28 Days, 28 Stories (& A Poem for World Poetry Day)

Happy World Poetry Day (March 21st 2023). For the occasion, I did a recording of the most recent of my published poems.

Also, I’ve been meaning to do a round up of my February literary project and this seems as good a time as any (March 20th was World Storytelling Day). During Black History Month (BHM), I shared one-minute-reads, one per day, of 28 of my journaled short stories (i.e. stories of mine accepted over the years for publication in literary journals) on my Antiguan Writer YouTube channel. It was also a challenge to myself to write each time I posted (creating new, albeit still unformed, writing in addition to advancing work on my short story collection in progress). How’s that for a writing/life hack? Because no matter what else was going on, I had that appointment with myself and, for the most part, kept them. By contrast, don’t ask me how March has been going on the writing front.

Below, in case you missed it, I’ve linked all 28 video postings. If the full story is available online, that’s linked as well. They are ordered in terms of increasing popularity (least to most viewed and engaged with, so that you have to scroll all the way down to get to number 1). Remember to engage (like, share, comment – let me know your fave, share a poem you vibe with etc.).

28. “The Night The World Ended” published in The Caribbean Writer vol. 32, 2018

27. “Game Changer” published in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters, issue 9, 2016

26. “Cold Paradise” published in Women Writers – Special Issue (Serving the Spirits: Women and Voodoo in Literature and Popular Culture), 2008.

25. “Somebody!” published in St. Somewhere Journal, 2010.

24. “Little Prissy Palmer” published in The Machinery, 2017. Link to one-minute read video.

23. “Zombie Island” published in 2016 in Interviewing the Caribbean vol. 2 issue 1, 2016.

22. “Is Like a Like It” (excerpt of a screenplay of an unproduced short film) published in The Caribbean Writer vol. 27, 2013.

21. “Carnival Hangover” published in intersectantigua.com (print and audio), 2020.

20. “After Glow” published in Tongues of the Ocean, 2009 – anthologized in So the Nailhead Bend, So the Story End, 2012. Link to one-minute read video.

19. “Amelia at Devil’s Bridge” which was excerpted on PEN.org after being published in Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean, 2014. Since 2017, it has been excerpted in the Harper Collins English A revision guide.

18. “All Fall Down” published in Womanspeak: a Journal of Art and Writing by Caribbean Women vol. 7, 2013.

17. “Papa Jumbie” published in Akashic’s Duppy Thursday series, 2017. Link to one-minute read video.

16. “To Market, a Snapshot” published in Susumba’s Book Bag, 2013.

15. “Carnival Blues” published in The Caribbean Writer vol. 27, 2013, and as “Something Wicked” in The Missing Slate, 2014 .

14. “The Other Daughter” published in Adda, 2017. This has been used for the national assessment in Denmark.

13. “Teacher May” published in Poui, the Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing, 2011.

12. “Portent” published in Women Writers – Special Issue (Serving the Spirits: Women and Voodoo in Literature and Popular Culture), 2008.

11. “What’s in a Name” published in BIM: Arts for the 21st Century volume 7, 2015.

10. “Soca Night” published in 2007 in the Daily Observer 50th anniversary arts supplement Carnival Is All We Know (which I also pitched and edited).

9. “At Sea” published in Zimbabwean American journal Munyori, 2011. Link to one-minute read video.

8. “When We Danced” published in The Caribbean Writer volume 29, 2015 . It won The Caribbean Writer’s flash fiction prize.

7. “Martin, Dorie, and Luis: A Love Story” published in the Jamaica Observer Sunday Literary Arts, 2004. Link to one-minute read video.

6. “Rhythms” published in The Caribbean Writer, 2004. Link to one-minute read video.

5. “Ixie and Izzy”, part of the Sky Islands fictional universe, published in 2021 in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters issue 20. Link to one-minute read video.

4. “The Cat has Claws” published in Akashic’s Mondays are Murder series, 2013. Link to one-minute read video.

3. “Friday Night Fish Fry” published in the Sea Breeze Journal of Contemporary Liberian Writings, 2008. Link to one-minute read video.

2. “Bitter Memories” published in Collective Soul, 1998. Link to one-minute read video.

1. “Country Club Kids” published in The Caribbean Writer vol. 24, 2010. Link to one-minured read video.

Click through one by one or automate the playlist.

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, To be a Cheetah, 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.

Antiguan Writer Poll

I am the Antiguan Writer referenced.

(oh just me trying to take a picture of my inked voting finger post election in Antigua and Barbuda)

This is my YouTube channel which has hit 100 subs prompting a celebratory benchmark activity of your choosing. Vote here for:

An Ask Me Anything Live

A reading from a work in progress

A reading from a published work (taking requests)

A reading from something I’m reading or recently read

I’m also, per today’s Journaling Writing on my Jhohadli blog considering a February/Black History Month reading series of my journaled short stories (apparently I have 28 of those). I usually use that month (Black History Month in the US and US adjacent Caribbean) to boost writing by other (especially but not exclusively Caribbean) writers but am thinking this time around charity begins at home…my home…with me…my stories. If I do that, it might be as 1 minute reads as YouTube shorts and I’ll be companioning it with putting in work to (hopefully) wrap up my short story collection in progress:: content in, content out.

(me, journaling writing)

If you have any interest in either of the above activities, it would be good to subscribe to the Antiguan Writer YouTube channel, click the community tab and vote in the poll before the end of January, and let me know in the comments below if there’s any interest in my February/Black History Month project – if there is connect with my social media to ensure you don’t miss out.

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, 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.

Mimic (A Writing Exercise)

A digital story club I am a part of (sort of) had a writing exercise this week that I participated in. It gave pieces written in several different writing styles and challenged us to mimic the style of a piece of our choosing. Just writing about whatever and freely (constrained only by trying to mirror another’s style and the 200-word count). I tried the one that had a let me explain…style; and that’s what I attempted, using what was on my mind at the time (I was on a break from editing my CREATIVE SPACE column (CREATIVE SPACE #19 OF 2022 – THE “HEADKERCHIEF”; HERITAGE, FASHION, CELEBRATION, AND RESISTANCE). So I explained headwrapping. &, though that’s not why I wrote it, it’s meant only as a writing exercise, shared it in the extras of the posted online edition of the column as I’ve done a few times because a column called CREATIVE SPACE literally has space for that.

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This is a skill that requires a sense of style and a willingness to allow instinct to lead. Letting instinct lead is only successful if you have a sense of style. Even a small bit of one will do.

You place the short end of the cloth on one side, the long side on the other, an unevenness that the body wants to fight. We are designed to appreciate symmetry. But fight it, fight the conditioning and listen to your fingers, they know what to do. The body remembers, not just the whip, not just the slave ship, but the customs and teachings of home. How to turn fungee, how to cornrow hair, how to wrap a head in a language that those like you, also of your community, can read.

The tie for romance, the tie for war, the tie for sadness, the tie for salaciousness; we know it all. Just listen to yourself. And ‘llow the long end to drop, then drape it over the short end, in a V. Wrap the head. Build up. High as you like. It’s your crown. Let it stand, threading in other cloth as you like. You’ve got style and you know it. Now, strut, Queen.

by jhohadli

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If you try the exercise and feel like sharing what came out, you’re welcome to do so in the comments.

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.

ICYMI: Antiguan and Barbudan Artistes Discussing Art

Last year two Antiguan and Barbudan writers – Joanne C. Hillhouse and Rilzy Adams – were among the Caribbean writers of romance interviewed by the podcast Tim Tim Bwa Fik. You can find links to those interviews, both in two parts, in the Wadadli Pen A & B Artistes Discussing Art page – that and a lot more local creatives discussing aspects of their art. It is one of the pages in our R & D that is updated as often as we find new interviews to share. Here are excerpts from the page. Click the page title to read or watch or listen to more.

“When writing, where this was concerned, the one thing that I really wanted it to feel like and be like was Antiguan… I was very intentional with everything from the food choices to the music…but I also wanted them for the most part to be not necessarily heartwarming but …my general brand, for everything I write…Antiguan, full of love, and spicy.”

Rilzy Adams, a past Wadadli Pen finalist and subsequent patron, now romance novelist and lawyer

“Part of it is that I knew that world: I was the girl with the guitar slung over her shoulder, going to practice, playing in the choir, being shy about it, being self-conscious about walking with the guitar..for me the interesting things were the kids discovering their love of art, and discovering their potential within the art space, and connecting with each other through art…”

Joanne C. Hillhouse, Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator, now president of Wadadli Pen inc, author

“I don’t think about it like that. I just tell the story. Sometimes the protagonist is a child, sometimes a teen, sometimes an adult, sometimes an old person, sometimes a jelly fish named Coral.”

Joanne C. Hillhouse, #gyalfromOttosAntigua

“I didn’t know I wanted to tell stories. I knew I wanted to write and I thought I wanted to write about my mother and me, and a lot of my writing is about mother and daughter. But really I could early on see before any critic, I may have pointed it out to critics, that I was really writing about imbalance of power.” 

Jamaica Kincaid, internationally acclaimed, from Ovals, Antigua

“The biggest wall I encountered, not that there weren’t others, but the biggest was my own fear. And once you get through that fear/feeling of will people understand this, will people accept this, are people gonna see my vision, once you go through that then everything else tends to be a lot more easy to deal with.”

Jelani ‘J-Wyze’ Nias, Canadian writer with Antiguan roots

J-Wyze (Jelani Nias)

Remember, to read, watch, or listen to more, go here.

Once you’ve viewed the page (that page, not this one; this is just a sample), link us to any interviews we may have missed by emailing wadadlipen@gmail.com

Also, if you would like to volunteer with Wadadli Pen and help us do what we do (especially if you’re a college student and potential intern), reach out via wadadlipen@gmail.com

As with all content on Wadadli Pen, except otherwise noted, this is written by Wadadli Pen founder and coordinator Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, With Grace, Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, The Jungle Outside). All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed it, check out http://jhohadli.wordpress.com Please note that, except otherwise noted, images on this site also need to be cleared if you wish to use them for any purpose. Thanks.

NaPoWriMo Poetry Challenge Day 25: “Lady Wadadli” — chattinatti

For #napowrimo poetry challenge day 25, my challenge is to write a poem that recounts a dream or vision, and in which a woman appears who represents or reflects the area in which I’m from.

NaPoWriMo Poetry Challenge Day 25: “Lady Wadadli” — chattinatti

Roland Watson-Grant: Caribbean Winner, 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize — Repeating Islands

Jamaican author Roland Watson-Grant is the Caribbean Winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, with “The Disappearance of Mumma Dell”—his winning story of a matriarch’s funeral gone awry, a missing body, a forbidden pear tree and a community under threat is told through the eyes of a teenager. The 2021 overall winner will be announced […]

Roland Watson-Grant: Caribbean Winner, 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize — Repeating Islands

‘I entered Commonwealth Short Story Prize because I write in the spaces where cultures have conversations. I eavesdrop on what one culture –based on geography or time– has to share with another. I couldn’t ignore a platform that is dedicated to the very same thing.’ (Grant)

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is now open for submissions. See this and other deadlines in Opportunities Too.

Jhohadli Writing Project for Wadadli Pen @ the Botanical Gardens

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Saturday 28th August was the last of the summer workshop sessions planned for the Wadadli Pen 2021 long listed writers, facilitated by me through my Jhohadli Writing Project. While three previous sessions took place via zoom, this was an in-person session. I actually had planned initially to use the Public Library but after receiving a no from them for a Saturday session, I decided to move things over to the Botanical Gardens. And it worked out better, I think; lots of fresh air and space to distance, lots of writing, and lots of natural inspiration.

This is one participant evaluation after a zoom session; others are expected (will share when they come in). But, in the meantime, follow this blog and/or my Jhohadli blog to connect to future workshop opportunities. Anything here is non-profit (so will require patronage) and the Jhohadli Writing Project over on my personal blog is not-non-profit (requiring payment by individual participants and/or patronage, e.g. a contribution in this instance from G. Linton, to cover some or all of my time for prep and delivery of workshops, and related expenses).

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.

Wadadli Pen Diary – Why Youth Creativity Matters

Part of our promotion strategy which over the years and this year has variously included media releases and notices, media interviews, social media promotion with flyers and by other means, direct mailing to select mailing lists including schools, youth workers, past participants, etc., blog posts like this one, ads, psas, etc. etc. By whatever means we can. This post is a copy of a mail sent recently to teachers. Feel free to share. 

Teachers have always been a vital part of the Wadadli Pen ecosystem. This image is from the 2014 awards ceremony and teacher (then at T N Kirnon school at the time) Paula Russell Peters, centre, is pictured collecting one of her prizes. She was a finalist for the WP 10th anniversary Teachers Prize and also collected on behalf of T N Kirnon which netted a prize for the most submissions from a single school. One of her students was also a finalist. 

 

Encouraging youth creativity is about encouraging self-expression. This can be purely fun and about self-discovery; it can also open a portal to expressing and coping with challenging feelings and experiences. Encouraging youth creativity also promotes mental growth, potentially improving academic performance and emotional maturity. Encouraging youth creativity gives young people an opportunity to try new things, new ways of seeing, new ways of thinking, and new ways of problem solving. The ‘Imagine a Future’ special prize in this year’s Wadadli Pen Challenge, for instance, will create an opportunity to explore the potentials of action or inaction on climate change – the existential challenge of our day – do we survive and how. This may emerge as a dystopian shadowland or a bright sci fi future. Who knows? As small islands, we are on the front lines of climate change; it’s an opportunity for young people to think through what will be the first major battle of their life time, for bad or good. If you are a youth in Barbuda, you have been in the headlines at least since 2017 and hurricane Irma, the trauma of which you may not have fully explored even as you grapple with historical and political realities beyond your understanding, where is your voice in this, what’s your story? ‘The Wa’omani Prize’ is an opportunity to remember that there are no small stories, that every experience matters – from fishing with your dad/mom to being in the path of a storm to end all storms. The Wadadli Pen Challenge is not fixed on a theme – tell any story you want, about anything you want, however you want – but it is Caribbean, simply because we must centre our own imagination in our own stories. Storytelling is an opportunity to explore us. At the same time, it is an opportunity to experience our reality from a different perspective – where did the frigates go when they flew away …from the perspective of a frigate. For people working with young people it’s an opportunity to ask what if… allowing the imagination to zig from reality to fantasy and back again. The 3-strip comic panel is a challenge for those better at expressing themselves using visuals than words because visuals too can tell a full story filled with drama, humor, warmth, etc. Writers and artists can even collaborate for full expression of an idea. The important thing is that they feel the freedom to tell their story and the joy that self-expression can bring.

Hopefully, you’ll see the magic in that and encourage your children to create and submit by February 16th 2020. We urge you to post the flyer(s) at minimum but also to more actively encourage their participation, not just for the opportunity to win the schools book prize for most submissions, nor for the individual prizes they could win, but to encourage their creativity.

For full guidelines and submission form, visit https://wadadlipen.wordpress.com/wadadli-pen-2020

-Wadadli Pen founder coordinator, Joanne C. Hillhouse

The Jhohadli Summer Youth Writing Project (2019) – Participant Reflections 1.5

I’ve already shared reflections on the 2019 Jhohadli Summer Youth Writing Project – my summer writing camp. I’m not here to re-invent the wheel. But some other things (pictures, parent/guardian feedback, sample writing) have come in that I want to share. And then there’s also the question of what happens next.

So here goes:

These pictures were taken by one of the participants and sent to me. The first and second image are from our visit to Fort Berkelee; the third and fourth are from our visit to the rock dungeon in which enslaved Africans were entombed back in the day; and the fifth and sixth from our visit to the sugar mill also at Orange Valley.

If you read the original reflections, you’ve seen participant feedback but parent/guardian feedback re the JSYWP has also found its way to me. One wrote, “Thanks, this was indeed a great experience and helped both my daughter and my Antiguan Geography as a parent.”. Another wrote, “Thank you. My cousin had a great time. I’m happy that he was able to learn something new as well as visit new sites on this trip.”

A couple of the participants have also emailed sample writing from one of our writing exercises (which I requested they send to me simply because I wanted to have them). I won’t share the entire pieces but I’ll excerpt a couple of spots that jumped out at me – with context. These pieces aren’t polished, they are first drafts of a writing exercise, but I was impressed with them for committing and zeroing in on moments of particular detail and exploration, in their meditation on their chosen colour, and their willingness to share (they’re bolder than I was at their age).

“Antigua In Blue must start with the sky, which reflects onto the ocean on which boats float.” – I like how this opening sentence starts with a solid (albeit somewhat cliched image) and right away finds a rhythm without forcing a rhyme.

“The blue color of Antigua makes me anything but blue.” – I like the shift from colour to mood.

“I even saw this one guy playing a plain blue guitar.” – I like quirky and this is a quirky way to end a meditation on the colour blue.

What you’re not seeing, because I’m not sharing the entire poem (because it’s a rough draft of a writing exercise by a teen), is the sensory overload, particularly of sight, related to the colour blue. The exercise was about sense-detail and mission accomplished on that score, but also points for pushing the meaning of blue and its sensory effect beyond the elemental.

“Flap, flap, flap, the purple plastic flags go.” – I like the free associative random quality, the use of onomatopoeia, the detail (in terms of sound and imagery), and the fact that it alludes whether deliberately or instinctively to Antigua and Barbuda’s ‘war’ against all things plastic with a plastics ban which met with some resistance.

“Beads, yarn, thread, look at that periwinkle head.” – I like the turn here – whether (per the beads etc.) it is a created or real periwinkle head, it’s not exactly expected and that makes it, for me anyway, an interesting choice in a draft poem of interesting choices – “Sliced up dragon fruit looking funny, a nice looking magenta with grape on the side.” There were times when her writing more so than any of the others took on a symbolic and sometimes dreamlike quality especially where she committed to the sense impression without trying to make it make sense.

As I’ve told the writers, all of these pieces need work but, though there were varying levels of interest and application, I never felt like I was starting from scratch with them. It made listening to and giving feedback on their responses to our various writing exercises interesting for me as well.

I think of it as write-play (just coined) for the idea of allowing the writing to just-be. Craft is important and we got there but what I like about write-play is the way it can shake the shackles off the imagination and encourage exploration. There are specifics about the writing exercise I’m not mentioning here – you’ll have to participate in one of my workshops for those details – but the outcome is what I had hoped and beyond.

I’m thinking of continuing the JSYWP during the year – maybe one or two Saturdays per month if there’s any interest. So, is there, any interest? Send expressions of interest for ongoing writing tutelage for teens to jhohadli at gmail dot com

 

As with all content on Wadadli Pen, except otherwise noted, this is researched and written by Antiguan and Barbudan writer Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight 10th Anniversary Edition and Other Writings, With Grace, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure and its Spanish language edition; also a freelance writer, editor, writing coach and workshop facilitator). Excerpting, reblogging, linking etc. is fine, but PLEASE do not lift ANY content (images or text) wholesale from this site without asking first and crediting the creator of that work and/or copyright holder. All Rights Reserved. If you like the content here follow or recommend the blog, also, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. Thank you.

On editing and other services for Writers/Others

“So you’ve finally finished your first draft. Maybe it’s a novel. Maybe it’s a non-fiction book. Maybe you’ve written a picture book for children. Perhaps you love what you’ve written. Perhaps you’ve read it and decided it wasn’t really that good after all. Whatever you’ve written and however you feel about it, there is something you still need to do. Edit.” – this is from an article about – duh – why you should edit your writing. It gives good reasons. Check it out.

Having said that, I am now considering building another data base to add to the numerous Wadadli Pen data bases (bibliography and its sub-bibliographies of Antiguan and Barbudan writers, website linkages for local and Caribbean writers, Caribbean writers bibliography, Antigua and Barbuda lyrics and songwriters data base, journals in which Antiguan and Barbudan artists have been published, reading rooms, awards, art discussions, media history, plays, lit arts, opportunities, and opportunities too, the data base of past Wadadli Pen winners, and others including the one I direct would-be authors to most – the resources page which is a data base for published authors and freelance writers).

My services – writing, editing, training – will be listed but I’ll dig around and add other lit arts or maybe just general arts related services available in Antigua and Barbuda. What do you think? Is that something you’d be interested in? What services would you like to see listed?

 

As with all content on Wadadli Pen, except otherwise noted, this is written by Antiguan and Barbudan writer Joanne C. Hillhouse (author of The Boy from Willow Bend, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, Oh Gad!, Musical Youth, Dancing Nude in the Moonlight 10th Anniversary Edition and Other Writings, With Grace, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure; also a freelance writer, editor, writing coach and workshop facilitator). All Rights Reserved. If you like the content here follow or recommend the blog, also, check out my page on Amazon, WordPress, and/or Facebook, and help spread the word about Wadadli Pen and my books. Thank you.