Okay, technically, this is from my own mailbox, but reporting on the happenings in the arts is in Antigua and Barbuda, and beyond is part of what I do here on the blog; even if, awkward as it can be, the happening is about my own writing life. So, here’s the text of a recent press release from me. – JCH, site admin & Wadadli Pen founder coordinator
Antiguan and Barbudan Joanne C. Hillhouse ‘s fictional writings appear in two new international publications. This follows the December 2016 release of her children’s picture book, the Caribbean fairytale, With Grace.
The publications are Adda, an online platform maintained by the Commonwealth Writers, a United Kingdom based Commonwealth Foundation initiative to create virtual and physical spaces for writers to share and grow; and Interviewing the Caribbean, a periodical put out from the US by Caribbean poet and author Opal Palmer Adisa.
The Adda story, accompanied by the painting ‘Fusion’, a striking new work by acclaimed Antiguan and Barbudan artist Heather Doram, is entitled ‘The Other Daughter’ . CW, in its social media circulation of the new story, described it as “The fight and sacrifice of a mother for her daughter, and the distance this creates between them.” CW publishes only one new writer every couple of weeks to addastories.org; these have included Forward prize winner Vahni Capildeo, and Commonwealth short story winners and authors Kevin Jared Hosein and Sharon Millar, among other notable writers from the Commonwealth.
Zombie Island, a dystopian, speculative piece proved a good fit for Interviewing the Caribbean 2016’s focus on violence. Other types of violence are explored in Hillhouse’s poems Election Season and The Bamboo Raft which also appear in the issue. Hillhouse is one of several authors and artists interviewed by Adisa in the issue – among them Jamaican poet laureate Mervyn Morris, veteran Grenadian author Merle Collins, Belizean writer and professor Ivory Kelly, and St. Lucian poet and former Bocas winner Kendel Hippolyte.
With Grace, meanwhile, is widely available and continues to generate positive interest from readers who have described it as magical, well-told, and beautifully illustrated. The illustrator is Barbadian artist Cherise Harris.
Wadadli Pen 