News from Authors

As part of Pride Month, Ballyroan Reads selected five new lesbian books that caught their eye--including Helen Klonaris debut collection.

After three hours of deliberation, the Antillo-Guyanese high school students awarded the 17th Carbet High School Prize to Alecia McKenzie for her novel Sweetheart (or Trésor in French). Alecia was neck-to-shoulder with Daniel Picouly, but finally won the vote. Author of five books and born in Jamaica, the writer is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She is also a journalist.

In the second episode of Writing a New Caribbean, Elisha Efua Bartels talks to Jamaican writers including Peepal Tree cohort Tanya Shirley, winner of the 2014 Forward Prize for Poetry Kei Miller, and Millicent Graham; plus Marlon James, winner of the 2015 Booker Prize. The writers talk about their work, and what it reveals to both Jamaicans and outsiders about their country.

Featured readings:

The new radio show Writing a New Caribbean creates a picture of the Caribbean, as seen by a new generation of writers and poets. In programme 1, 'Under the Surface', Elisha Efua Bartels talks to Trinidadian writers Sharon Millar, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, and Andre Bagoo about the sense of place in their work.

Listen to the show online.

Ishion Hutchinson talks about poetry, readind and travelling over at Catch News: 'I loved stories, I loved reading narratives. So I read novels, and so on. But poetry was what stayed. You see the thing is, because of the intensity of a poem, it shakes you awake in a way that a story, because it goes on and you are interested in what happens next, does not. And so when the force of a poem came up on me, I felt that's how I would want to use language as well.'

'I’m not sure I like literature festivals,' writes Nicholas Laughlin (organiser of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest and Peepal Tree author) in a provocation for the International Literature Showcase.

Andre Bagoo has been awarded The Charlotte and Isidor Paiewonsky Prize for first-time publication in The Caribbean Writer for 'On Wordsworth's The Daffodils', a poem from Pitch Lake (Peepal Tree Press, April 2017) which

“The chief mechanism of a poem has to be vision, and vision has to be connected with people and sharing in their fate,” says Vladimir Lucien in an illuminating interview.

Read the interview in full.

The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross has made the shortlist for The Jhalak Prize!

There have been some wonderful comments from the judges. Speaking of The Bone Readers, judge Catherine Johnson said, 'Jacob Ross is, I believe, one of the most incisive and illuminating writers working in English today. The Bone Readers is a beautifully realised and exquisite crime novel.'

Naturally, we agree.

Ann-Margaret Lim gives us 'A Valentine's Cocktail'.

Singing and guitar: Wayne Armond (of Chalice, Jakoostic fame)

Listen at SoundCloud.