News from Authors

Jacqueline Crooks talks about Windrush and The Ice Migration on local channel London Live! Check out the interview in full online.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

To mark his birthday (70 years young!), John Robert Lee has published the poem 'Haiku at 70' at Arts Etc:

i.
on arthritic spurs
the aging cock’rel prances
to the chortling chicks.

The poem continues in six more stanzas, which you can read in full online.

Minoli Salgado has just returned from an epic tour of Slovenia! Here's a summary of the many events, interviews and appearances she made during her time there.

Public Talks in Ljubljana

Minoli took par in two public talks in the capital city of Ljubljana to promote the Slovenian translation of A Little Dust on the Eyes. These were:

26 March: Literary Event: 'Twelve Cries from Home': Public talk with Readings. Hosted by Department of English, University of Ljubljana. Discussant Petra Mertec (journalist).

Hot on the heels of her Saboteur Awards nomination, Leone Ross has been longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. Putting her in the running for a whopping £10,000, this is a highly regarded prize that celebrates the art of short stories. The Edge Hill Prize is now the only UK award for a single-authored collection of short stories. The shortlist will be announced sometime in June. The award ceremony will be held on Saturday 3rd November 2018 at Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Rd, London where it is hoped the shortlisted writers will read from their work.

First, above all, I live forever. And
thereafter redecorate paradise
in the majesty of the Roof Nightclub,
DJ Lucifer, at predawn hours
terrifies the floorboards to give way to
Apollyon’s abyss, reflecting scarred light
on the wall. The mirror alive with tremors.

Of the poem, Ishion writes:

Loretta Collins Klobah and her students interviewed Marcia Douglas for an in-depth and intriguing discussion around her work and inspirations.

We were thrilled when the 2018 OCM Bocas Prizes for Fiction and Poetry were announced earlier this year - since two of our writers were selected! Shara McCallum and Jennifer Rahim won the awards for Madwoman (Poetry) and Curfew Chronicles (Fiction), respectively.

What’s it like to have a father whose literary reputation spans the region? And what’s it like to lose him?

Unfinished Sentences, the new documentary feature film by Mariel Brown, is about her relationship with her father, Wayne Brown. The celebrated Trinidadian poet, journalist and writing teacher died in 2009, only a year after Brown reconciled with him after a bitter split.

Read more online.

When I was about 10, and old enough to know fear, I heard my mother say to a neighbor that the good always die young.

My brother Gary—I had three but I loved him the most—was the best man I knew, so I tried to prepare myself for his early death.

Read the rest of 'A Dance with My Brother' in The Caribbean Writer!

Barbadian riddim poet and cultural activist, Adisa 'AJA' Andwele has 'literally' brought the late Jackie Opel back to talk to the youth about the upsurge in violent crimes and murders in Barbados and across the Caribbean. AJA has sampled Jackie Opel’s ‘Live and Let Live’ song and fused it with one of his poems in an attempt to achieve this objective.