Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late January 2022)

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).

RIPs

Eduardo Pyle, leader of the Antigua and Barbuda soca monarch band and longstanding member of the calypso monarch band in over two decades of involvement in culture and the arts, has died. “For Eduardo, what mattered most was the delivery of the most impeccable quality of the music during our annual summer festival,” said chairman of the festivals commission Maurice Merchant. (Source – Newsco’s Daily Observer)

Events

The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s menu of programmes includes a reading group, Unruly Islands: Uprising and Revolts, in collaboration with the the Center For Fiction. See their website for information on this and other programmes. (Source – BCLF email)

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Antiguan and Barbudan writer and bookseller, and Wadadli Pen team member, Barbara Arrindell is one of the resource people for an upcoming seminar entitled ‘The Journey of a Book’. Click here to register. (Source – email)

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I mentioned, in the late November 2021 Carib Lit Plus that the BCLF short story awards event was upcoming. Now here’s the video.

“Well, the thing is publishers respond to readers, to the market, and, so this is really a job for all of us. For the writers and the readers. And it’s a job for the readers to bring that attention because if the publishers see that there are readers for our work…it begins with us.” – Elizabeth Nunez, sharing this excerpt from the video, from the author for whom the BCLF short story prizes are named, to remind us all to #buyCaribbean #readCaribbean (Source – N/A)

Publications

We’ve mentioned Sea Turtles before but St. Kitts-Nevis writer Carol Mitchell has two other Big Cat books – Kay and Aiden’s The Tram Bell and The Stolen Trumpet. A graphic novel series based on the adventures of a pair of twins.

Illustrations are by London artist Alan Brown. Mitchell, in addition to being an author, is a publisher (Caribbean Reads Publishing). (Source – N/A)

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Catching up on some late 2021 releases. Like this one from Antigua and Barbuda.

Written by former aerodome superintendant Growing with VCBIA: VC Bird International 1965-2008 is the story of Antigua and Barbuda’s former international airport “beginning with the first airplane of the historic Lindberg of Pan Am fame, which landed pretty close to what would become our present airport, this avid aviator carries us on a journey …Starting with the Americans who sought to establish air and sea bases throughout the region for World War II activities which were then converted to civil airport use controlled by local government….Throughout the book the theme of building and growing is emphasized.” (from a review by Makeda Mikael in the November 26th 2021 edition of the Daily Observer). This one was added to the Antigua and Barbuda Writings and Antigua and Barbuda Non-Fiction databases late last year. (Source – Newsco’s Daily Observer)

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Belonging: Fate and Changing Realities is Herman Ouseley’s (Lord Ouseley’s) compelling account of his extraordinary life experiences. This vivid memoir describes how he coped with all challenges and, along the way, learnt how to develop methods to convince and persuade powerful people to use their influence to help eliminate the adverse effects of institutional discrimination, prejudice and bigotry. Over nearly six decades dedicated to public service, he became a ‘somebody’ at times, as he challenged the ‘great and the good’ in pursuit of equality and cohesion. He reflects upon contemporary Britain, knowing that there is still a struggle to achieve responsible and accountable leadership. The release date is listed as September 2021. Published by Hansib. (Source – Hansib email)

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Get Up!: A Collection of Inspiring and Encouraging Commands is the latest book from relatively new Antiguan and Barbudan author Stancel C. Roberts who last year released An Island Girl’s Inspiration from Above. Both are motivational books. Roberts is a staff auditor with the government, and also, per her linkedin, a motivational speaker and lecturer at the Antigua State College. (Source – N/A)

Shout Outs

To Peepal Tree (producer) and Malika Booker (host) of New Caribbean Voices podcast. It’s been keeping me company this night in January with conversations with writers like Anton Nimblett and the several poets (Tanya Shirley, Ishion Hutchinson, Vladimir Lucien featured) featured in the rare poetry collection unearthing the experiences of British West Indians fighting in the first World War. I have written in CREATIVE SPACE about some of our experiences in World Wars 1 and 2 and think not nealry enough is known or understood about our role in these major battles (Hollywood white washes the Black and Brown people from their historical war films). But we were there.

Published in 2018, this book was a collaborative project, co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, BBC Contains Strong Language, and the British Council.

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To two Antigua-Barbuda sites of interest which are in the running for the top Caribbean attraction as voted by readers of USA Today (you can vote too, by the way). Normally we don’t do tourism-centric posts around here but the two named sites (Nelson’s Dockyard and Wallings Nature Reserve) have historical and/or cultural value and have been covered either on this blog or on my own Jhohadli blog. Specifically, CREATIVE SPACE #4 of 2019 – What’s happening at Wallings?, and Nelson’s Dockyard: On Becoming a World Heritage Site and CREATIVE SPACE #18 of 2021 – Clarence House and the Complicated Landscape of Our Colonial Past.

“Image 33: Nelson’s Dockyard 2” P. 55, The Art of Mali Olatunji: Painterly Photography from Antigua and Barbuda by Mali Olatunji and Paget Henry.

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Ben Fox, founder at Shepherds.com who invited me to write a book recs post, subject of my choice. I used the opportunity to share some of my favourites from the CODE Burt Award for teen/young adult Caribbean literature. Click The Best Teen/YA Caribbean novels for readers everywhere to see which five I picked and why. (Also see what books I read – and reviewed – in 2021). (Source – Me)

Accolades

One Caribbean book which made it on to the Women’s Prize 2022 favourite books read, broken down by year of publication, as chosen by their readers, is Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch. (Source – Women’s Prize email)

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In addition to being a politician, Antigua and Barbuda’s Selvyn Walter was an art collector, writer (including popular column series like Not a Drum was heard and the book Bank Alley Tales), and founding member of the Grays Green based Halcyon Steel Orchestra which marked its 50th anniversary in 2021., and his creative pursuits are being recognized (posthumously) by the Sunshine Awards Organization. The US-based awards was founded in 1989 by Gilman Figaro Snr. Past awardees from Antigua and Barbuda are, in 1992, King Progress for best political commentary (Heaven Help Us), in 1999, female vocalist of the year Althea ‘Singing Althea’ Williams (Violence), in 2002, calypso monarch King Short Shirt named to the Hall of Fame, in 2003, soca artists Burning Flames (Children Call Een), in 2004, calypsonian Paul ‘King Obstinate’ Richards named to the Hall of Fame, in 2008, Rupert ‘King Swallow’ Philo, now deceased, named to the Hall of Fame in 2008 after winning best party calypso, best engineered recording, and best calypso in 1989 (Fire in the Backseat) and best social commentary in 1997 (CDC), in 2011, pannist Aubrey Lacua Samuel, in 2012, Dr. Prince Ramsey for music production and Rawdon Edwards for contribution to the performing arts, and, in 2015, Antigua State College principal Dr. Alister Francis (posthumously) for education. Other 2021 Sunshine Awardees are Barbados’ Ian Estwick, Nigeria’s Oluyinka Olutuye, Trinidad and Tobago’s Shakuntala Thilsted and Ainsworth Mohammed, St. Thomas’ Verne Hodge, and legendary Guadeloupean band Kassav. (Source – Newsco’s Daily Observer)

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A Trinbagonian writer has landed on the UK Observer’s list ‘Introducing our 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2022‘. “The class of 2022 reminds us that the novel is a form without limits or rules,” the publication writes of the list that includes Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s When We were Birds, forthcoming in February from Hamish Hamilton. She and her book are described as “an important new voice in fiction, at once grounded and mythic in its scope and carried by an incantatory prose style…When We Were Birds is both a love story and a ghost story – the tale of a down-on-his-luck gravedigger and a woman descended from corbeau, the black birds that fly east at sunset, taking with them the souls of the dead.” She describes the Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad as a turning point in her writing, an awakening followed by the MA programme at University of East Anglia in the UK where she has lived for the last five years. (Source – Facebook)

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The winners of the Caribbean Readers’ Awards 2021 have been announced. This is the second year of the Rebel Women Lit book club’s awards initiative; 500 votes were counted. Trinidad and Tobago’s Celeste Mohammed’s Pleasantview won best novel (adult); Jamaica’s poet laureate Olive Senior’s Pandemic Poems won best poetry collection; Curaçao’s Radna Fabias’ Habitus won best translation; Jamaica’s Kei Miller’s Things I have Withheld won best non-fiction book; and ‘Bomber and the Breadfruit Tree‘ was adjudged best RWL magazine piece. Congrats to all. (Source – RWL Facebook)

Opportunities

From Short Story to Novel Part 2 with Sharma Taylor is the first Bocas workshop of the year on January 29th 2022. Sharma’s first novel, What a Mother’s Love don’t Teach You, drops this year. She has been hugely successful as a short story writer winning the 2020 Wasafiri Queen Mary New Writing Prize, the 2020 Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award, and the 2019 Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize; being twice shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and being a finalist for the 2020 Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean. Sharma will share her experience, tools and techniques in transferring the craft and technique of short-form fiction to a successful novel, building your career as an emerging writer. This seminar is suitable for writers who participated in Part 1 last year, as well as new participants.  Register here. (Source – Bocas email)

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Consider this one an opportunity to pay it forward. April 29th 2022 is the deadline to recommend writers for the Royal Society of Literature’s International Writers Programme, which is supported by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society and the International Authors Forum. The RSL, founded in 1820, is the UK’s charity for the advancement of literature. Nominate writers for the International Writers Programme who are not resident in, nor citizens of, the United Kingdom, have published two outstanding works of literary merit (written or translated in to English). Twelve writers will be selected. Last year’s selectees were Don Mee Choi, Annie Ernaux, David Grossman, Jamaica Kincaid, Yan Lianke, Amin Maalouf, Alain Mabanckou, Javier Marías, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Claudia Rankine, Olga Tokarczuk and Dubravka Ugrešić. Make your nominations here. (Source – RSL email)

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The Poetry Channel on You Tube has extended an invitation to poets worldwide to contribute to the channel run by Indran Amirthanayagam (email him at indranmx@gmail.com). He hosts contemporary poets reading their work and wishes to present an archive of essential poems and without any language limitation. So you might hear poems in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Tamil, Uzbek, Haitian Creole and Arabic. The channel also features an occasional series called Speaking With Poets, which already includes programs with Mervyn Taylor and Martin Espada. If you would like to be featured, send poetry videos (one poem per video) – you can record yourself and send or the host can set up a zoom meeting. Indran Amirthanayagam also edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly with Associate Editor Sara Cahill Marron, and welcomes poetry submissions. (Source – JRLee email)

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“I was nervous at first to do the exercises and to read my first draft out loud, but it was fun in the end.” – US based participant in the Jhohadli Writing Project, my (Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator, and author Joanne C. Hillhouse) workshops currently being offered online. This workshop series being offered once a month throughout 2022 is ideal for writers with works in progress. The identified participant said the January 2022 session helped, “Strengthened my pages.” Register on a month by month basis or for several months at a time. See Opportunities Too for Jhohadli Writing Project and Other Opportunities. (Source – Me)

News

Bocas, Trinidad and Tobago’s literary festival and related programmes, many of which have reach across the Caribbean, is under new management. Nicholas Laughlin replaces Marina Salandy-Brown as festival and programme director, while she steps in to the role of president of the board of directors. Laughlin, a poet, editor of the arts and travel magazine Caribbean Beat and co-director of the arts collective Alice Yard has been working alongside Salandy-Brown from the start, crafting the festival programme every year and leading the programming of the new virtual festivals since 2020.   Additionally, after a rigorous, multi-stage recruitment process, Jean-Claude Cournand is the new Chief Executive Officer. Cournand has been responsible for areas of Bocas Lit Fest youth programming since 2013 and through a partnership between Bocas and the 2Cents Movement, which he co-founded and managed, strategically helped to introduce the nation’s youth to spoken word and performance poetry. The huge popularity of the First Citizens National Poetry Slam is the culmination of their joint efforts. Read more here. (Source – JRLee email)

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Issue 13 of Cacique magazine features Antiguan-Barbudan (by way of Dominica) designer Miranda Askie. Cacique is the inflight magazine of InterCaribbean Airways. The issue which also includes an interview with Barbados’ Cherise Harris (known around these parts as illustrator of my children’s book With Grace) and book recommendations by Caribbean Reads publisher and author Carol Mitchell. It can be read in full online. And remember, you can also read my Miranda Askie feature in this 2021 edition of CREATIVE SPACE. (Source – linkedin)

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St. Lucian Poet John Robert Lee has posted an article on ways to revitalize and upgrade his country’s institutions and programmes to Jako Productions’ blog. Some interesting – and perhaps familiar – points. A Creative Arts Centre where cultural products are sold and which can also serve as an event space and restaurant, gallery, cafe, and artists meeting space. National gallery (Long overdue!) with retail space. Enhancement of library spaces and services. Supported and well maintained heritage spaces which can serve as cultural hubs. Strengthening of the government printery to produce cultural material. A vibrant performing arts space with creative arts training and certification opportunities. Needed as well, in addition to in-school instruction, is more public education (through traditional and social media channels) in the arts. There are, he points out, many practitioners who could be drawn on to serve as educators in their respective disciplines; it, and these other suggestions, just require a bit more initiative on the part of the powers that be. “The CDF needs to become more pro-active, more creative in their thinking, more truly supportive of the arts, and that across generations.” (Source – Jako Productions email)

As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside, and Oh Gad!). All Rights Reserved. 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.

Carib Lit Plus (Early to Mid January 2022)

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).

Happy New Year! And let’s hope it truly is happy.

Milestones

Celebrated St. Lucian poet Kendel Hippolyte, named as you’ll see below as the person tapped to deliver the Sir Derek Walcott memorial lecture during poet laureates’ week, is being feted for another reason this January – a birthday milestone. Hippolyte turned 70 (three score and 10) on January 9th 2022.

Wadadli Pen’s Joanne C. Hillhouse who also celebrated her remarkably non-milestone birthday this month, January 5th, is pictured with Kendel HIpplyte at their first meeting, at the Congrès International des écrivains de la Caraïbe in 2013.

“Kendel Hippolyte was once described as “perhaps the outstanding Caribbean poet of his generation.” Besides being honored with the St. Lucia Gold Medal of Merit for his contribution to the arts, he joins Derek Walcott, Vladimir Lucien, and Canisia Lubrin as one of only four St. Lucians to win an OCM Bocas Prize, the English-speaking Caribbean’s most prestigious literary award. Note, however, Hippolyte won the poetry prize, while the other three won both the poetry and overall prize.”

Click here to read three poems by fellow Lucian poet John Robert Lee dedicated to Hippolyte on this occasion. (Source – Jako Productions)

Farewells

Antigua and Barbuda media veteran and Rastafari elder King Frank I has been laid to rest in an official state-funded funeral held at the Sir Vivian Richards national stadium.

There were five pages of coverage of the funeral in the Daily Observer including reporting of performance of Farewell to a King by the Nyabinghi Theocracy Order. Francis was credited for activism that has led to Rastafari being more integrated into society. Frank I’s children Jomo Hunte St. Rose, and daughters Malaika and Denise Francis, the latter also a media worker, paid tribute to their dearly departed dad. Denise invoked her father’s well known sign off: “We know Jah will continue to guide, continue to keep fit, and to always be a good sport.” Read that full article here:

frank-i-remembrance-1Download

In an article in the subsequent issue, head of the Reparations Support Commission, of which King Frank I was a part, Dorbrene O’Marde, is said to have indicated that the Commission will be seeking some way to honour him. “We have lost an example of steadfast commitment to a cause…we have lost a proud proclaimer of the fact that although he was not born in Africa, Africa was born in him…” O’Marde was quoted as saying, during the ceremony, of his friend of more than 60 years. Read in full:

frank-i-remembranceDownload

(Source – Daily Observer newspaper)

Events

The Sir Derek Walcott Memorial Lecture (mentioned immediately below) is only one of a full week of activities which began on January 10th 2022 in celebration of Nobel Laureates Week in St. Lucia. The Windward island has two such Laureates – Walcott for Literature and Sir Arthur Lewis for Economics. The full listing of activities can be found here. (Source – Jako Productions)

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Bocas Award winning St. Lucian playwright and poet Kendel Hippolyte will deliver this year’s Derek Walcott Memorial Lecture January 18th 2022.

Read about him here.

Tune in online at
Facebook: @NobelLaureateFestivalSaintLuciaFacebook
Youtube: @cdfsaintluciaNTN
Flow Channel 122UWITV
Flow Channel 105

(Source – Facebook)

Accolades

Antiguan-Canadian writer Tanya Evanson’s Book of Wings has been named to the 2022 Canada Reads long list. Read about it here. (Source – Author’s facebook)

It has also been added to Antiguans and Barbudans Awarded.

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This round up of 2021 book prize winners includes several Caribbean writers: namely, Barbadian Cherie Jones, a finalist for the Woman’s Prize for Fiction for How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House; and Jamaican Maisy Card, a finalist for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, part of the Los Angeles Time Book prize, for These Ghosts are Family. (Source – email)

Publication News

Jamaican Poet Laureate Olive Senior’s Hurricane Watch: New and Collected Poems lands at the end of January 2022. From Carcanet.

(Source – Twitter)

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You know that Wadadli Pen team member Floree Williams Whyte’s latest book dropped in December and she features in the first CREATIVE SPACE of 2022.

(Source – Me)

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There were seven book publications out of St. Lucia in 2021, according to Jako Productions. “These included two memoirs (My Journey, and You Left Me Broken), two commentaries on St. Lucian Art and culture (The Reign of Terra, and Dance Footprints), a children’s book (The Reunion: The adventures of Froggy-T & Bunnie), a book of poetry (Ear to My Thoughts), and a commentary on St. Lucian politics (No Man’s Land: A Political Introspection of St. Lucia). Added to this list is Scream, a murder mystery novel by McDonald Dixon, a leading St. Lucian poet and novelist, to be launched this month.” (Jako Productions). The post also singled out multi-award winning St. Lucian poet Canisia Lubrin for commendation. (Source – Jako email)

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The latest issue of Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters has landed. Issue 20’s theme is Thanksgiving and it includes as its cover image ‘Daylight’ by Stefan Rampersad/Alexander Phoenyx, part of the Trinidad and Tobago artist’s Caribe Arch series.

Poets featured in the issue are Jason Allen-Paisant, Fawzia Muradali Kane, and Edythe Rodriguez. The issue includes reviews of Celeste Mohammed’s Pleasantview, Shara McCallum’s No Ruined Stone, Lisa Allen-Agostini’s The Bread the Devil Knead, Bermudan poet Nancy Anne Miller’s contribution to Moko’s One Poem One Poet series. The fiction consists of winners of the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival short fiction prize of 2021 Patrice Grell Yursik (Daughter 4) and Akhim Alexis (The Wailers); and new stories in the “sky islands” speculative fiction universe curated by Fabrice Guerrier including his own ‘Magic Mangoes’, alongside ‘Ixie and Izzy‘ by Joanne C. Hillhouse (she, of Wadadli Pen and Antigua and Barbuda) and ‘Rock, Feather, Shell’ by Celeste Rita Baker. The issue is edited by Andre Bagoo. (Source – twitter)

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As part of its mission, non-profit The Antigua and Barbuda Humane Society has released a colouring book, All Creatures Great and Small, as part of its mission to create a more animal-friendly environment by promoting care. The assembly and printing of the books was funded by King’s Casino Antigua. The Amatos family, meanwhile, donated boxes of crayons, among other items, to be paired with the books. The books are intended for distribution to pre and primary schools; and some are on sale in the Humane Society’s merchandise shop. For more information on this initiative and to donate towards future initiatives, call 268-461-4957. (Source – the Daily Observer newspaper)

Site Updates

Writers continue to be added to the Antiguan and Barbudan Writers (+Artists) on the Web, the Antiguan and Barbudan Fiction and Antiguan and Barbudan Writing, and the Caribbean Writers Online data bases. An addition too to Reading Room and Gallery 42 and the Opportunities page. The addition of a new Antigua and Barbuda Literary Works Reviewed. (Source – me)

Shout Outs

To the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival BCLF Cocoa Pod on Apple podcasts. Congrats to them on the continued growth which has included, in addition to the popular literary festival, the short fiction story contests named for acclaimed writer Elizabeth Nunez, and now this podcast described as “a Caribbean storytelling experience in which writers of Caribbean heritage narrate their own stories. …rich with the rhythm, pitch and intonation of the one who wrote it.” We are informed, re the BCLF initiatives for writers (the festival, podcast, and interviews), that they are open to receiving author press kits/bios/links and, also, review copies or ARCs (new releases). 

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To Rebel Women Lit which while counting votes for the Caribbean Readers Awards, to be announced January 9th 2022 after voting closed at the end of 2021, has concurrently announced its Book Club Reading List for the year. The list is not exclusively Caribbean but includes Caribbean reads like Things I have Withheld by Kei Miller, Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo, Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson, and The Dreaming by Andre Bagoo. (Source – RWL email)

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To my Jhohadli blog and specifically this round up post of recent publications and more. (Source – me)

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To New Caribbean Voices, a podcast on spotify, hosted by Malika Booker. It includes interviews with and readings by contemporary Caribbean authors. (Source – JR Lee email)

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To the Wadadli Music Scene blog, a project of jazz musicians Khadijah Simon and Foster Joseph, both of Antigua and Barbuda. The goal is to document stories related to Antigua and Barbuda’s music history. (Source – Foster Joseph who was interviewed in 2021 for CREATIVE SPACE)

Opportunities

Two Wadadli Pen team members, Barbara A. Arrindell and Joanne C. Hillhouse went on ABS TV on January 12th 2022 to discuss creative writing. Watch here.

Both are offering workshops. See flyers below.

(Source – me)

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The Catapult Creative Arts grant is back. The COVID-19 relief programme for Caribbean artists saw funds paid out for residencies, salons, and other arts activities. The new application cycle opens January 3rd 2022 closes January 14th 2022. Apply here. And, yes, you can apply again even if you are a past grant recipient. (Source – Repeating Islands)

Remember to check Opportunities Too for this and other arts opportunities with pending deadlines.

News

As I blogged recently 2019 Independence fashion show winner Nicoya Henry has yet to receive her government promised scholarship to study in Trinidad. My thoughts expressed in this CREATIVE SPACE Coda. (Source – me)

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Antiguan and Barbudan author Joan Underwood has been delivering live tips from her book Manager’s First Aid Kit on the Mornin’ Barbados show since October 2021. The four month stint was every Wednesday, each episode focus on a challenge covered in a chapter of the book and offering up practical challenges and solutions. See episodes missed in this playlist from Underwood’s YouTube channel. (Source – Underwood email)

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Antigua and Barbuda’s Cultural Industries Mapping Project announced in November 2021 that it received 430 responses to its survey.

The company chosen to create the National Cultural Information System/Cultural Portal is COMPUSULT LTD. Keep track here. (Source – Facebook)

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Antigua and Barbuda has a new culture minister. Michael Browne, the former minister of education whose cabinet appointment was withdrawn while he fought a charge which shall not be named, is to be re-appointed, having beat the charge, but under a different portfolio. Darryl Matthew who added education to culture and sports after Browne’s dis-appointment, is the outgoing minister of culture. Actually, it’s called creative industries these days, more fully creative industries and innovation – under which falls culture, carnival, independence, the one nation concert, V. C. Bird celebrations, visual arts, graphic arts, decorative arts, performing arts, musical arts, happiness and unity, innovatiion, and the UNOPS. This is according to an article in the Daily Observer. No specific reference to literary arts but google says UNOPS is the United Nations Office of Project Services. (Source – Daily Observer newspaper)

As with all content on wadadlipen.wordpress.com, except otherwise noted, this is written by Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, 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.

Carib Lit Plus (Mid to Late January 2021)

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)

Appointments

Richards Georges, an award winning BVI writer with Trinidad and Antiguan roots, has been named the first ever Virgin Islands Poet Laureate. Per the image below, he was actually appointed back in November – I’m just tardy in posting.

As explained at the programme, the Poet Laureate is selected from among the territory’s most accomplished poets and must serve for three years. Nomination and appointment is based on the subject matter of their written work which should speak to the unique experience of the virgin islands and the volume, quantity, and quality of their work as evident by literary awards and other achievements. The laureate programme was established by the Minister of Culture. Richard who has specific duties under the laureate programme but who sets the intention of making time to write every day, said, ” ‘Writing isn’t just the physical act of writing, it’s researching, it’s reading, it’s thinking actively about a particular project.” You can find Richard’s books listed in the Antiguan and Barbudan poetry page. (Source – Social Media – Facebook; with additional links via email from House of Nehesi and John Robert Lee)

Accolades

Instagrammer shows love for two Antiguan and Barbudan books.

This was in a series breaking down the bookstagrammer’s favourite reads of the year. And since part of what we do here is amp up Antiguan and Barbudan books, I thought I’d share some of what she said:

Re Brand New – “I’m a fan of Rilzy Adams. She also writes about Antigua. “Brand New” is a spin-off from the Love on The Rock universe she created to tell the stories of ordinary Caribbean millennials looking for love in Antigua. I loved it because of the lead man (a teacher with dreadlocks…) but mostly because of the 90s party atmosphere.” She named Brand New named one of her top five #readCaribbean novels of 2020.

Re Dancing Nude in the Moonlight (10th Anniversary Edition and Other Writings) – “I’m a fan of Joanne C. Hillhouse. Her writing (highlights) the issues of Caribbean societies. Here she tells the love story between a man from Antigua and an immigrant woman from the (Dominican) Republic. Colorism and xenophobia (complicate) a relationship that at its core seems doomed. I don’t put it higher in my ranking because (it’s) not a feel good romance. And I think the book is more about showing how one person tries to figure out which path to take in that actual romance. It is realistic and anchored in our present. …Although it was written more than 15 years ago.”

(Source – instagram/bookstagram)

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Rilzy Adams (pen name of Rilys Adams, Antiguan and Barbudan romance writer and past Wadadli Pen finalist) is in the running for her book Go Deep for the Black Girls Who Write 2020 Award (an awards initiative targeted at Black romance writers and their readers, for Best Black Erotica – vote here). (Source – the author’s social media/facebook)

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ETA: Roffey goes on to win the Costa Book of the Year Award for The Mermaid of Black Conch, of which BBC arts correspondent Rebecca Jones said: “At first, the novel might sound a bit odd. Set on a Caribbean island in the 1970s, it is a bittersweet love story between a beautiful young woman cursed to live as a mermaid and a fisherman.” Read all about it at BBC.com (Source – social media/facebook)

Trinis Ingrid Persaud and Monique Roffey were Costa Book Awards winners – first novel and novel, respectively.

(Source – Social Media – Facebook author announcement and other sources)

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A portrait of late Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite hangs in Pembroke College in the UK. Jamaica-born Errol Lloyd was commissioned by the College to paint this first portrait of a BME Fellow to go on permanent display. “It is a great honour for us to be able to place Kamau amongst our other distinguished alumni, here in our Hall”, said the Master, Lord Smith. “He was a hugely distinguished, major international literary figure. He put Caribbean literature very firmly on the literary map.” – More at the College website. (Source – Email from St. Lucian poet John Robert Lee)

New Books

UK-Jamaican author Leone Ross’ latest This One Sky Day landed on January 15th 2021. It is published by the prestigious Faber & Faber, and, in the US, Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux. And promoting it, the author landed herself on the cover of Bookseller.

In the article, she said, of the gap between her las novel and this third work – 20 years (not counting her 2017 short story collection Come Let Us Sing Anyway) – ‘“It felt, for reasons I don’t quite understand, that everything went to sleep a little bit,” she says. “I think probably because I needed to hustle more, probably because I needed a different agent, we could say all kinds of things… I don’t know what I needed to do. But I do know that at the end of Orange Laughter I was exhausted emotionally. It had taken a lot to write those two novels over a very short period of time.” It felt, she says now, as though nobody was waiting for book number three, not that anyone should have been, she adds hastily. “I didn’t feel entitled, but also I didn’t get very much support. So I kind of thought, ‘Oh, that’s the end of that’.”’ As someone who first heard Ross read in Guadeloupe in 2013, becoming immediately intrigued, and as a fan of stories of hers like The Woman who lived in a Restaurant and The Mullerian Eminence in Peepal Tree collection Closure – both out in 2015, I believe – I have been waiting, and can’t wait to read. (Source – Leone Ross’ social media)

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Two Caribbean specific Collins (UK) Big Cat books hit the UK market on January 7th 2021 – The Jungle Outside by Joanne C. Hillhouse (me) and Turtle Beach by Wadadli Pen team member and bookseller Barbara A. Arrindell, illustrated, respectively by Danielle Boodoo Fortune of Trinidad and Tobago and Zavian Archibald of Antigua and Barbuda. Per this post on The Spectator’s facebook page, Barbara’s book, though “a story set in the Caribbean, … goes beyond the Caribbean and highlights environmental issues of interest to everyone. Barbara’s hobby for swimming and love of beaches are strong influences this children’s book.” She noted the influence my mother and nephew had on my story, and, I would add, that it is, too, in its way a pro-environment story of potential appeal to young readers everywhere. Both will be rolled out in other markets in coming months. (Source – Petra Williams, The Spectator)

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Trinidad and Tobago author Lisa Allen-Agostini (you may remember her from this interview here on the blog) is preparing to launch her latest book, The Bread The Devil Knead, her third overall and her first for adults, and first book since the award winning Home Home.

Cover art by Brianna McCarthy.

Launch day is in May 2021, ahead of which Lisa did this January 19th 2021 live special with TTT News on facebook. (Source – Lisa Allen-Agostini’s social media – facebook and instagram)

Showcase

Dominica/UK’s Papillote Press has launched a video series spotlighting its book titles. The series started with readings from teen/young adult titles Home Home by Trinidad and Tobago’s Lisa Allen-Agostini, Gone to Drift by Jamaica’s Diana McCaulay, The Art of White Roses by Puerto Rico’s Viviana Prado-Núñez, and Abraham’s Treasure by Dominica’s Joanne Skerrett; and continued with Riff: the Shake Keane Story, a biography of the poet and jazz musician, by Philip Nanton. Publisher Polly Pattullo, who introduces the readings with a personal note about each title, says, “Even though the pandemic has kept us apart it has also brought the Caribbean literary community together online. These readings in En Papillote are a way of bringing our authors and their important writing to readers everywhere.” The series will continue with other books across other genres and sub-genres in the Papillote catalogue. (Source – Papillote press release)

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On January 20th 2021 (yes, that January 20th 2021), I was the virtual guest of the National Public Library, the first of the year for their Local Author of the Month series.

Next up is Shawn Maile, author of How to work Six Jobs on an Island, on February 17th 2021. (Source – Me)

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The Wadadli Youth Pen Prize channel, launched late in 2020, continues to add content – lately dramatized readers of past winners. Check them out and remember to like, comment, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell.

Image and story from the first Wadadli Pen Challenge Awards in 2004. Go to YouTube for the full playlist of stories recorded between 2004-2005.

(Source – Me)

Press

Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine picked up news of the Caribbean Reader’s Awards in an article headlined ‘The 7 Best Caribbean Books for Your 2021 Reading List, According to Rebel Women Lit’s Readers’ Awards’. From the article: ‘The Caribbean Readers’ Awards are like the Goodreads’ Choice Awards in that they are completely reader-led. While it may be smaller in scale, the response was even greater than (co-founder Jherane) Patmore expected, with some readers already suggesting candidates for the 2021 awards. “I’m excited for new people to discover different genres and to have this space to celebrate literature that has been pushed aside or ignored,” Patmore tells OprahMag.com.’ Read the full article by Hearst magazines SEO manager Stephanie Castillo. (Source – Social Media in general)

As with all content on this site, unless otherwise noted, this is prepared by Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator, Joanne C. Hillhouse. As we try to do, credit if sharing.

Carib Lit Plus (Early to Mid January 2021 – & Happy New Year!)

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)

Misc.

The BarbudanGo grant for a project on Barbuda has gone to ACT – no, not that ACT. Congrats to the ACT Drama Theatre. –

(Source – facebook)

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Just before Christmas, Brooklyn based online Caribbean arts non-profit tropicalfete.com launched the Caribbean Cultural Puzzle. St. Lucian born founder and tropicalfete.com president Alton Aimable said, “The purchase of the puzzle helps us with our mission of developing the community in arts and social services with the focus on educating the community on Caribbean culture. The projects we engage in are to use culture as a tool for social transformation,” he shared. (Source – email from tropicalfete.com)

RIP

I would like to be able to do one of these without having to do a death announcement but it is not this day… this day we mourn Zuri Holder who died tragically on January 4th 2020 of injuries sustained during a vehicular accident. Zuri was family. I met him as a very young child when I started volunteering with the Cushion Club and watched him grow over the years. His dad Cedric has kept that Club going to this day, a literary and literal uncle to many children over 20 or so years, though Zuri graduated the Club some years ago and was a young adult. I can’t imagine his pain. The Wadadli Pen family will remember Zuri as a repeat finalist – second in the 12 and younger category in 2011 and winner of that category and third overall in 2013. Zuri had also been a dancer and drummer with the Antigua Dance Academy. Wadadli Pen deals with youth mostly so we haven’t really had as a platform to deal with the loss of one of our own before – forgive any missteps; my heart is heavy. (Source- the circle of us who knew him)

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Foremost Belizean author Zee Edgell died in December. I met her once and interviewed her as well (at the 2010 Antigua and Barbuda International Literary Festival) and found her not only to be calm but calming, her energy influencing yours in the most sublime way. No airs, no off putting ness despite being, well, Zee Edgell. “Edgell, lauded as Belize’s foremost fiction writer, was perhaps best known for her 1982 debut novel, Beka Lamb, read and studied by generations of students in the Caribbean and beyond. She received an honorary doctorate from the UWI Cave Hill, and was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.” (Bocas) Read more about Zee Edgell and view a reading of her work at the African American Literary Book Club. (Source – initially Bocas Lit Fest on Instagram followed by additional research and relfection)

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fAntiguan and New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey has died. He was a regular at the literary festival here in Antigua as seen above, during its short run, and even lived here for a time while working on one of his books which is partially set in Antigua. His death was a double blow coming within hours of Zuri’s passing. He was one of my literary angels and I mourn him. Read more about EJD here. (Source – initially twitter condolence post by another writer and then confirmation after much searching via Essence)

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This is one I should have mentioned before as it happened back in 2020 and I wanted to mention it because I believe people that put out themselves to give back should be recognized. Eugene Humphreys, self-described Minister of Helps, was not, to the best of my knowledge, part of the arts community but he was part of the culture – as someone who was a known community activist who was known for service through charitable acts and especially fundraising for people and projects that needed it. He died in December 2020 of cancer. His legacy is that of a selfless person doing for others and we need more of that in the world. (Source – Daily Observer newspaper)

Film

Have you been watching Academy award winning, Caribbean-British director Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series? I’ve started and after watching Mangrove, I’m definitely invested in seeing the other films in this anthology series. I’ve already reported that Antiguan and Barbudan cinematographer Shabier Kirchner is DP on the series. There are other Caribbean people involved behind and in front of the camera including Black Panther’s little sister Shuri (Letitia Wright, whose roots are in Guyana). With the explosion of Black Lives Matter (again) in 2020, this series of films couldn’t be more timely. Mangrove (dealing with the trial of the Mangrove 9) in my opinion should be as much in the awards conversation as The Trial of the Chicago 7; in a year when everything is streaming anyway, I don’t know if it qualifies for an Oscar, but it should in my opinion since a theatrical run (an Oscar requirement) is not in the cards for many (almost any) films due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The story is fact-based and a reminder that anti-Blackness and the issues around that (including xenophobia) is not uniquely American – it is, in fact, global; and in this specific instance, we have a film that illustrates the discrimination experienced by migrants from the Caribbean (i.e. the British West Indies) and other people of colour parts of the British empire and the protests and activism it bred. (Source – various – it’s in the ether – but this post was prompted specifically by this article at The Root, which landed in my email inbox)

Books

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This book revisits Jean Rhys’s ground-breaking 1966 novel to explore its cultural and artistic influence in the areas of not only literature and literary criticism, but fashion design, visual art, and the theatre as well. Building on symposia that were held in London and New York in 2016 in honour of the novel’s half-century, this collection demonstrates just how timely Rhys’s insights into colonial history, sexual relations, and aesthetics continue to be. The chapters include an extensive interview with novelist Caryl Phillips, who in 2018 published a novel about Rhys’s life, an account of how Wide Sargasso Sea can be read through the lens of the #MeToo Movement, a clothing line inspired by the novel, and new critical directions. As both a celebration and scholarly evaluation, the collection shows how enduring Rhys’s novel is in its continuing literary influence and social commentary. (book summary) (Source – John Robert Lee/St. Lucian poet and archivist email blast)

Accolades

Rilys Adams, whom you may remember was a nominee for the Rebel Women Lit Caribbean Readers Awards Best Novel prize has another chance to win with the Romance book industry’s reader picked Swoonies. The results come out February 1st 2021. She is a semi-finalist for Best Erotic Romance with Go Deep and Romance Novella/Short Story with Birthday Shot, the same book nominated in the RWL CRA, if you’re thinking of voting. (Source – initially social media post by the writer then check of the actual site)

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The results of Rebel Women Lit Caribbean Readers Awards were announced on January 3rd 2020 and can be read/viewed in full here. The first announcement of the live had me over the moon because it was one of our own – Andre J. P. Warner taking the prize for best fiction for his 2020 winning Wadadli Pen piece, A Bright Future for Tomorrow. Jamaica’s Donna Hemans won the best novel award for Tea by the Sea. Antiguan and Barbudan writer and Wadadli Pen alum Rilys Adams, writing as Rilzy Adams, was shortlisted for this prize for her book Birthday Shot. Dominican-American writer Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap when you Land won the prize for best teen/young adult book. Best middle grade book was JAmerican writer Kereen Getten’s When Life gives you Mangoes. Puerto Rico’s Loretta Collins Klobah with Maria Grau Perejoan won the best translation prize for The Sea Needs No Ornament/El Mar No Necesita Ornamento, a collection they worked on while PR struggled to recover from Maria and which includes many other voices from the Caribbean. The poetry book prize went to New Voices: Selected by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica, 2017 – 2020. Best non-fiction book is US based professor Jessica Marie Johnson’s Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. Olive Senior, veteran Jamaican writer partially based in Canada, for best short non-fiction for Crosswords in Lockdown: #WhatIAmDoingWithMyTime. Best short story collection went to Stick No Bills by Trinidad and Tobago’s Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw. The new content creator prize went to @ambi_reads on instagram; the critical work of Shivanee Ramlochan, Gabrielle Bellot, and Kelly Baker Josephs was recognized, and, and this was a surprise, I was an honoree. (Source – watched the announcement on their youtube channel)

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Antiguan and Barbudan legendary calypso writer Marcus Christopher died in 2015. This year, this tribute to him emerges.

(Source – Linkedin post by the artist)

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The PEN America 2021 awards nominees includes Caribbeanauthor Maisy Card, born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, and raised in Queens, NY in the USA. Her book, These Ghosts are Family is nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, a prize worth US$10,000. Full slate of nominees listed here.

Nominees for PEN America award for debut novel of outstanding literary merit.

Winners to be announced in February 2021. (Source – PEN America email)

As with all content on this site, unless otherwise noted, this is prepared by Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator, Joanne C. Hillhouse. As we try to do, credit if sharing.