Lit: LA Times snags Booker winner Marlon James as Critic-at-Large

The Los Angeles Times welcomes the new critics-at-large and one of them is Jamaican

novelist Marlon James (top left in photo strip), author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, and whose debut novel "John Crow's Devil" wasa finalist in the LA Times Book Award . Congratulation! [The other critics are Laila Lalami, Susan Straight, Viet Thanh Nguyen, David Kipen of Libros Schmibros: Lending Library, Alexander Chee, John Scalzi, Rigoberto González, Rebecca Carroll, and Adriana E. Ramirez.] Here is an excerpt from the article:

Meet the new Critics-at-Large for our books pages. These 10 writers have beautiful voices, brilliant minds, critical insights and strong opinions. We are delighted that they will share them with us.

We see books as being more than something that sits on a shelf (although they are that, enduringly). Books are the keystone in how we define and understand our contemporary moment, our world.

With these 10 writers, we will investigate our culture through the conversations that books anchor, in deep dives and in real time. We will explore the mysteries of reading and writing; consider the achievements, acknowledged and under-acknowledged, of the writers who have come before; question the roles of race, heritage, class and gender in what we read; take on the vagaries of the publishing industry, and more.

These writers have won dozens of prizes, from a lifetime achievement award to a prize for an unpublished first book. They hail from four different nations and have lived all over the world. [. . .]

Marlon James: James won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for his novel “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” a fictionalized account of the 1976 assassination attempt on Bob Marley. He received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for his prior novel, “The Book of Night Women,” a story of 19th century Jamaican slaves. Born in Jamaica in 1970, James now teaches at Macalester College and lives in Minneapolis

Business: This Year's "Models" line up for biz recognition

The 2nd annual Jamaica Business Model Competition, competed for amongst university-based entrepreneurial teams, officially got underway Thursday last, following a launch at the Development Bank of Jamaica offices n Kingston. In addition to the DBJ, the competition is presented by Sponsors  IDB, National Commercial Bank, Pan-Jam Investments and GK Capital

 The winner, to be chosen from some 12 teams representing 3 tertiary institutions, the UWI, UTech and Northern Caribbean University (NCU), will again be taken to Provo, Utah yo compete in the IBMC at the famed Brigham Young University. Jamaica’s National Business Model Competition 2014 winner – Herboo Enterprises - placed 8th, out of a total of 42 teams in the finals of the International Business Model Competition that took place in Salt Lake City, Utah from May 1 - 3.  The local team was also awarded the International Business Model Award. They won a total of US$ 6,000.00. The principals, along with runner-up NCR Lamb, were present at the launch

The IBMC is currently co-hosted by Brigham Young University, Harvard University, and Stanford University.  This year’s event was held at Brigham Young University in Utah, and teams from universities worldwide, competed for the prestigious award of IBMC trophy and cash prize of US$25,000.

This was the first time that Jamaica has participated in the International Business Model Competition and is the culmination of six months of intense work.

Business Modelling is a relatively new phenomenon that is geared at reducing the failure rate of start-up businesses.  It focuses on identifying and precisely defining the assumptions of the new venture, testing those assumptions in the field, and then pivoting (changing) based on the lessons learned.