This Bocas schedule
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Concerning Wadadli Pen, we are in data entry and processing mode as the submission deadline has passed – as anticipated most coming in at the 11th hour – which means the process of getting them out to the judges might take a bit longer. We will keep you posted.
Meantime, shout out to our 2020 prize patrons (in alphabetical order) not including the ones who requested anonymity: Adventure Antigua, Best of Books Bookstore, Brenda Lee Browne, Caribbean Reads Publishing, Cindy’s Bookstore & School Supplies, D. Gisele Isaac, Floree Williams Whyte, Frank B. Armstrong, Hermitage Bay Antigua, Jane Seagull, Joanne C. Hillhouse, Juneth Webson, Lawrence Jardine, Paradise Vision Centre
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Edwidge Dandicat made the previous round up for being short listed for a major prize to be announced later this month and here she is with a win already this month as the recipient of the Vilcek prize for literature. “For dazzling prose and profound understanding of our shared human condition embodied through her genre-spanning work that explores the Haitian diaspora and other personal narratives.”
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New book announcement from St. Lucian artist (and the creator of the Caribbean Lit bibliography on this blog John Robert Lee. The collection, Pierrot, is published by UK based Peepal Tree. The publisher writes: “In his ninth collection of poems, John Robert Lee contemplates his 70th year in St Lucia and the sad chimes of mortality as friends and literary and cultural heroes leave this life. It’s a time for a weighing up of where domestic, political, literary and spiritual journeys have reached. It is a time of both honest admissions but also renewed faith in all these journeys.”
Also, Curdella Forbes; A Tall History of Sugar which celebrated write Nicole Dennis-Benn has described as “an eclectic, feverish vision of Jamaican ‘history’ from the 1950s to the present”. It tells the story of Moshe Fisher, a man who was “born without skin,” so that no one is able to tell what race he belongs to; and Arrienne Christie, his quixotic soul mate who makes it her duty in life to protect Moshe from the social and emotional consequences of his strange appearance. Further, from publisher Askashic, it is written in lyrical, luminous prose that spans the range of Jamaican Englishes. Curdella whom I had the pleasure of sharing a panel with in Barbados in 2008 is Jamaica-born and now teaches at Howard University.
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(via Daily Observer, Antigua, January 2020)
I have a fondness for projects of this type (engaging children around the environmental issues of our day) because this was a large part of my focus during my time as environment officer – education with the National Solid Waste Management authority. My initiatives included an art competition to select a mascot which we then would use in all our communication material, a story which would then become a story book for dissemination to the schools (this only got to the drafts stage), school visits, and participation with the EAG and Royal Caribbean in a Mash the Trash initiative which set environmental goals for each school including messaging (I remember we brought out one of the schools to a workshop to perform the rap they had come up with as a part of that initiative). I remember that among those above me this approach wasn’t always understood and I even had one manager say to me what’s the point of focusing on children, they are not the problem – which of course meant that he hadn’t read my proposal nor reports re short, medium, and long term goals targeted at different audiences towards changing attitudes and ultimately behavior OVER TIME. So, initiatives like this that get young people thinking actively about the environment, you love to see it. And it’s one of the reasons one of the Wadadli Pen 2020 Challenge themes is Imagine a Future, encouraging participants to create a climate change future vision story. Congrats to Old Road Primary for being among the winners and kudos to the Sandals Foundation.
As with all content on Wadadli Pen, except otherwise noted, this is written by Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator 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 which has a Spanish language edition). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out http://jhohadli.wordpress.com Please note that, except otherwise noted, images on this site also need to be cleared if you wish to use them for any purpose. Thanks.
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