Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late January 2023)

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).

Events

Island Scribe’s writing retreats launch in Catara, Tobago in May 2023, with two dates – Mayb 6th and May 11th – reportedly all booked up. Island Scribe is curated and hosted by Trinidadian born, US based writer Simone Dalton who is described as a teaching artist and writing coach. (Source – Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival email)

Obit.

Gordon Rohlehr (1942-2023), literary scholar and emeritus professor at the University of the West Indies’ St. Augustine, Trinidad campus, has died. The Guyana-born cultural commentator, considered by the many writers who have been commenting on social media since learning of his death, as a vital part of the Caribbean arts community, was reportedly 80 at the time of his passing.

“He was an authority on West Indian literature and the calypso,” UWI international relations professor Mark Kirton was quoted as saying.

That same article in the Demerara Waves, provided the following biographical notes –

“He graduated in 1964 from the University College of the West Indies, Jamaica, with a First Class Honours degree in English Literature, after which he wrote a doctoral dissertation titled “Alienation and Commitment in the Works of Joseph Conrad” at Birmingham University, England (1964-1967).

His publications include: Pathfinder: Black Awakening in “The Arrivants” of Edward Kamau Brathwaite (Tunapuna: College Press, 1981); Cultural Resistance and the Guyana State (Casa de las Américas, 1984); Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad (Port of Spain, 1990); My Strangled City and Other Essays (Longman Trinidad, 1992); The Shape of That Hurt and Other Essays (Longman Trinidad, 1992); A Scuffling of Islands: Essays on Calypso (Lexicon Trinidad Ltd, 2004); Transgression, Transition, Transformation: Essays in Caribbean Culture (Lexicon, 2007); Ancestories: Readings of Kamau Brathwaite’s “Ancestors” (Trinidad: Lexicon, 2010) and My Whole Life is Calypso: Essays on Sparrow (2015).” (Source – social media/various)

Arts and Culture

Some news re the Commonwealth Short Story Prize: not sure how this compares to other prizes but the current cycle – the shortlist of which will be announced in April – netted 6,640 submissions were made by writers living in 54 countries, from Canada to Gabon to India to Samoa. Four-hundred and seventy-five stories were written in languages other than English and a further 141 were translated into English from other languages. I’m going to ask them for the submission by Caribbean territories and when I get it, I’ll share the breakdown. (Source – Commonwealth Foundation email)

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Commonwealth Writers – the entity behind the Commonwealth short story competition, the Adda platform and various developmental initiatives (some of which – e.g. publication in Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean, participation in the Aye Write literary festival, participation in a writing workshop and, coming out of that, a reading and this article commission, the Carib Lit editing workshop and the reading at Moray House in Guyana, publication on the Adda platform, – I’ve benefited from) has changed its name to Commonwealth Foundation Creatives on account of it being no longer just about writers but about creative practitioners from all disciplines. You can follow them on twitter, facebook, and instagram. (Source – creatives@commonwealthfoundation.com email)

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Tropical Arts is a new online marketplace and gathering spot for artists, creatives, photographers, and collectors. Operating out of Curacao, it invites registration broadly from creatives in the Caribbean and the diaspora. “The site’s goal is to support the livelihoods of the creative community as well as to rewards collectors with works (both digital and physical), digital assets, and storytelling that illuminates the rich culture and traditions of the region.” (Tropical Arts) Once signed in, artists can create an account and upload digital works. “You can spotlight any of your works and we’ll pay for the minting so you can show them off as NFTs. Or you can list them for sale in the marketplace.” (promotional artist email) This is strictly For Your Information; please do your due diligence – especially as I am not knowledgeable about non-fungible tokens (though the site includes a FAQ that explains all that) – and ensure you understand fully what you are signing up for. (Source – promotional artist email)

Accolades

“Rashad Hosein has won the 2022 NGC Bocas Youth Writer Award, which comes with a cash prize of TT $5,000, sponsored by the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited. The announcement was made on Saturday 7 January at an award ceremony honouring the young finalists for the award, hosted at The Writer’s Centre by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest.

The 24-year old author was selected as the winner from four finalists, with his short fictional work “Saga”. Hosein has already established himself as an writer to watch, after winning the John Steinbeck Award for Fiction last year from Reed Magazine. He has also been a finalist for the BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Caribbean Writers, was longlisted for the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, and shortlisted twice for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2019 and 2021.

Launched in 2021, the NGC Bocas Youth Writer Award recognises and celebrates young authors of T&T birth or citizenship, aged 25 and younger.” (Source – Bocas email)

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A Caribbean writer has again won the T S Eliot Prize (the last was Roger Robinson in 2019). “Anthony Joseph has won the TS Eliot prize for his collection Sonnets for Albert, described as “luminous” by the judges. Joseph takes the £25,000 poetry prize, which this year saw a record 201 submissions.” (The Guardian) “Sonnets for Albert, which was shortlisted for the Forward prize for best collection last year, is an autobiographical collection that weighs the impact of growing up with a largely absent father.” Joseph is an accomplished poet who has published five poetry collections and eight albums to critical acclaim and awards recognition. The Trinidad and Tobago born Joseph is resident in the United Kingdom. The T S Eliot Prize is named for one of the 20th centuries greatest poets who was a founding member of the Poetry Book Society which started the prize now run by the T S Eliot Foundation. Derek Walcott, a Nobel Laureate, of St. Lucia became the first non-white and explicitly Caribbean writer (previous winners having come from Ireland, England, the US, Scotland, Canada, and Australia). He won in 2010, 17 years after the prize was launched. Robinson, UK of Trinidad and Tobagian ancestory, followed, and now Joseph.

(Source – various on Facebook)

Books and Other Reading Material

Volume 36 of The Caribbean Writer, Disruptions, Disguises and Illuminations, was released in December 2022. “Volume 36 is an imaginative collection of creative expressions from among the best writers within the region and its diaspora,” said editor Alscess Lewis-Brown. “The many permutations of this year’s theme make for a very powerful chorus of Caribbean voices.” This issue’s prize winners are: Monique Clendenin Watson (Daily News Prize for a US or British Virgin Islands author), USVI writer Eliot Richards (The Canute A. Brodhurst Prize for best short fiction for “Dying of the Light”), USVI writer Shawna K. Richards (The Marvin E. Williams Literary Prize for “I Think About Water A Lot”), Barbadian poet Winston Farrell (The Cecile deJongh Literary Prize to a Caribbean author whose work best expresses the spirit of the Caribbean for “A Notion of Cricket”), and Trinidadian short story Otancia Noel (The Vincent Cooper Literary Prize to a Caribbean author for exemplary writing in Caribbean Nation Language for “Muslimean Memory”).

Gail Widmer who is based in St. Croix is the cover artist with her piece “After the Storm”.

The theme for the next issue, due to be published in 2024, is “Legacy: Reckoning and Repair”. (Source – N/A)

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“Happy New Year”, a poem by Joanne C. Hillhouse, published in the latest issue of Catholic journal Dappled Things, has been added to the database of journalled writing by Antiguan and Barbudan writers. and listing of published poetry on Jhohadli, where it can be read. (Source – Twitter)

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Bookstagrammer If this is Paradise in Jamaica is now a published author with the inclusion of her essay “From the Omen to Saint Maud: A Black Queer Revelation” in Divergent Terror: At the Crossroads of Queerness and Horror (Off Limits Press). “I explore the different relationships I had with two Catholic horror films at two different points in my life: The Omen when I was a child and Saint Maud as an adult,” she posted. If this is Paradise – actual name Akilah or Kiki – is a freelance critic currently leading the Reading Jamaica Kincaid | Akilah | Substack as reported before in Carib Lit Plus. (Source – Kiki on instagram)

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Book of Cinz‘s January 2023 newsletter, in addition to listing her January – March 2023 book club picks (Neruda on the Park by CLeyvis Natera of the Dominican Republic, Things I have Withheld by Kei Miller of Jamaica, and River sing me Home by Eleanor Shearer, who is a British writer of Caribbean descent), she lists several 2023 Read Caribbean releases.

The listed books include Trinidad and Tobago writers Kevin Jared Hosein’s Hungry Ghosts, Lesley-ann Brown’s BlackGirl on Mars, The God of Good Looks by Breanne McIvor, and When the Vibe is Right by Sarah Dass; Afro-Puerto Rican Jennifer Maritza McCauley’s When Trying to Return Home; St. Vincent descended Brit Alexis Keir’s Windward Family: An Atlas of Love, Loss and Belonging; Soraya Palmer’s The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts, said to be a Brooklyn-based coming of age story of two Jamaican-Trinidadian sisters; Guadeloupean legend Maryse Conde’s The Gospel According to the New World; Camille Hernández-Ramdwar’s multi-country collection Suite as Sugar: and Other Stories; Lorraine Avila’s The Making of Yolanda la Bruja; Jamaican Safiya Sinclair’s memoir How to say Babylon; Queen of Exile, a Haitian narrative by Vanessa Riley; Dominican writer Elizabeth Acevedo’s Family Lore; Jamaican folktale River Mumma by Zalika Benta-Reid and Donna Heman’s House of Pain.

The book club next meets on January 25th. (Source – Book of Cinz’s newsletter)

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Brenda Lee Browne who is a British born Antiguan writer and former Wadadli Pen judge was one of the editors of the Commonwealth Writers Speak Out! series alongside Peter Sipeli of Fiji, Rifat Munim of Bangladesh, and Beatrice Lamwaka of Uganda. Speak Out! has four issues consisting of poems and creative fiction and non-fiction from around the Commonwealth. The theme broadly is freedom of expression. The Caribbean writing included in the editions (of which I’ve at this writing read three of the four) include Jamaicans Nadine Tomlinson, Topher Allen and Lloyd D’Aguilar, Dominican Lisa Latouche, Shanette Monrose, Belizean Calpernia Nicole Charles, Guyanese Hannah Singh, and Tobagonian Lynette Hazel. Browne is credited as the editor of Speak Out! 3 and says in her editorial, “The beauty of storytelling is that it speaks to us as humans—people, no labels—as we all carry stories that we would like to share.” You can read my thoughts on 1, 2, and 3 in the Jhohadli Blogger on Books series. I haven’t read the 4th and final installmetn as yet. (Source – N/A)

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Barbara Arrindell who is a local book retailer and author, in addition to being a Wadadli Pen director, is interviewed by Carol Mitchell of Caribbean Reads publishing in her Book Club column in Inter Caribbean Airways’ Cacique magazine.

She talks about the book industry, the arts, and her own writing. The column also recommends three books by Caribbean authors – the Machel Montano biography King of Soca, Sharma Taylor’s acclaimed novel What a Mother’s Love don’t teach You, and children’s book The Coquies Still Sing. (Source – Carol Mitchell 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, 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.

Reading Room and Gallery 42

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.

NON-FICTION

“Not enough genre peeps are being published writing in, for lack of a better word, non-Eurocentric dialects/vernacular.” – Dialog, Patois: If It’s Good Enough for Anthony Burgess, It’s Good Enough For You by Tonya Liburd

MISC.

The 2021 Virgin Islands Lit Fest was virtual. Here are all the panels, in case you missed it.

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“If you’re a regular here, you know I’m a Caribbean author, reader, and blogger, and I stay reading Caribbean, but I could stand to read a lot more and I’d bet you could too (so consider yourself recc’d).” – from my blog, Top Ten Tuesday #ReadCaribbean

REPORTING

“Although not the traditional form of storytelling, video games, like any other game reflect the culture in which it was forged. Video games, however, get a bad rap, because the associations we give to them such as encouraging antisocial and sedentary behaviours and lifestyles. However, video games provide a particularly unique opportunity to incorporate elements of Caribbean culture through their unique method of interactive narrative during gameplay.” – The Creolisation of Video Games. ‘If We are to preserve Culture, We must continue to create It.’ by Christal Clashing

POETRY

Ann-Margaret Lim

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‘and the takeoff/when the body comes fully in to play/is the throwing off of shackles” – ‘Dear Phibba’ by Ann Margaret Lim

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“It’s work, it’s work, my cousins told me
when I complained about too many yachts in the sea,

how I didn’t feel safe swimming anymore.

It’s work, it’s work, I tell myself when I clock
in my time for the day.” – from ‘Solastalgia‘ by Catherine-Esther Cowie

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“The day her practised palm cracked my cheekbone,
I crawled into grief.” – from ‘Mother suffered from Memories‘ by Juleus Ghunta

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I say, Mr. Jno Baptiste
Maybe you’re just not crazy about this world anymore
Maybe you’re just mad, mad, mad about something
But what do I know

-from ‘What do I know’ in Guabancex by Celia Sorhaindo

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“Run.
You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
Your house is next.” – Running Orders by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

FILM + OTHER VISUAL ART

‘Isolation‘ by Carl Augustus of Antigua and Barbuda is a hybrid water colour and poem about mental health, published to the Intersect Antigua-Barbuda platform.

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CONVERSATIONS

“We don’t like the word misogyny. We don’t like the word sexism and we don’t like the word misogyny (in the Caribbean)…there’s all this talk about gender based violence…this is misogyny…this is directed at women.” – Jamaican writer Jacqueline Bishop on the Rippling Pages podcast.

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Two iconic producers discussing how they did it from teenhood to an epic music catalogue.

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“…we don’t mind but it’s the parents of the other girls who might mind.” – Margaret Busby, first Black UK publisher, editor of Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa, whose parents are Caribbean and who spent her earliest years in Ghana, about the responses her partents received when registering she and her siblings in British boarding schools. In conversation re Desert Island Discs with the BBC, in which she gives iconic song picks mixed in with personal history.

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“I had started it as a young adult fantasy book, there was a whole fantasy element to this.” – Trinidad and Tobagonian author N. G. Peltier discussing her romance novel Sweethand on the Tim Tim Bwa Fik Caribbean romance podcast. Scroll and click the playlist for conversations with various Caribbean writers of romance.

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“I’ve loved poetry for many years, reading and listening to it. I’ve always found it a powerful and connecting literary form, but I was relatively new to writing it.” – Celia Sorhaindo interviewed by Kahini

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“One night, I felt this feeling I’d been having my whole life: wake up, can’t see, can’t breathe.” – Courttia Newland in conversation with Johnny Temple of Akashic about out of body experiences, his new book, and the award winning Small Axe anthology series on which he was co-writer.

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“My mother being from the Caribbean and my father being from the South, and me having a huge need to fit in and low self-esteem, I lost my identity very quickly, trying to fit in, to go under the radar…the disconnect from getting to know who Michael was…and the ability to chameleon myself…that also started very early…I got addicted to fantasy very quick.” – Michael K. Williams (RIP) in one of his last interviews discussing his craft, his addiction, his background (which is part Caribbean on his mother’s side – she was an immigrant from the Bahamas), his love of cooking and trying new things, and more. Michael K. came to fame first as a back-up dancer and choreographer and later playing iconic roles like Omar in The Wire, and as a strong character actor in films like Bessie and When They See Us.

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“The Federal Art Project was part of something called Federal One, which had projects not just for the fine arts but also for theater, for writing, for music. There was a design index. It was one aspect of a really diverse and wide-ranging kind of project…the government saw it as an obligation, part of its duty, to provide artists in need with economic support. So they commissioned them to produce public art…The arts, for Roosevelt and the New Dealers, were seen as a fundamental component of a truly democratic society. A democracy could not call itself as such without art, music, theater, poetry, writing, design, photography, film.” – Alison Wilkinson in conversation with Jody Patterson for Vox

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“In the same ways that women were expected and didn’t slip in high school in reading Shakespeare and be expected to get all sorts of things from Shakespeare and from Walcott and from Brathwaite – men can get enormous things from this book and from reading these women as well and that’s what I’ll say to that. There is a stance that, “oh we have to think about the men’s feelings here, and whatnot,” but we don’t think about that when it comes to women reading male writers, right? Male writers, they have achieved, it seems, a kind of universality that “women have not”… Bullshit. I cry bullshit to that. Women, too, are universal. Right? So if you want good writing, if you want good interviews, if you want all of that, women can provide it as well. So male writers will get the exact same things and male readers will get the exact same things here that they would get from any good book.” – Jacqueline Bishop in conversation with Jamaica Creates

FICTION

‘I just thought we’d be in a better position,’ she said. ‘You know. By this stage in our lives. I thought we’d have made more of ourselves.’ – from ‘Attention‘ by Catherine Chidgey; it was shortlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story prize.

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“I arrived with kosher tacos, made from scratch with chicken liver and mole, and by the end of the night, all sixteen of them sat untouched in the pan, the sauce congealing beneath the foil.” – from ‘The Orphan Disease‘ by Jake Wolff in Kenyon Review

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“The sun hot like it beating your skin with a rubber strap.” – from ‘Cash and Carry‘ by Sharma Taylor, shortlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth short story prize

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“This is how you discover that you fall into that select category of People For Whom Ganja Is Useless.” – from ‘Hunger‘ by Andre Bagoo. This story was shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. It is posted on the Commonwealth Writers Adda platform.

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Jamaica Kincaid reading her short story ‘Girl’

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“‘I sit down waiting on the bed, and I hear he start to cry. And I know I in for lash. But he come quiet quiet in the room, lie down and say, “Aditi, I sorry.” I wanted to walk out that house then and there, but I ask him for what. He say everything. He say he sorry for everything. The word so stink and nasty after all he do, but he bawling sorrysorrysorry like he feel it go fix something. Like he feel I go start feeling sorry myself.’” – English at the End of Time by Rashad Hosein, shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

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“Don’t get me wrong: Long Island boys look good. When the Anglican Diocese host Jamboree here, all the girls from Exuma and Eleuthera drool over our boys like they ain’t got none back where they come from. But I ain’t never seen nothing like Demetri before. Brown sugar kiss his gilded skin. The sun blink at the golden glint of his hair. I almost drown in the cerulean waters that rise up to meet me when he look over. He got them eyes that shift with the light. Sometimes they so clear you could see right down to the bottom. Other times they froth with the Lusca’s rage.” – Granma’s Porch by Alexia Tolas

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“We meet our friends for happy hour, hand a twenty-dollar bill to the bartender, double-take when he quips, Still whiskey and Coke after all these years? We peer at him, recognize the brown boy we wrapped our arms around in a basement in Richmond Hill. While Aaliyah crooned on the radio.” – Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades, 2019 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest Winner

CREATIVES ON CREATING

The Daily Show has been doing a series ‘Beyond the Scenes’ – a how the sausage gets made series on the topical comedy segments on the show.

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“It looks as if I’ve been very prolific but actually there have been breaks” – Monique Roffey in conversation with Malika Booker for New Caribbean Voices – Books and Writers podcast

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“I spent a couple of summers as a kid in Barbados, but probably eight or nine summers in Antigua; so I actually spent a lot more time in Antigua with my dad’s family. So it’s a bit ironic that I spent so much time writing about Barbados ’cause I actually know a lot less about it and I’m less connected to my family there. But I think that actually opened up a space for me imaginatively to write about Barbados that wasn’t there for Antigua.” – Naomi Jackson on Writing Home: American Voices from the Caribbean

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“With all its horrors, the pandemic has led to a host of online workshops, open mics, events like poetry readings and literary festivals, virtual spaces to share, discuss and connect with other writers and writing communities, and a host of other opportunities. All of these have helped to improve my craft and my confidence. I have also been reading poetry voraciously from a diverse range of poets, and other articles that catch my interest, not just literary ones, from quantum physics to the amazing life and anatomy of an octopus. I assume it’s the same for everyone.” – Bocas longlisted poet (Guabancex) Celia Sorhaindo in conversation with US based Jamaican writer Geoffrey Philp on his blog.

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‘I’d had workshop earlier that day, and my professor, Elissa Schappell, said two pieces of advice that lodged in my brain: Don’t be afraid to take risks in your writing, and Write what only you could say. It was advice I needed to hear at that point in time; I’d been pursing art in an academic setting—the MFA—and the program had, ironically (or perhaps not-so-ironically), left me feeling creatively stifled. Elissa’s words reminded me of the thematic and formal risks I wanted, and absolutely needed, to take in my art. What she said helped me feel the freedom I needed to feel to begin “Brown Girls.”’ – Daphne Palasi Andreades, KR Conversations

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“Seabirds are a constant in my daily life. Along my daily commute frigates are flying overhead while pelicans rest on the waterside rocks. Just now, in the empty lot next to my apartment a lonely heron wanders about. When I ride the ferry over to the outer islands or over to St. Thomas, brown boobies chase the boat’s work. Sometimes I feel like my outstretched fingers may just graze their bellies.” – British Virgin Islands poet laureate and OCM Bocas prize winner Richard Georges in conversation with acclaimed and award winning Jamaican writer Jacqueline Bishop for her series in the Jamaica Observer Bookends supplement. Read the interview:

richard-georgesDownload

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“She changed the requirement that actresses in the movies being invariably likeable or attractive. She lifted the veil of appropriate behaviour in women to expose what was scary, unexpected, or ugly; in other words, to do what was appropriate for the character” – Meryl Streep on Bette Davis for Turner Classic Movies

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