News from Authors

Author Leone Ross has been shortlisted in the Short Story Collection category for the 2018 Saboteur Awards, for Come Let Us Sing Anyway. Congratulations, Leone!

Members of the public can vote for their favourite titles until 9 May. The winner in each category will win a very special bottle of Sacred Gin, a logo they can use on their book, and a boatload of kudos.

The awards will be announced on Saturday 19th May at Theatre Delicatessen (Broadgate) in London.

Vote now and use hashtag #sabawards18 on social media.

Available in Small Axe online:

The morning that i stir within the narrow compost of my grave
miraculously ash space move around my head to open out my eye
the eyelids sticking down some time until they opening

Read online.

From The Digital Caribbean:

From 'Archives in As Flies to Whatless Boys':

British Council Literature Podcast presenter Georgina Godwin headed to the Small Wonder Short Story Festival last October. While there, she caught up with Helen Klonaris, Bahamian writer, performer, activist and teacher, who is also this year's British Council International Writer in Residence at the festival. She also chatted to Nicholas Laughlin, author and programme director of the Bocas Lit Fest.

Shara McCallum's poem 'Sorrow' has been selected for the Best of the Net 2017 anthology, which just went live online.

The Best of the Net project continues to promote the diverse and growing collection of voices who are publishing their work online, a venue that continues to see less respect from such yearly anthologies as the Pushcart and Best American series. This anthology serves to bring greater respect to an innovative and continually expanding medium in the same medium in which it is published.

We are beyond thrilled at the news that Esther Phillips has been named Poet Laureate of Barbados by the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Youth yesterday.

Esther said she was honoured to receive the title.

Esther's published collections of poetry are:

When ground doves fly. Ian Randle, 2003
The Stone Gatherer. Peepal Tree Press, 2009.
Leaving Atlantis. Peepal Tree Press, 2015.

She has been editing BIM for many years and is also the main organiser of the BIM Literary Festival.

Jacob Ross is an author, a creative writing tutor, and the associate fiction editor for Peepal Tree Press. His oeuvre includes Pynter Bender (2008), the 2017 inaugural Jhalak Prize-winning book Bone Readers (2016), and Tell No-One About This (2017).

In March 2017, St. Lucian poet Vladimir Lucien was recorded reading his debut and award-winning collection of poetry, Sounding Ground. These recordings add to emerging collections at Memorial University of Newfoundland which focus on understanding the performative aspects of Caribbean and Caribbean-Canadian writing and which grow teaching resources for the field of Caribbean scholarship.

Kamau Brathwaite has been awarded the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. The prize is awarded to a poet whose distinguished and growing body of work represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature.