Reading Room and Gallery 47

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

donna-hemans03-04-2023Download

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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)

Fiction

“As for Mr B, the one good thing mi can say is that him never once put man-and-woman argument to mi and try get inna mi panty. That is more than mi can say for some bosses mi did have. And at least Mr and Mrs B don’t have no likkle pickney mi need to run behind and clean up after.” – from What a Mother’s Love don’t Teach You by Sharma Taylor, with an introduction from the writer, in Wasafiri

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““She rolled her one good eye” … (and asked) ‘Child, stick break in your ear?'” – a reading from Alake Pilgrim’s Zo and The Forest of Secrets on the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s Cocoa Pod podcast

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“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.

But the nightingale, I said.” – poem by Diane Seuss excerpted in “On the Mundane Letters of John Keats” by Geoffrey D. Morrison in LitHub

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“Miss Robinson broke down color and class barriers when she opened her own school for children of all races, classes, and faiths in a country where British colonialism had imposed class and race inequalities upon people of non-white backgrounds.” – ‘Nellie Robinson, the Antiguan hero who brought secondary education to black children on the island‘ by Mweha Msemo in Face 2 Face Africa

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“Whether you’re a painter, a graphic designer, an author, or a scriptwriter, there’s one thing you’ll always have that AI can never compete with – the human touch.” – Creative Job Security in the Age of AI Art by Miles Oliver

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‘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.

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“You know who loves books that are already a success? Publishers. In June 1902, the book was officially acquired by Frederick Warne & Co., one of the publishers who had originally rejected it” – Literary History: Beatrix Potter, tired of rejection, self-publishes her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

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.

Reading Room and Gallery 46

Things I read or view or listen to that you might like too. Things will be added – up to about 20 or so – before this installment in the Reading Room and Gallery series is archived. For previous and future installments in this series, use the search feature to the right. Possible warning for adult language and themes.

VISUAL ART

I requested and received images from top (and consistently so over her decades spanning career) Antiguan and Barbudan visual artist Heather Doram‘s December 2022 show, held for a second year at the Henre Designs Studio in Belmont. If you missed the 2022 show, this is a selection capturing signature Doram – Colour, Caribbean, Culture, Nature, Life Vignettes, Ever Evolving, Women, and in particular Black women, and if we want to get to the nitty gritty Black Caribbean women whose every expression is a whole story.

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Heather has been featured in several installments of my (author and Wadadli Pen founder Joanne C. Hillhouse’s) art and culture column CREATIVE SPACE:

CREATIVE SPACE #4 OF 2020 – ART, MORE ESSENTIAL THAN EVER

CREATIVE SPACE #12 OF 2020 – MORE ESSENTIAL THAN EVER 2 (THE PANDEMIC SERIES)

CREATIVE SPACE #9 OF 2021 – #ARTISTCHALLENGE, WHAT CAUGHT MY EYE

Art, More Essential than Ever (CREATIVE SPACE Coda)

CREATIVE SPACE #6 OF 2022: THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF (A WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH FEATURE)

View the slides, read the articles and discover Heather Doram art.

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Lost, a short film by Tananarive Due, African-American horror writer.

POETRY

“I go gently towards the ruin, cradling a lover.

mallet and a proem in my hands.

they seek destruction and prelude:

what way to acknowledge those we lost to this.

what sobbing tragedy.” – from “Chaos Theory” by Nnadi Samuel in Speak Out! 1 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers

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“ask the men who have feasted on me

          if they ever had to dislodge

     my bone from their throats” – from “Fish” by Topher Allen in Speak Out! 2 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers

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“Now, all across this archipelago
are those no longer daunted
by the world, no longer fearful
of dismantling one history
for another. Ancestral guardians
everywhere open the gates of memory
of origins we recognize at last as ours” (from “Archipelago”)

“We watch him reading silently. She, eyeing him
all the while, waits with the rarest patience.
Perhaps this book will teach him how to answer
all the “Whys?” she’s heaping up
or prompt him to another round of games.” (from “Meeting-Point”)

“I searched for calmer spaces.
Somewhere inside these tangled forests
there must be a tract where sunlight falls,
soft rain nurtures green shoots, and the sound
of the wind as it rises is the call of a heart – ” (from “You Another Country”)

From Leaving Atlantis (Peepal Tree Press, UK, 2015) by Barbadian poet and poet laureate Esther Phillips, editor of BIM: Arts for the 21st Century

esther-phillips-leaving-atlantis-3-poemsDownload

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“years later, Buju entrapped in Babylon, and you, telling me how you nearly forgot, but your voice broke into a gravelly chant when the bassline dropped” – from “After Buju’s Love Sponge since I was Never One” by Soyini Forde in ANMLY

CREATIVES ON CREATING

“We always would let her sing, then build the track in around her vocal” – Jimmy Jam on producing Janet Jackson

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“Combining the styles from old Hollywood movies – Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and we’re throwing it all in this wild setting.” – Amy Wright, choreographer of the fantasy dance sequence in the series The Boys.

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“Sometimes nature can mimic our deep need to belong to the world and that is what this scene is about.” – Denis Villeneuve, director, Dune

STORIES

“Atiya planned on delivering her baby in the privacy of her home, in water, guided by the spirits of her mothers.” – from “Atiya Firewood” by Lisa Latouche in Speak Out! 1 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers

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“‘Don’t worry jare. It is just a scare tactic.’ Dubem appeared unbothered, and so, I was unbothered.” – from “Dubem” by Priscilla Keshira in Speak Out! 1 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers

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“Jared thought to himself: Is you who could a shoot me. De man dem a drive away and is you fire after them. I was near the car.” – from “Things must Change” by Lloyd D’Aguilar in Speak Out! 1 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers

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“‘Close your eyes, and imagine you were riding a bus.’ I closed my eyes, and a flutter of ecstasy rose from my chest to my throat.

‘Imagine you were riding a bus, but remove the constant bumps and potholes.’” – from “A Matter of Time” by Kabubu Mutua in Speak Out! 2 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers

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“I picked up the hallway handset as Adada was screaming, ‘Doctors write, Lusubilo! Don’t doctors write? Doctors write useful things. Like prescriptions and medical books! What is this foolishness about wanting to be a writer? Better stop with this fucking nonsense!’ ” – from “A Doctor, A Lawyer, An Engineer or A Shame to the Family” by Mubanga Kalimamukwento in Speak Out! 3 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers

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“Opened up my eyes in Ward C one mornin’, and a broad-shouldered lady in hair curlers was grinnin’ down at me.” – from “Annabeth” by Rolli in Speak Out! 3 in Adda by Commonwealth Writers

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“We had a clear view of the horizon in any season.”

– St. Lucian writer McDonald Dixon reading from his novel A Scream in the Shadows

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“So, you’ve tasted the fisherman, but you’re not satisfied. You are his secret. He tiptoes to your backdoor after dark. He only kisses you with the curtains closed. He makes love to you with the lights off. He leaves your bed to sleep in hers. You want more. You want to keep him all to yourself.” – The Fix by Alexia Tolas, 2022 winner-BCLF Elizabeth Nunez for Writers in the Caribbean

INTERVIEWS, CONVERSATIONS

“We, the artists, we need to be partnered with organizations who have the resources that can fund the work we do because creating the work is one thing, getting it out is another…the theatre production that we’d done, bits of it were taken like to schools… bits of it were done like in a rum shop…bits of it were done like at community meetings…more of that needs to happen but that takes funding, that takes money, we need to partner with who can help.” – Kendel Hippolyte, award winning St. Lucian poet and dramatist, during a panel entitled “Art and Climate Justice: Reimagining the Future” chaired by Jamaican writer Diana McCaulay, Commonwealth Foundation

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 “Now, for instance, my showrunner Jenn Flanz…I’ll say to her, ‘hey, watch out for my blind spots. I’m not a woman, so let me know if I’m missing anything.’” – Trevor Noah in conversation with Alex Wagner about creating comedy

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“At 72, I guess I also am more aware of aging, death of friends and my own time of departure, whenever that comes.” – St Lucian poet John Robert Lee with Jacqueline Bishop an article in her series in the Jamaica Observer.

john-r-leeDownload

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“The captain had been to West Africa: the captain knew Barbados – that’s where he found Samboo and picked him out as a gift for his wife. There were things that he and the captain shared. You read it as an unnatural attachment, but I had to fiture out what else did this nine- or ten- year old have. He’s overwhelmed with fear and panic, and he wants to be out of it, he wants to lie down and not wake up. But I couldn’t leave him there, so I gave an alternative, imagined ending of the return. Perhaps his last dream, a vision, perhaps his spirit travels home; I’d like to think it did.” – Dorothea Smartt in conversation with Jacqueline Bishop:

page-59-bookendsDownload

pages-60-and-61-bookendsDownload

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“My reaction sent me on a journey of further reading and thinking that led me to reevaluate a lot of my beliefs and realize the incompleteness, partiality, and, in some cases, dishonesty of many of the narratives that prevail around British colonialism in the UK. In addition to broadening my horizons, my reading quest remade my understanding of myself and my world. Although the journey wasn’t always easy and required me to shed some assumptions along the way, it taught me to see much further than I’d been able to do before. Even books that seem to have been written that have quite different views from us can deliver such epiphanies.” – Audio essay. Ann Morgan on BBC: Four Thought – Reading Outside Your Comfort Zone.

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Marita Golden, co-editor of Gumbo, revisits the making of the seminal anthology with some of its 70 contributors, all successful writers in their own right. They also discuss writing and publishing then and now. See also the Gumbo review in this site’s first Blogger on Books.

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Image: “Seba’s Ecstasy” by Delvin Lugo. Credit A. McKenzie (from Delvin Lugo – Caribbean-American Artist Depicts ‘Chosen Family’ | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net))

IPS interview (“Caribbean-American Artist depicts Chosen Family“) with Dominican-American Delvin Lugo about his first solo show in New York. ‘The exhibition, titled “Caribbean Summer”, pulled visitors in with its vivid colours and animated characters and also exemplified the success of alternative art events. The gallery space was provided by non-profit arts group Chashama, which describes itself as helping to “create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world by partnering with property owners to transform unused real estate”.’

NON-FICTION/ESSAYS/CREATIVE NON-FICTION

“Another thing my daughter taught me: surveillance is never neutral (Foucault).” – “Lettre a Simone” by Sonya Moor in Speak Out! 2 on Adda published by Commonwealth Writers

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“So when Babylon, like a raging bulldozer, tramples over your daughter’s rights to wear her hair as she pleases, when it wields shears like a weapon and turns her scalp into a scarred hill, woman, don’t let the oppressors see you cry.” – “Hair/Her Emancipation” by Nadine Tomlinson in Speak Out! 3 on Adda published by Commonwealth Writers

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CREATIVE SPACE is an Antigusn and Barbudan/Caribbean art and culture column by Joanne C Hillhouse, Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator. It runs every other Wednesday in the Daily Observer and online. This Reading Room and Gallery (likely the last of 2022) seems a good time to recap the most popular CREATIVE SPACE of 2022:

it “is a tradition and skill I’m very passionate about,” Celene Senhouse in CREATIVE SPACE #19 OF 2022: THE “HEADKERCHIEF”; HERITAGE, FASHION, CELEBRATION, AND RESISTANCE (10), “It was an exciting time then…dealing with children who wanted to play the pan,” Barbara Mason in CREATIVE SPACE #7 OF 2022: THE PAN PROGRAMME AT CULTURE: WHAT HAPPENED…? (9), “gentle rising ground…open to the sweet and gentle breeze of the bay” is the location of the historical site discussed in CREATIVE SPACE #11 OF 2022: MINING NUGGETS OF HISTORICAL GOLD (8), “the epitome of glamour, structure, and sophistication” is how model and budding designer Nicoya Henry describes her new direction in CREATIVE SPACE #12 OF 2022: CUT AND CONTRIVE (7), “whatchu gonna do, whatchu gonna do, when time, time, time, finally run out on you,” Short Shirt wonders in this track from the album featured in CREATIVE SPACE #5 OF 2022 – IS PRESS ON SHORT SHIRT’S GREATEST ALBUM? – A CASE COULD BE MADE (6), “But these are just memories, and everyone’s Carnival memories will be different,” I acknowledge in CREATIVE SPACE #15 OF 2022: THAT CARNIVAL FEELING (5), “a form of self-care…a fun, creative outlet” is how St. Lucian sister Catherine-Esther Cowie described collaging in CREATIVE SPACE #22 OF 2022: ART PLAY – MAKING ‘USELESS’ STUFF AS A FORM OF SELF-CARE (4), “de song an’ dem so sweet…I does forget they send me out,” my mother said recalling town crier Quarkoo in CREATIVE SPACE #14 OF 2022: DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN? (3), “To the best of my knowledge, no legislation exists that mandates women must not enter sleeveless into government buildings. It is actually a policy held over from the colonial period,” said lawyer Beverly George in CREATIVE SPACE #2 OF 2022: THE CII™ OF PUBLIC SECTOR DRESS CODES (2), and “Heather Doram, a former Culture director and the designer of our national dress” is one of the women featured in CREATIVE SPACE #6 OF 2022: THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF (A WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH FEATURE) (1).

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“All this made me wonder the extent to which the diaspora represents an untapped market for St. Lucian literature, where the challenge is one of reaching readers.” – from “St. Lucians don’t read: Fact or Myth?” by Anderson Reynolds

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“In talking to someone recently about the new set of plates I had completed, The Market Woman’s Story, in which I traced the figure of the huckster, higgler, vendor from the period of slavery until today while enveloping her in fruits and flowers, he pointed out that my first collection of poems, Fauna from Peepal Tree Press, had a section that did a similar thing, for in it I was using local Caribbean flowers to tell Jamaican women’s stories. I suddenly realised that I had a long history of using floral imagery to represent female concerns.” – “The Market Woman’s Story” by Jacqueline Bishop in the Jamaica Observer

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“In an introduction to Steppenwolf (which I’ve not finished reading after all these years of trying, as much as I love Siddhartha), Hesse complained that his poetic writing was often misunderstood. But he nonetheless conceded it was up to the reader to interpret his work, declaring, “I neither can nor intend to tell my readers how they ought to understand my tale. May everyone find in it what strikes a chord in him and is of some use to him!” Who knows if Hesse would approve of my wayward ways. He would certainly not deny me my right to remember the version of the book I first found as a young, single student in London one balmy autumn day in 2004.” – “My Hundred-Year-Old Boyfriend: On Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha” by Trinidad and Tobago writer Andre Bagoo in LitHub

As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. You can also subscribe to the site to keep up with future updates. Thanks.

Reading Room and Gallery 41

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. Possible warning for adult language and themes.

CREATIVES ON CREATING

“It’s not gory for the sake of it; I mean, it has to be set in reality.” – Sara Bennett, VFX supervisor, The Old Guard

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“Baobab trees are hollow which is why you cannot measure their rings to access their age. You must look at their breadth and at 20 feet this one is estimated to be 300 years old. I film at a distance, then close up, and then walk around it and then from in it. In it, there is an opening to see the hollow. big enough to go inside but I would never dare enter. It feel empty. I left there feeling a tightness around my throat which my friend told me is what happens when spirits attach themselves to you. Later that night he sent me a song by Miles Davis to listen to and I cried. I felt so much grief and it didn’t feel wholly mine.” – La Vaughn Pelle, USVI, blog 1, Catapult Stay at Home Residency

POETRY

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?” – Poem 133: The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

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“The stories my mother told were always too frightening for us…” – Legends by Edwidge Dandicat

REPORTS

“The impact of negativity is magnified when we talk about it, no matter what we say. We breathe life into poor decisions, bad ideas, and evil people by discussing them over and over again.” – Joseph Brodsky explains Perfectly how to deal with Critics and Detractors in Your Life by James Clear

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“Contemporary artist Sheena Rose was born in 1985 in Bridgetown, Barbados, where she also currently lives and works. A Fulbright Scholar who holds a BFA from Barbados Community College and MFA from the University of North Carolina, Rose’s work is equally rooted in her Caribbean heritage as it is in her efforts to challenge any preconceived notions and definitions of said heritage.” – Sheena Rose: Dramatically Removing the Landscape by Heike Dempster in Whitewall

STORIES

“This discovery was further evidence that Latham was ‘no angel’.” – from OBF Inc by Bernice McFadden, one of three stories read in this August 2021 edition of Selected Shorts

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“As they continue searching, notice that they look like miners with rubber gloves and torches attached to the bands on their heads – all they are missing are pickaxes. When the doctor eventually comes in, don’t be surprised that she is one of the most beautiful women you’ve ever laid eyes on. If you are overweight and have lost your vagina in your hairy under-legs, the white doctor chosen to examine you will look like a human Barbie. That is simply the luck you are born with.” – How to find Your Vagina (An Instruction Manual) by Maham Javid (story was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize)

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“Cecile rarely smiled, or made conversation, but when you’re watching her scale and bone fish there is no need to say a word. You just stand in awe, and watch a master at work. Cecile is the person who thought to charge people extra for scaling and boning in the early days, back when things used to change in Chattel Lane.” – A Hurricane and the Price of Fish by Shakirah Bourne in Adda

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“It was quiet like Sunday afternoon, that storm.” – ‘Rain’ by Maria Govan, the Bahamas (Catapult Stay at Home Residency recipient)

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“On the day my dead brother came home I awoke to the smell of salty broth, mushrooms swelled with water and heat, the tang of sugared limes. My mother entered my bedroom, pulled me from sleep with cool fingers. He’s home, she said. Who? Your brother. When she said his name, I pushed away the thought of the boy I had once known, glasses round and thick, framing eyes whose lashes I never stopped envying, a checkered shirt or perhaps his Manchester United polo, a missing canine that had never grown in. Instead, I rolled over and said, My brother is dead. Let me sleep. Patiently, my mother peeled back the covers, waited for the February air to work its way under my pajama shirt. He’s in the living room, she said. He needs a change of clothes. Give him something of yours.” – Fish Stories by Janika Oza, 2020 Kenyon Review Short Contest Winner

CONVERSATIONS

“The next book is always the one that I’m writing about, the thing that I’m writing next.” – Joanne C. Hillhouse in conversation with Diaspora Kids Lit, which gave a five star goodreads review to her 2021 children’s book release The Jungle Outside

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“What I wish and what I’m trying to find is the space and time to finish…something.” – Joanne C. Hillhouse on the Badass Black Girl vlog

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“I’ll be honest with you: I’m still figuring that out. I think that the story finds its medium in a lot of ways. And some of it is beyond my control, although some of the choices are intentional, but when I’m writing, I’m not thinking “it’s going to be this genre or that sub-genre.” I’m just trying to get the story out. I’m trying to commune with the characters and hope that they will trust me to tell their stories. And then, as the story is taking shape, then I get a sense of what it is trying to become, whether it’s trying to be a short story (because I love writing short stories as well); a novel, and if I’m willing to make that commitment to the long form; or a children’s book.” – Joanne C Hillhouse being interviewed for ACalabash

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“Yes, I’m competitive, but it’s for myself. I want to make sure I’m always reaching for greatness. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m never going to stop reaching for it.” – Black Women’s Stories Are the Hardest to Get Made: The Gina Prince-Bythewood Interview, Indie Wire

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“Each of the characters’ stories were written on their own, before I spliced them together and rewrote the whole story.” – Ingrid Persaud and Jacob Ross in conversation

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“Democracy is both fragile and also enduring.”

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“When I was finding my voice as a writer, Alice Walker meant so much to me because I learned courage from her. She was a feminist when Black women wanted to kill her because she was a feminist. She was writing about spousal abuse when we had no word for that. She was called a man hater. When the book Colour Purple came out, she wrote about how she almost had a nervous breakdown, the hate was so extreme. Then she had the nerve to write about female genital mutilation. So, she really means a lot to me because of her courage. She just wouldn’t stop.” – Marita Golden

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“It’s been really amazing, for example this year, especially during the summer, during the protest, to see people reconsider Haiti’s role in fighting white supremacy at its very beginning, the revolution and all those issues coming up in terms of what’s happening in the contemporary…Haiti suffered punishments for this revolution.”

V is for Voices in conversation, in 2020, with Haitian writer Edwidge Dandicat on Instagram.

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.

Mailbox – What are You Reading for Black History Month?

I haven’t shared a (from the) Mailbox standalone post in a while (especially since I’ve been doing the round-up posts) but, though this is technically a promo post, I felt compelled to share it because of the question it poses.

The poser is the great African-American writer Marita Golden whom I had the opportunity to hear read live at the first Antigua and Barbuda International Literary Festival (then called the Caribbean International Literary Festival in 2006).

Ah, the ABILF…remember that? One of many arts-related things we’ve started and stopped because of failure to realize their potential and support their growth.

Anyway, Marita is the co-founder of the seminal Washington-based programme Hurston-Wright Foundation, which is still very important to Black America and the diaspora (as organizers of the Hurston-Wright Writers Week, the Legacy Awards, and the College writers award, all of which we promote on our Opportunities and Opportunities Too pages). It has in some ways been a model for some of what I’ve been trying, since it launched in 2004, to do with the Wadadli Youth Pen Prizewhich is self-mandated to nurture and showcase the literary arts in Antigua and Barbuda. And her Antigua-Barbuda connection includes offering a spot in the Writers week to a winner of the Independence lit prize back when former Wadadli Pen Challenge judge Brenda Lee Browne had reignited it (you know, before it fizzled again, in spite of the judge who succeeded Browne, Barbara Arrindell urging government in an open letter to appoint an officer to see to lit arts development year round) – you already know that I think a writers residency or laureate programme would be an indicator that the powers that be are serious about lit arts, but deaf ears and all that. I also believe some young writers – perhaps also through BLB’s intervention including past Wadadli Pen finalist Rilys Adams had the opportunity to participate in the Hurston-Wright youth programme as well. Maybe Marita will consider making a contribution of one of her books or a mentorship  session or manuscript critique to a future Wadadli Pen Challenge winner. Just putting that out there but that’s not the point of this post. The last of my preamble, I love that this programme is named for one of my favourite writers Zora Neale Hurston – so to the question of BHM recs, I would definitely have Their Eyes were Watching God on the list and the collected works I love Myself When I’m Laughing; also books about her like Valerie Boyd’s Wrapped in Rainbows and Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.

Okay, here now is Marita’s message from my Mailbox.

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“Welcome to the first Black History Month of this new decade. Like many of you I feel mixed emotions about this month. I am proud of its roots in the work of the groundbreaking historian Carter G. Woodson. Yet I long for the day when the full range of what African Americans have borne and contributed is seen as the legacy of all Americans and woven truthfully into the historical fabric of this nation.

I am enormously proud of my contributions to Black History Month in the 17 books I have written, and as co-founder of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.

My parents were my first writing mentors because they encouraged me to write, to think critically, to ask questions and to feel that I had the right to live fully in and impact the world. Their spirits inform everything I write.

I write to tell stories I want to read.
I write to enlarge and enhance the canon of narratives about Black life and experience.
I write to build a bridge from my heart to yours.

If you are looking for a book to read this Black History Month, I have written 17 books and somewhere in that mix I am sure there is a book for you.

I also recommend these three great reads for Black History Month:

Africaville by Jeffrey Colvin
A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn”

*

The Mailing is punctuated by images of Golden’s books of which I’ve read and blogged two in the Blogger on Books series right here on the blog: After (which is still quite topical as it deals with the fallout of a police involved shooting) and Gumbo (which is amazing as it collects so many different voices and is co-edited by the late great E. Lynn Harris – check out one of his books as well).

Check her out.

I, of course, hope you’ll check out my books as well… which from colourism to development/land use issues to putting a dark skinned black girl at the centre of her own fairytale…touch on being Black in my Caribbean.

There are numerous other book rec lists on this site plus the reading room and gallery and our listings of Antiguan and Barbudan and Caribbean books via our bibliographies – use the search to the right to find them.

As with all content on Wadadli Pen, unless otherwise indicated, this is written by author and Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator Joanne C. Hillhouse. All rights reserved.

Reading Room and Gallery 25

The Reading Room and Gallery is a space where I share things I come across that I think you might like too  – some are things of beauty, some just bowl me over with their brilliance, some are things I think we could all learn from, some are artistes I want to support by spreading the word, and some just because. Let’s continue to support the arts and the artistes by rippling the water together. For earlier installments of the Reading Room and Gallery, use the search feature to the right. This is the 25th one which means there are 24 earlier ones (can’t link them all). Remember to keep checking back, this list will grow as I make new finds until it outgrows this page and I move on to the next one. – JCH

MISC.
– re storytelling lessons from the screenplay.

ON BEING A WRITER

“A lot has to happen from the time you finish your book until it is published. ” – from 10 Things I learned as a New Author by Phyllis Piano

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“If I had been deterred or demoralized by the initial rejections, if I had given up then, the manuscript would still be sitting in some drawer.” – Leonard Chang

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‘Thick Skin. I wish you the covering of the cascadura, since you must endure many disappointments and discouragements. Rejection slips are never welcome, and, unless you are very lucky, you will get many of these. Harder, though, may be the tossing-aside of people who dismiss your work, or folks, some of whom you may count as supporters or friends, who pigeonhole you. “A genre writer! Good at fantasy!” “Not bad at children’s stories.” “Good at travel writing — not much else.”’ – Pamela Mordecai

INTERVIEWS

“Most poems begin for me with the very basic, almost physical need to write. Then comes the process of finding the right words, finding images that are both unexpected and easy to relate to. I write, then roll the words around in my mouth a bit, make sure that the texture is right. Read, edit, re-read and repeat!” – Danielle Boodoo Fortune. The post includes three of her poems.

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“This was one of the things I learned about creativity. You have to let go of self-consciousness. When I started thinking about this book, I knew that if I felt self-conscious while writing, it would probably come out bit by bit and it would not be as honest.” – Amy Tan

***

“We were just in an atmosphere …that said it was okay to write…there was no separation for me from the West Indian street outside and the work that I was reading, sometimes even in French….I would say that it’s the duty of any parent to check out the talent of the child and to make sure that that talent is not smothered, that you don’t divert that child’s ambition, especially in terms of a writer; we would have more writers if we didn’t have a system that said you have to be a doctor or engineer.” – Derek Walcott in conversation with CBC Radio

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“When you’re creating, it’s not always automatic. Many days in the studios were just days of talking and listening to music that had nothing to do with our music. Sometimes she’d say she wasn’t coming in. We treated it much more as a creative thing than an emotional process, but we knew there was a lot of emotion involved. Literally she’d sometimes say that she just was not coming in, so we’d create new tracks or tweak something or comp a vocal. We always had things to do even when she didn’t come in and we’d pick up where we left off.” – Jimmy Jam (producer) discusses the making of Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope

CREATIVES ON CREATING

“Drop the hints. Don’t point out the clues.” – Janice Hardy on Telegraphing

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“My advice to aspiring writers is the short story is a fantastic form to commit yourself to, but don’t to put all your eggs in the competition basket. Subscribe to your local literary journals, read them, submit your own stories: when accepted, add a line to your literary curriculum vitae; when rejected, take another look at the story and see if there’s anything you want to change before submitting it elsewhere.” – Confessions of a Prize Winner by New Zealand writer Craig Cliff, at Commonwealth Writers

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“Foreshadowing can be a little confusing. It’s a single word used to describe a narrative technique that can be used for two different purposes. Probably there should be two different words—one for each purpose—but there isn’t. So to make this discussion a bit clearer, I’m going to borrow a word from film studies: planting (as in: planting and payoff).” – Don Allmon

***

“To me, structure always comes about as a result of trying to answer the issue of point of view.” – Christopher Nolan discussing Dunkirk

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“I decide to dissect myself” – Sheena Rose

POETRY

“What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?” – from Harlem by Langston Hughes

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“I am the great mother boa
turning the soft egg of the world
beneath my ribs. I will tear myself in two
and heal before morning.” – Danielle Boodoo Fortune

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“I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with Allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe
to cool my thirst.
My oldest daughter is Nefferttiti
the tears from my birth pains created the Nile
I am a beautiful woman” – Ego Trippin by Nikki Giovanni

***

“The night she tried to beat me, I slept on the veranda
of the shop in the square. At dawn, a man hauled
me home. She dragged me to school, whipped me
with the principal’s cane.” – Wounds by Juleus Ghunta

FICTION

“Hyacinth Ike wanted to kill himself because he had lived a fulfilled, successful life and couldn’t think of anything else he was loitering in the world for.” – By Way of a Life Plot by Kelechi Njoku

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-excerpt from The Wide Circumference of Love by Marita Golden
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“God thought of ways to punish the woman for what she had done, without immediately killing her.” – from The Day After by Stephen Greenblatt in The Paris Review

NON-FICTION

“I remember a Haitian radio show I was on years ago, after my first book was published. This woman called in to say, ‘That’s all fine and good, but you better get your nursing degree.’” – Edwidge Dandicat

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‘It doesn’t matter what pisses you off, she says, as long as you pay attention to that feeling. “Writing against” is a good compass “until you know what you’re writing for,” she said.’ – Katherine Boo’s 15 Rules for Narrative Non Fiction

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“Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world.” – The Creative Process by James Baldwin

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Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I a Woman speech is a powerful piece of speechmaking (note the use of tone and rhetoric in the words and in this Cicely Tyson interpretation of them).

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“You stay because it’s your home, you have to stay and take care of it.” – Luis by Jo-Anne Mason

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!, Fish Outta Water, With Grace, and Musical Youth). All Rights Reserved. Do not re-use content without permission and credit. 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.