barbudan Artists Discussing Art data base. (Source – YouTube)
The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival is almost here, September 10th – 12th 2021. This year’s theme: A Tapestry of Words and Worlds. Day 1 – Event 1 – Author’s Note with Tiphanie Yanique of the US Virgin Islands, Andre Bagoo of Trinidad and Tobago, and others; Event 2 – A Calabash of Wonder with contemporary writers of unapologetically Caribbean and African YA and children’s literature such as Barbados’ Shakirah Bourne and others; Event 3 – Laureates of the Caribbean: Our Common Heritage featuring the likes of St. Lucia’s Canisia Lubrin, Jamaica’s Velma Pollard and Tanya Shirley, among others. Day 2 – Event 4 – The Joys of Motherhood with Trinidad and Tobago’s Ayanna Lloyd-Banwo and Lisa Allen-Agostini, and Jamaica’s Diana McCaulay in the line-up; Event 5 – Espiritismo y Superstitions looking at Caribbean mythology; Event 6 – I belong to the House of Music with recent Commonwealth short story award winning Roland Watson-Grant of Jamaica among others talking about how music influences the creative consciousness. Day 3 – Event 7 – Women of the Resistance with Barbados’ Cherie Jones and others; Event 8 – Bards and Badjohns with Jacob Ross, a Britain-based Grenadian writer, Courttia Newland, a British writer of Jamaican and Bajan descent, and others explore masculinity in the region; Event 9 – Beti, which will comb through the thread of Indo-Caribbean womanhood. (Source – BCLF email)
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Joanne C. Hillhouse from Antigua and Barbuda was invited to participate in the Medellin International Poetry Festival, its 31st iteration, which has been going on all month, virtually, featuring writers from all over the world. Hillhouse’s panel included Ann Margaret Lim of Jamaica and Sonia Williams of Barbados.
Jamaica-based Rebel Women Lit continues its Verandah Chats on August 21st with award winning speculative fiction writer Nalo Hopkinson who has Trinidadian roots. You can join from anywhere. Get your tickets here. (Source – RWL email)
You should know about
The Montserrat Arts Council facilitating songwriting masterclasses for local artists. “Local musicians joined more than 50 participants logged on to Zoom for Writers’ Delight – A song writing masterclass. Hosted by Trinidad-born and US-based Darryl Gervais, alongside Montserrat-born and UK-based Vallis ‘Shaker HD’ Weekes, the session ran for a total of five hours. Topics covered included Song Structure, What Makes a Good Song, Writing Better Lyrics, The 7 C’s of Song Writing and much more.” Read all about it here. (Source – Just Write facebook page)
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That the Opportunities Too page has been updated with opportunities for visual artists and writers alike, deadlines pending.
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A series of Conversations on Intellectual Property videos have been posted to the Antigua and Barbuda Intellectual Property and Commerce Office Facebook page. Check their video page for presentations by Carol Simpson, head of the World Intellectual Property Office in the Caribbean, parliamentary secretary Senator Maureen Hyman, magistrate Conliffe Clarke, and ABIPCO registrar Ricky Comacho and staffer Colleen Roberts. Beyond that it features eight business owners and their use of intellectual property: Andrew Doumith of ACT and AllMart; Gabby Thomas of The Vanilla Orchid; Debbie Smith of The Pink Mongoose; Terryl Howell also known as Guava De Artist; Writer, trainer, and Best of Books manager, Barbara Arrindell, Monique Sylvester- Rhudd of JMVI; Patrick Joseph of Stooge Co; and Kurt Carter of QuikServe.
This image of Wadadli Pen team member Barbara Arrindell is not from the Conversations series but from a World Intellectual Property zoom event in which she served as a presenter. I have asked but I haven’t been able to find the video for sharing. Sorry. (Source – Facebook)
As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.
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)
New(ish) Books
Not new(ish) books but a new discussion coming out of Bocas (and linked in this post) on the 100 Caribbean Books that Made us. (Source – Bocas)
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Trinbagonian writer and illustrator Danielle Boodoo Fortune has announced the imminent release of Sitting Moon: Colouring Meditations on Motherhood.
(Source – the author/artist’s facebook)
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From UWI Press, a number of biographies including Sheer Bliss: a Creole Journey by Michaela A. Calderaro, about Eliot Bliss, Stuart Hall by Annie Paul, and Una Marson by Lisa Thompson, among others. Go to UWI Press. (Source – N/A)
Check this out/Reports
The Ministry of Education (Antigua and Barbuda) has announced its first annual virtual symposium every Wednesday in May 2021, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. It will be held under the theme ‘Meaningful Research – Enabling, Informing, and Creative Positive Change’. (Source – the Daily Observer newspaper)
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The Barbados-based US Embassy hosted Bajan writer Cherie Jones in a zoom for World Book and Copyright Day. Jones is writer of the acclaimed novel How the One-armed Sister Sweeps Her House. U.S. Ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean Linda Taglialatela welcomed the participants and Haitian-American creative writer Inga Laurent guided the discussion. The first 25 registrants were eligible to receive How the One-armed Sister Sweeps Her House and the chat was to feature a contest to win additional titles, including Jones’ earlier collection The Burning Bush Women and Other Stories. I don’t know about you but I’m sorry that I missed it. (Source – US Embassy Bridgetown email)
World Book and Copyright Day was pretty busy in Antigua and Barbuda as well. Check it out.
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Intersect Antigua and Barbuda, a gender advocacy group with a storytelling platform, has announced a new Caribbean feminist series, featuring two inspiring Caribbean women in history across their social media platforms once a month. The series launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021 and have since featured Una Marson, Mary Jane Seacole, and Amy Ashwood Garvey. There’s also this upcoming event:
With the hopeful theme of “The Cure,” the 19th annual St. Martin Book Fair is scheduled for June 3 – 5, 2021.
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Volume 35 of The Caribbean Writer will launch this April at the Virgin Islands Literary Festival. ‘The 2020 edition, a tribute to the late literary icon Kamau Brathwaite, will be launched at the upcoming Virgin Islands Literary Festival and Book Fair (VI Lit Fest) hosted online from April 30 to May 2, 2021 under the theme, “Diasporic Rhythms II: Interrogating the Past; Imagining a Future”. The volume features poetic and prosaic tributes from award-winning authors and poets as well as not-before published submissions from “The Man Himself.” According to Program Chair Alscess Lewis-Brown, the issue is part of the collective outpourings of gratitude, remembrances and reminiscence lyricized in musings, tributes, celebrations of his life — a continual repast of ubiquitous reminders of his influence.’
The festival line-up includes Edwidge Dandicat, Kwame Dawes, Canisia Lubrin, Vladimir Lucien, Jacqueline Bishop, Rozena Maart, Summer Edward, Yona Deshommes, Chika Unigwe, Shara McCallum, Michela Calderaro, and Mervyn Taylor. Register here. Sign up to present at Book Bacchanal here. (Source – The Caribbean Writer email)
The Antigua and Barbuda Studies Association now has a website. About time. Here you can find back issues of the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books and other scholarly information re Antigua and Barbuda. Start reading here. (Source – email from the editor Professor Paget Henry)
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With lyrics penned by St. Lucian writer Adrian Augier, More than Just Islands is a new song and music video promoting marine conservation. It features the voices of several Organization of Eastern Caribbean States musical superstars including Antigua and Barbuda’s soca diva Claudette ‘CP’ Peters and Ricardo Drue. The initiative was spearheaded by managing director of Right Angle Imaging Barbara Jacobs-Small of St. Lucia, who said, “It advocates the singular importance of the OECS marine space to our lives, livelihoods, way of life and the promise of the Blue Economy for our region.” (Source – Barbara Jacobs-Small’s linkedin)
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Trinidad born US rap superstar Nicki Minaj and US folk rock legend Tracy Chapman had a copyright dispute that ended with the former reportedly agreeing to pay out US$450,000 to the latter. Is this just an opportunity to link the original version of Sorry/Baby, can I hold you tonight?, which was in heavy rotation back in the day?
Maybe.
But also this is relevant to a site like ours which does try to educate on literary and publishing matters. A previous ruling, reportedly, determined that the song which Chapman had refused requests to license to Minaj fell under fair use. The settlement means that the case won’t be returning to trial (and that judgment won’t be tested). But it’s an opportunity for an always timely reminder to respect copyright, make sure you have permission (from the creator and/or license holder) to use any content you did not create and/or that it falls firmly within fair use if you do use without seeking permission. Read the details here. (Source – The Root) See also Resources including links re legalities vis-a-vis creative works here on Wadadli Pen.
Wadadli Pen News
Judging for the Wadadli Pen Challenge is still in progress. Meantime, check out our patrons.
Congrats are due to
Tekiah Minott, 17, Antigua Girls High School, winner of the Carl Adrian Joseph photojournalist award.
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Winners of the Priest Isaac Institute of Holistic Knowledge eighth annual Africa-themed essay competition here in Antigua and Barbuda, Johanna Jacobs, Nyeisha Chiddick, and John Germain. All three won electronic devices – tablets or laptops. (Source – the Daily Observer newspaper)
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Halcyon Steel Orchestra, one of Antigua and Barbuda’s winningest pan orchestras, on reaching its 50th anniversary. The Grays Green musical band has 13 titles to its record, and has the distinction of being the only pan orchestra to ever 4-peat in the history of the local panorama. For its anniversary, the group is having a Keeping the Vibes Alive 50th anniversary facebook competition giving pan players domestic and abroad the opportunity to rearrange and present one of its winning panorama tunes. Follow via the #Halcyon50 hashtag. (Source – the Daily Observer newspaper)
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Desiree Seebaran, winner of the Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize for Poetry. This prize allows an emerging writer to improve her/his skills through mentorship for an entire year. St. Lucian poet (Canada-based) Canisia Lubrin is the winner of the OCM Bocas Prize with her book length narrative poem The Dyzgraphxst (see earlier post re the prize – below – re the other finalists) (Source – writers and book lovers and Bocas watchers on twitter)
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Kevin Jared Hosein, as the already mult-award winning Trini writer lands a major publishing deal. Don’t take our word for it. Here’s what Bookseller.com had to say:
‘Bloomsbury is to publish Devotion by Kevin Jared Hosein, after securing the title at auction for a “major” sum.
The novel, set in 1940s Trinidad and inspired by oral storytelling traditions, follows the intertwining lives of a wealthy couple and the poor families who live in the barracks below their farm, after the mysterious disappearance of the husband leads his wife to hire one of the barracks’ farmhands as a watchman. Described as a novel with “a huge moral canvas”, the book interrogates class and the consequences of powerlessness.
Alexis Kirschbaum, associate publisher, acquired UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) and audio rights to the novel from Chris Wellbelove at Aitken Alexander Associates. US rights were acquired at auction by Gabriella Doob at Ecco.
Hosein lives in Trinidad and Tobago. He was the winner of the overall Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2018, and of the Caribbean regional prize in 2015.’ Read more. (Source – Facebook)
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The Bocas Lit Fest and the three writers shortlisted for its main prize: poetry winner Canisia Lubrin (The Dyzgraphxst – a Quill & Quire Book of the Year), fiction winner Maisy Card (These Ghosts are Family), and non-fiction winner Andre Bagoo (The Undiscovered Country). Lubrin is from St. Lucia, Card from Jamaica, and Bagoo from Trinidad and Tobago. More here. (Source – Bocas email)
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Jamaican-British writer Leone Ross whose latest Popisho (also known asThis One Sky Day) debuts this month. It is getting a lot of hype (including lots of media coverage – e.g. in Bookseller.com, the Financial Times, and The Guardian). You can join her on any of her current tour stops (e.g. this one – click the image to register).
Barbadian writer Shakirah Bourne who has landed a deal for two more books ahead of the summer 2021 release of her first US release Josephine Against the Sea (the Caribbean edition of which has been previously published with Jamaica’s Blue Banyan). See below (Source – Shakirah Bourne’s social media)
Read my recently posted review of the audio book of Bourne’s previously self-published In Time of Need.
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The writers, including a number of Caribbean writers, shortlisted for this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The full line up is here but, of course, we single out for mention Andre Bagoo of Trinidad and Tobago, who was also recently announced as the winner of this year’s Bocas non-fiction prize, Heather Barker of Barbados, Rashad Hosein of Trinidad and Tobago, Sharma Taylor, originally of Jamaica, resident in Barbados, a multi-award winning short story writer whose book deal we announced in a recent Carib Lit Plus bulletin, and award winning novelist Roland Watson-Grant of Jamaica, who previously made the Commonwealth long list back in 2017. (Source – Twitter)
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Shabier Kirchner, of Antigua and Barbuda, who recently wracked up awards for his work as cinematographer of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series, is attached to another winning project, Sundance short prize winner, Lizard.
Kirchner served as cinematographer on the project which was directed by Akinola Davies Jr. (Source – Facebook)
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Lawson Lewis, local artist and filmmaker, whose ‘Neighbour’, part of an ad campaign for North Coast Hardware, has won a silver award at the American Advertising Federation Awards, through the Caribbean Advertising Federation. “We are the only Leeward Islands Agency to reach this far. Usually, the winners are from bigger islands with well-established agencies, like Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Puerto Rico. To be listed among them is a huge accomplishment,” Lewis was quoted as saying in the Daily Observer newspaper. “What the Silver means is that now we will actually move to compete in the Florida segment and if we manage to get a Gold or Silver then we move to nationals to compete against other states in the US.”
The series of ‘Neighbour’ ads created some social conversation around community values.
Lewis’ agency, Tarsier, previously won a Marcom Gold Award in 2019, in the animation category, for the Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority’s Cool is Clean campaign. (Source – Lawson Lewis on Facebook initially)
As with all content (words, images, other) 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. You can also subscribe to and/or follow the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks. And remember while linking and sharing the links, referencing and excerpting, with credit, are okay, lifting whole content (articles, images, other) from the site without asking is not cool. Respect copyright.
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.
ESSAY/NON-FICTION
“Writing helps me attain knowledge of Trinidad and Tobago, helps me understand it and appreciate it, and helps me forgive the hurtful parts of it.” – from The Fishing Line by Kevin Jared Hosein
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‘She carries Jamaica in her spirit, and particularly the rural Jamaica she grew up in, which is as she said “embedded in her heart beat”. They really couldn’t have picked a more Jamaican Jamaican from the esteemed writers of a culture that has produced so many great writers.’ – from my Olive Senior Appreciation Post on Wadadli Pen
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“I am a black woman writer from Trinidad and Tobago. I was born here to Trinidadian parents. I have lived here all my life. I do not have an escape route to Elsewhere, whether the route is through money, family connections or non-TT citizenship.” – Lisa Allen-Agostini, 2018 in Repeating Islands
“What was extremely important for me was coming to England in 1984. That was a few months after the US invasion of Grenada in 1983, and I arrived here with a profound sense of betrayal and outrage largely because I thought that story needed to be told from the point of the people who were at the receiving end of the guns and the canons and that invasion, and I had to write that rage..36 years later I’m just about doing the book.” – Jacob Ross
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“When I was young, people didn’t think children could see or hear, they would do and say anything in front of them… but from my own experience, children hear a lot.” – Zee Edgell talking about her work in a 1990 Banyan TV interview (click on the image below and type pass word ‘zee’ to access)
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“I wanted to create a book that would encourage people in Antigua and Barbuda to be proud of their identity… so instead of A is for Apple, let’s begin with A is for Arawak.” – Margaret Irish
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“We were all asked to give details of what we wanted to see in terms of the art work, at least I know I was, and to me it’s like she took my thoughts and she somehow created almost exactly what I had in my head. That’s the way it felt (and)..it’s everything I would have wanted it to be. The people look as if they’re our people and there are a mix of people in the story book. And I say that because there are times when I’ve seen some books that are supposed to be our books and the people look perhaps the way other people think we look.” – Barbara Arrindell
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“It’s about when you see these things to not get depressed by it and to make the change you can because you mightn’t be able to create the world you want to see but you can do one thing that does that and it’s very important that we do those things.” – Tanya Batson-Savage
MISC.
“It is revealed that all of the appointments to the University of the West Indies were vetted in London by a committee on which there was a representative of MI5 which aimed ‘to keep the university free of communism’. Within the West Indies communism was an elastic category into which were consigned anyone with an uncompromising relationship to the colonial order and its successor.” – from a public lecture by Richard Drayton
CREATIVES ON CREATING
“First, I made a collage of 6 recent rom-com covers I loved, that reflected the current look of the genre—hand-drawn fonts, bold color, big fonts. I noted I wanted an inclusive, modern design (no male/female cake topper or thin white bride etc).” – Georgia Clark, author of It Had To Be You on the process of conceptualizing a cover; click the instagram link to read (and see) more. (Source – direct author mail and instagram)
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‘Impressionist/actor Jay Pharoah has a zeroed in on a few distinctive traits — some comics call them “handles” — to help flesh out his version of Biden; there’s the little rasp in his voice, as well as favorite Biden phrases like “c’mon man,” “malarkey” and, of course, “here’s the deal.” “The key to a great impression and keeping it fresh, is always trying to look for things that person does, that other people don’t know yet,” says Pharoah, who played President Barack Obama, Jay-Z, Denzel Washington and many more notables in six years on Saturday Night Live. With Biden poised to take office as the nation’s 46th president, comics like Pharoah face a crucial question: How to impersonate him in a way that really resonates? … Pharoah recalls Saturday Night Live sat on an idea he brought up when he joined the show in 2010; a character who was Obama’s more emotional subconscious. Years later, Comedy Central’s show Key & Peele debuted Obama’s “anger translator,” Luther, in a similar sketch, and Pharoah saw an opportunity missed. “There was not a Black person in America, sitting there while Barack Obama had to take everything that he took from the Republican party, [who didn’t think] ‘He has got to be ticked off,” Pharoah adds.’ – NPR
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“So don’t start with exciting plot; start with people.” – Leone Ross, masterclass on characterization
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“Film is so powerful, television is so powerful, it can literally change perception and change culture.” – Gina Prince Bythewood, writer-director of Love and Basketball, Beyond the Lights, and The Old Guard.
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.
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.
‘Kevin Jared Hosein meets me for our interview on the day V.S. Naipaul dies. The 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner is neither dismissively snide nor desperately heartbroken at Naipaul’s passing. It may seem surprising that a prominent literary son of the Trinidadian soil has no strong feelings about Naipaul, one way or another, but it’s true of Hosein, who fields my queries on the 2001 Nobel Laureate with an unperturbed equanimity. This isn’t hubris. Hosein doesn’t imagine himself superior to Naipaul’s influence or legacy. This is something else entirely: it’s the year in which Kevin Jared Hosein finds himself a household commodity, at least in homes lined with books.
“A lot of it is luck,” Hosein says baldly, referring to his success. This from a man who tried to inveigle his way into a bachelor’s degree in literature or journalism (whichever would have him), despite not having studied literature for “O”-levels. It wasn’t on offer at his secondary school, he explains, though this didn’t dampen his desire to live in worlds of books. The opposite seems to have happened: from early on, Hosein wrote prolifically and read with deep appetite. Stephen King was a childhood staple, followed by Cormac McCarthy. Ask Hosein which Caribbean book has most influenced his sensibility as both reader and writer, and he’s likely to reach for Harold “Sonny” Ladoo’s 1972 novel No Pain Like This Body. “It made me understand how diverse this whole setting is,” Hosein says, referencing the small agrarian Hindu community in which Ladoo’s brutal, uncompromising narrative unfolds.’
As with all content (words, images, other) 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, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure). All Rights Reserved. You can also subscribe to and/or follow the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks. And remember while linking and sharing the links, referencing and excerpting, with credit, are okay, lifting whole content (articles, images, other) from the site without asking is not cool. Respect copyright.
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. Share by excerpting and linking, so 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 31st one which means there are 30 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
POETRY
“The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment…” – Edge by Sylvia Plath
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‘“Unwritten: Caribbean Poems After the First World War” is an attempt to address this gap in the narrative.’ Those poets commissioned by this project, writing and researching new work, come from both the Caribbean, and the Caribbean diaspora. Performing are: Jay Bernard, Jay T John, Ishion Hutchinson, Kat Francois, Tanya Shirley, Vladimir Lucien, Charnell Lucien, Malika Booker and Karen McCarthy Woolf.’ – Unwritten
NEWS FEATURES & OPINION
“The fact that no importance is placed on storytelling makes me very frustrated not only because it puts so little value or emphasis on children’s creativity, but also because storytelling is more than simply an art – it is a crucial skill for life and commerce.” – Ditch the Grammar and Teach Children Storytelling Instead by Tim Lott
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“Simon was a four-time Oscar nominee and a staggering 17-time Tony nominee; he won three times and received a special Tony in 1975, along with virtually every other honor a playwright can win, including the Pulitzer Prize for 1991’s Lost in Yonkers. Because he was so prolific, churning out more than 60 plays, screenplays, teleplays, and even contributions to musicals over the course of half a century, it’s hard to home in on his most important works, or even his most important decade. But here are four Simon works we think every theater lover should know.” – Vox on late American playwright Neil Simon
CREATING
“When I was 24 years old, I chanced upon this style of comedy. I was doing a very small cable TV show, it was a public access show in England called F2F and I was playing an early form of the character that became Ali G. In that version he was called Joseline Cheadle Human. He was an upper-class wanna be rapper, skateboarder, lover of hip-hop. In this show, I would go out and shoot little segments and then I would sort of pop them into this live show. I shot a little thing with this character and then I saw a bunch of real-life Ali G’s. The director with me at the time, a guy called Mike Toppin, a brilliant ex-editor of evening comedies who happened to be working on this public access show. I said, those guys are like me and he said, go and speak with them. That moment changed my career. I interacted with them, I started trying to get on my skateboard and they are going, ‘you’re wack, man. That is ridiculous.’ They were mocking me, and after two minutes I came out of character and I said, ‘guys, I’m pretending. It’s not me.’ They were shocked, and I realized oh my God, I’ve found something. Suddenly a tourist bus turned up. I jumped on the tourist bus with a camera. I grabbed the microphone. I started rapping into the microphone. We got off the bus, I went into a pub and started breakdancing on the floor. They called the cops. I then went into the lobby of some big business firm and I said my dad ran the business, and security threw me out, and I was completely invigorated.
I took the stuff and would cut it into the live show, and by the third segment everything was cut. It went black. Somebody had pulled these pieces that we’d shot. I was pulled in front of the station chiefs afterward and they said, never do that again or I’d get sued. I knew at that point that I had found something. It was by chance, by luck. I chanced upon a new style of comedy, which was putting comedy characters into the real world. A week later there was a pro-hunting rally in England, which every member of the upper class was there, save the royal family, and I decided to go undercover as a foreign character. I’m driving down there and in the back seat. There’s a hat from Astrakhan in Southern Russia. I put it on my head and I come out of the car and I am basically an early form of Borat.
Hello, my name is…[he assumes the Borat accent]. I would start asking people, ‘excuse me. When we went hunting in Moldova, we like to hunt the Jew. Would you hunt the Jew here?’ And they’d start answering…[assumes upper crust British accent] ‘Well, actually…yes, so long as he was given a fair start. Yes, I would.’ And I suddenly realized here was a method that allowed people to really reveal their true feelings on camera. I came back home and I said to my flatmate, I think there’s a new style of comedy here that I’ve accidentally chanced upon, an undercover character comedy. I just started working on that and when the cable access show got shut down, I started developing a show for Borat, which was going to be undercover in a house with students with hidden cameras for three months, kind of an early form of Big Brother. It was not commissioned, but that is how all this happened.” – Sacha Baron Cohen
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“To know a character, I have to understand what they want and what they’ve lost.” – Bret Anthony Johnston
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‘The short story is well placed for putting twists on simple things. Unlike the novel – in which the author is primarily concerned with world-building – the short story is typically centred on a moment or event and charged with a more playful energy. An author of three novels – The Beast of Kukuyo (2018), The Repenters (2016) and Littletown Secrets (2013) – Hosein felt ‘Passage’ was better suited for the short form, for its warmth, tension and confusion. “‘Passage’ works because of its set-up and quick deflection of expectations,” says Hosein. “There also had to be continuously rising tension that’s a lot more difficult to maintain in a novel, especially a novel that entails such few players.”’- Kevin Jared Hosein on The Culture Trip
THE BUSINESS
“1.Give anything you’ve just finished some time and space before you submit.
2.Try to be as objective as possible when you finally do return to that piece.
3.Be ready and willing to revise.
4.Know thyself. Be brutally honest.
5.In the end, go with your gut. If you think it’s ready, send it.” – Matt Mullins in Atticus Review newsletter
INTERVIEWS
“A sense of the inner wildness, the “untameness” that is always beneath the surface of people and places, is what drives many of the poems. In the process of writing and editing Doe Songs, I tried to access that inner wildness and to learn to see it in everything, to acknowledge that the domestic and the wild, the gentle and the feral are bound together so closely in all living things and places.” – Danielle Boodoo Fortune
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“What is the first thing you wrote?
When I was in sixth form, I studied literature for my “A” levels with Dennis Scott. We had finished with the syllabus fairly early, so Dennis invited his friends, Rex Nettleford, Mervyn Morris, Lorna Goodison, and Christopher Gonzalez, to name a few, to talk to us about music, art, and poetry. I believe it was after a lecture by Lorna Goodison that he gave us an assignment to visit any gallery and write an essay about what we saw.
I had arrived at the gallery late and begged one of the cleaning ladies to let me in. I told her it would only be a few minutes. She smiled with me and said, “Only ten minutes.”
When I walked into the gallery, a security guard was walking past a statue, “Eve” by Edna Manley. As he walked by the statue, he slapped the statue on the buttocks and said, “Big batty gal.” Talk about a visceral reaction to art.
“You know I think the jokes that work for white guys and their white guy comedian friends don’t work, always, for women of color. …” – Amber Tamblyn
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“What advice would you give to new writers starting out? Where to start? Kill adverbs. Use nouns and verbs. Adjectives are less useful than you think. Think about what you’re trying to say and then do that, plainly. Be kind to yourself – writing is hard. Read lots of stuff, everything, but try including some good ones, you know, that have critical acclaim. It does count for something. Grammar. Jesus Christ – fixing that is not an editor’s job, or it shouldn’t be. Go looking for your inspiration – be active. There is no bolt from the blue that will deliver you literary perfection – it takes work. READ. Most of the time the story will not just seek you out – you have to go find it. READ. Oh, and if you’re a poet, I beg you not to read poetry in that sing-song voice that so many put on at worthy events. Sorry, I know I’m supposed to be talking about shorts. READ. ” – Leone Ross
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“For writers, dreams are where it’s at.” – Angela Barry
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“Who made reading important to you? When I was little, my older sisters read to me from time to time. I also have one memory of my father reading to me. He was not a very fluent reader and I remember him struggling with the words, but he tried very hard and put a lot of heart into it. I was about five or so and was very moved by it all; that reading experience fueled something and has remained with me on many levels.” – interview with Marcia Douglas
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“If you’re prepared to be tough with yourself. That’s hard to instill in people – that you can have a lot of confidence and still be really tough. And also know it’s not factory work, it’s not office work, it’s not going to come out the same every day. And because this is the only place we write from, this self that we are, some days it’s a bit fucked up.” – Jeanette Winterson with Marlon James
“In the autumn of Maria’s eighteenth year, the year that her beloved father—amateur coin collector, retired autoworker, lapsed Catholic—died silently of liver cancer three weeks after his diagnosis, and the autumn her favorite dog killed her favorite cat on the brown, crisped grass of their front lawn, and the cold came so early that the apples on the trees froze and fell like stones dropped from heaven, and the fifth local Dominican teenager in as many months disappeared while walking home from her minimum-wage, dead-end job, leaving behind a kid sister and an unfinished journal and a bedroom in her mother’s house she’d never made enough to leave…” – Mary When You Follow Her By Carmen Maria Machado, Illustrations by Sergio García Sánchez
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“‘Well me wasn’t there, but people say it, so I believe it,’ the man said, chuckling through a smile of missing teeth.” – An Elephant in Kingston by Marcus Bird
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
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‘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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“The Caribbean population is small but it is teeming with writers – has been for a long time.” – Pamela Mordecai
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“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
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“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
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“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
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‘“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
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“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
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“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.
(latest publication Things I have Withheld) paid it forward on his social media some time ago by spotlighting new and upcoming Caribbean releases in what he described as “a bumper year of exciting publications”, and I thought I’d pay that forward by passing it on. Books mentioned in fiction included Popisho/This One Sky Day by Leone Ross (“a super lush, super expansive feat of imagination”) of Jamaica, How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (“the most gorgeous title ever”) by Cherie Jones of Barbados, Fortune by Amanda Smyth of Trinidad and Tobago (“seriously her best novel yet”), The Bread the Devil Knead 
(“so present and grounded”) by Lisa Allen-Agostini of Trinidad and Tobago, All The Water I’ve Seen Is Running by Elias Rodrigues of Jamaica, Dangerous Freedom by Lawrence Scott by Trinidad and Tobago, One Day, Congotay by Merle Hodge of Trinidad and Tobago (“everyone is looking forward!”), and Monster in the Middle by Tiphanie Yanique of the US Virgin Islands. Books mentioned in poetry included Mother Muse (“it sounds exciting!”) by Lorna Goodison of Jamaica, Thinking with Trees (“quietly beautiful”) by Jason Allen-Paisant of Jamaica, Like a Tree Walking by Vahni Capildeo of Trinidad and Tobago, Zion Roses by Monica Minott of Jamaica, and No Ruined Stone by Shara McCallum (“get back to reading her right now!”) of Jamaica. Books mentioned in non-fiction included The Gift of Music and Song (“a great resource for anyone interested in Caribbean Women’s Writing”) by Jacqueline Bishop of Jamaica, Invisible to Invaluable co-authored by Carol Russell, and Indo-Guyanese poet Rajiv Mohabir’s Antiman. (Source – Kei’s facebook)
on the process of conceptualizing a cover; click the instagram link to read (and see) more. (Source – direct author mail and 
– from 
Wadadli Pen 