Literature: Bocas entries Open for 2017

The 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the latest round of the region’s most prestigious literary award, is now open for entries. Sponsored by One Caribbean Media, the prize, now in its seventh year, includes a cash award of US$10,000 for the overall winner and US$3,000 each for two genre category winners.

With past winners including both eminent established authors and talented newcomers, the OCM Bocas Prize is coveted by Caribbean writers all over the world, who qualify by being of Caribbean birth or citizenship.

The cross-genre prize is judged in three categories: poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction. The 2017 Prize is open to books published in the calendar year 2016. The overall winner is selected from the three category winners.

Chairing the distinguished panel of Caribbean and international judges is the celebrated Jamaican literary scholar and poet Professor Edward Baugh, who is joined by ten other internationally based writers, academics, and publishing professionals.

There are two deadlines for submissions: 10 November, 2016, and 11 January, 2017, depending on the publication date of an eligible title.

In the 2016 round, the short fiction collection The Pain Tree by Olive Senior was the overall winner of the OCM Bocas Prize. Other winners in past years have included St. Lucian Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott and Trinidadian novelist Earl Lovelace.

“This cross-genre prize lines up the best talents, old and new, allowing them to rub shoulders as no other prize does. We are pleased that each year we can signal to the reading public the very finest of what’s on offer from Caribbean writers and help in promoting the work of our wordsmiths, wherever they may live,” says Marina Salandy-Brown, founder and director of the Bocas Lit Fest, the NGO behind the Prize and three annual literary festivals in Trinidad and Tobago.

The 2017 NGC Bocas Lit Fest runs from 26 to 30 April, 2017, at the National Library and the adjacent Old Fire Station, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Title sponsor is the National Gas Company, lead sponsor is First Citizens, OCM is a main sponsor.

Culture: Our Writers Can....

....be as "big" as in well known and influential internationally as our singers.

There was, in the wake of Marlon James' massive Booker Prize win in 2015-16 (shown above), an expected wave of support for Jamaican writers, whether or not they were /are domiciled in Jamaica. James' win dovetailed neatly into similar triumphs for Claudia Rankine (whose book-length poem, Citizen: An American Lyric copped several major awards and nominations both in the US and UK and Kei Miller (immediately below, right), whose similar book-length epic "The Cartographer Tries To Map a WayTo Zion, earned him the UK's Forward Poetry Prize.

Of course, there are many more victories worth savouring from Roaland Watson Grant (immediately below left) whose sly swap trilogy that began with "Sketcher" and continued with "Skid" will soon reach its conclusion with the impending publication of "Nearly Near But Fairly Far"

and poet Tanya Shirley (left) whose two published volumes of poetry to date, "She Who Sleeps With Bones" and "The Merchant of Feathers" continue to be well received her and abroad.

And new names are continually coming to the fore (or re-emerging) form Nicole Dennis-Benn whose less-than-sunny expose of the underbelly of Jamaican life and tourist culture, "Here Comes The Sun"  has been enjoying raves from diverse international presses.

And yet, even with the preceding (and a whole host more that I admittedly haven't mentioned in this missive) there is the sense that the spark is yet to become a fire; there is the concern that Jamaican literature may yet end up like Jamaican film (with apologies to all the great filmmakers now out there: a little too long in the wind and the rain to build the critical mass so needed and even desired. Calabash, the annual* south coast celebration of Jamaican and global writers in tandem is certainly a worthy element (and undoubtedly a catalyst) in this phenomenon, but its not nearly enough in itself. The singers and players had their Trench Town, and even the dramatists had a visible nucleus in the now decaying Ward Theatre and - further "uptown" the Little Theatre and the now defunct Barn. Even the celebrated athletes, always achievers, went to to another level after the establishment of the MVP facility at the UWI (though MVP is obviously not the only worthy athletics centre)

 It may seem excessively nostalgic to be suggesting a salon in this day and age of digital connection, but with social media itself now in some respects saturated and even stratified, the time has well come to "go back to the future" so to speak and develop some kind of physical centre, incubator, hotspot - who knows what to call it for Jamaican writers, not to gather in isolation, but to present themselves to the public in a frequent and meaningful way beyond an annual  festival or even a book launch at the excellent Bookophilia in Kingston or other venues. The nation deserves this, our writers certainly deserve it and the world can certainly stand to receive more great stuff from Jamaica

Books: Talent only Gives You One Good Book, A chat with writer Garfield Ellis

- FROM susumba.com; Tanya Batson-Savage

Garfield Ellis is possibly one of Jamaica’s best-kept secrets. So, at his reading at Bookophilia, on Hope Road in Kingston, from his latest novel The Angel’s Share (Akashic Books), it wasn’t that surprising when members of the audience queried whether he had any other books. 

Ellis is a reasonably prolific writer (not Kwame Dawes prolific - but then which writer is?) with four novels and a collection of short stories as well as several anthologized short stories to his credit. So while he hasn’t been hidden away, he has not been one of those writers buzzed about, though he should be.

His reading from The Angel’s Share which was shortlisted for the 2015 Una Marson Award is a novel about a father and son reconnecting as they travel across Jamaica, showed that Ellis continues to be a keen discerner of the hearts of boys and men, again presenting the beautifully flawed and textured characters found in For Nothing at All and Such as I Have both published by Macmillan Caribbean.

Like many of our other writers, Ellis left Jamaica’s shores to seek succour in the albeit cooler, but certainly greener pastures of Canada. This was the first time he was coming home in a few years, and his last major reading on the island was at the Calabash International Literary Festival in 2012.

“It’s good to be in Kingston. I haven’t been here in 3-4 years,” Ellis said to the small yet eager audience who had been quietly sating their literary appetites on his words. As soon as he finishes reading one passage he is urged to read another. But good things also come between the readings as Ellis talks about writing and his relationship with Jamaica.

“My friends tell me that after two weeks in Jamaica, you want to come back [to Canada] but obviously they haven’t been here during mango season,” Ellis said as listed mango among the things he has been happily gorging, on along with copious amounts of Red Stripe beer and jerk pork.

He explains, however, that his relationship with the island is deeper than these culinary delights.

“It’s Jamaica that feeds me, so I have to keep coming back,” Ellis says. revealing that most of his writing has taken place here. His next book, titled Land We Love, will be the first one that was largely written in Canada, although his eyes remain firmly trained on Jamaica.

He explains that Land We Love will be his first real look at violence in Jamaica has he has generally tried to steer clear of it.

“When you love the country, and you have a sensitivity, it’s very difficult to face,” Ellis said. Indeed when bursts of violence has appeared in his writing it has been sensitively treated. It’s often visceral while being deeply moving as the emotional carnage is usually a part of the package. 

Garfield Ellis

Ellis revealed that although he has found himself working in numerous nine-to-five jobs, his writing has been a consistent part of his life.

“It is the only thing that does not bore me, that I do every day and it does not bore me,” Ellis said. “Everything else, after 3-4 years it bores me, but writing feeds me.”

Of course, a major part of writing is learning to deal with rejection, especially, if like Ellis, you choose not to go the route of self-publishing.

He notes that even though he has written a lot, he doesn’t send his work to many publishers and the earlier version of The Angel’s Share had earned a 2-page rejection letter from the publisher. On reading that, he put the book aside for a long time then finally he realized what needed to be fixed and that’s when he understood what the publisher had been saying about the work. 

“The truth is that, a lot of times, the rejection makes sense if you can see what the publisher is saying,” Ellis said.

He clearly has no delusions about writing as he says Talent will only take you so far. 

“90% of what makes a novel is hard work,” Ellis said. “Talent only gives you one good book. You have to learn the rest.”

Lit: Jamaican among 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Shortlist

Confluence, Nova Gordon-Bell (Jamaica)

Confluence.
C—o—n—f—l—u—e—n—c—e
Noun.
Union; flowing together; rivers merging; the coming together of ideas. the coming together of factors.
Confluence.
Miss Evelyn doctor give her a prescription for blood sugar and it make her forget who she is and where she was. She walk out of her house into the street in her night gown and start talk to people who nobody can see. My employer, Miss Kaylie, go for Miss Evelyn, pack her and her grip in the back of the car and bring her back from country to the house in Kingston.

Miss Evelyn is Miss Kaylie grand-mother youngest sister and Miss Kaylie say she owe everything she have to Miss Evelyn. Miss Evelyn living with us now so Miss Kaylie can take care of her. 

Nova Gordon-Bell is a graduate of the University of the West Indies, Mona, where she studied English Literature, Media and Communication. She has won several awards for her short-stories and poetry. Having pursued a career in public information and advertising, Nova currently teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in media, communication and creative writing.  A lecturer at the University of Technology, Jamaica, Nova lives in Jamaica with her sons, Benjamin and Joshua.

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

Poetry: Rankine's "Lyric" gets a UK Forward

 Claudia Rankine. Photograph: John Lucas/Graywolf Press

A book described by one critic as eavesdropping “on America and a racism that has never gone away” has won the top award at the 2015 Forward prizes for poetry.

Claudia Rankine has already won the National Book Critics Circle award in the US for Citizen: An American Lyric. On Monday night at a ceremony in London she was named winner of the Forward prize for best collection.

Citizen was described by the jury as a “powerful book for our time”. The chair of judges, AL Kennedy, added: “This is writing we can recommend with real urgency and joy. It’s a stylistically daring poetic project about the dehumanisation of those deemed outsiders ‐ we found it exhilarating and genuinely transformative.”

Kennedy said she and other judges had individually “pressed this book on others with real fervour. It will, we know, raise questions about the nature, purpose and importance of poetry.” Citizen is published as poetry but some have described as more of a lyric essay.

Kate Kellaway, reviewing in the Observer, wrote: “[Rankine’s] achievement is to have created a bold work that occupies its own space powerfully, an unsettled hybrid – her writing on the hard shoulder of prose. She eavesdrops on America and a racism that has never gone away.”

Citizen includes extracts from documentary film scripts, screengrabs of Zinedine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi at the 2006 World Cup, JMW Turner’s painting The Slave Ship and an essay on Venus Williams.

Rankine, who was born in Jamaica and now lives in California, teaching at the University of Southern California, wins £10,000.

Two other winners at the awards, now in their 24th year, were Mona Arshi, who won the £5,000 Felix Dennis prize for best first collection, and Clare Harman, who won the £1,000 prize for best single poem.

Arshi drew on her 10 years as a human rights lawyer – including her representation of the right-to-die campaigner Diane Pretty – for her debut collection Small Hands. The jury praised the collection for its “imagination, sensuality and beguiling playfulness”.

Harman won for a poem first published in the TLS, The Mighty Hudson, a biographical sketch of a strongman who overreaches himself.

Books: HBO "Contracts" James' 'Seven Killings" for series

HBO has optioned screen rights to Marlon James’ novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld), for a series adaptation.

James’ novel, which was published last year, takes inspiration from the real-life incident when gunmen attacked Bob Marley’s house in 1976. Spanning three decades and crossing continents, the story chronicles the lives of a host of characters, from slum kids to drug lords and the CIA. The book won both the Anisfield-Wolf Fiction Prize for books that contribute to our understanding of racism and cultural diversity and the OCM Bocas Fiction Prize for Caribbean Literature.

HBO plans to produce an ongoing series, with award-winning screenwriter Eric Roth penning the script. Roth’s credits include adapting books into screenplays for Oscar-nominated films such as “Munich”, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Forrest Gump”, as well as acting as the executive producer of Emmy-winning series “House of Cards”.

Oneworld is releasing the paperback edition of A Brief History of Seven Killings this June. It will publish James’ debut novel, John Crow’s Devil, in November, and it has also published his second novel, The Book of Night Women.

Literary Arts: Commonwealth shortlist revealed

The 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize has just announced its shortlist. This year it attracted nearly 4000 entries – a record number. The judging panel, comprised of six acclaimed writers–Leila Aboulela, Fred D’Aguiar, Marina Endicott, Witi Ihimaera, Bina Shah and chair Romesh Guneseker–chose twenty-two stories (from eleven countries) that reflect the breadth and quality of writing in the Commonwealth today. The judges will announce the five regional winners drawn from the shortlist on April 28. The shortlist includes four Caribbean writers: Alecia McKenzie, K Jared Hosein, Toodesh Ramesar, and Darren Doyle.

Here are the four writers with a passage from their work:

Alecia McKenzie is a Jamaican writer, artist and journalist. Her books include the short story collections Satellite City and Stories from Yard, and the novel Sweetheart. Alecia has participated in art exhibitions in New York, London and other cities, and, as a journalist, has reported on human rights, gender, development, culture and the environment. She is the founder and editor of Southern World Arts News (SWAN), an online site that provides information about the arts.

Toodesh Ramesar is a writer and literature teacher from Trinidad and Tobago. He has won several prizes including the 2005 Derek Walcott and University of West Indies Prize for Poetry. His work has been featured in the collection Six Trinidadian Poets and the literary journal The Caribbean Writer.

Darren Doyle was born in Trinidad and Tobago. He has a Journalism BA from the University of Sheffield, and feels most at home writing, and maintaining the blog,Worksp_ce, at www.workspce.com. He is currently working on getting his first novel published.

Kevin Jared Hosein is a poet, writer and science teacher in Trinidad and Tobago and a graduate of the University of the West Indies. He illustrated and published a book for younger audiences, Littletown Secrets, in 2013. His short stories have been featured in Caribbean anthologies such as Pepperpot and Jewels of the Caribbean.

For full description and list of writes, see http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/2015-commonwealth-short-story-prize-shortlist/

Business: Its Two (in a Row) for NCU

JarGro, a smart appliance created to support the production of foods using natural LED plant light, and a built-in irrigation system (aeroponics), earned Northern Caribbean University their second consecutive victory in the National Business Model Competition at the Jamaica Conference Centre yesterday. Last year's winner Herboo, went on to place 8th (and best non-US team) at the international business model selection in the western US state of Utah.

Team members Colin Thorpe, David Smith and Craig Campbell walked away with a cheque of J$2 million and will be entering the international level of the competition in Utah, United States, in May.

The University of Technology team, Feevr, placed second, while NCU's Vitae came in third. The teams were awarded J$1 million and J$500,000, respectively, which will be used to assist in converting their business models into reality.

Digital Farms and Genius Software Programs and Electronics shared the fourth place prize of J$200,000.

The JArGro system, aimed at urban dwellers faced with serious space restrictions, uses 98 per cent less water and 70 per cent less fertilizer along with various sensors which enables it to process and act.

The system replicates the natural way plants grow thus providing all the attributes for the plant to strive and is built around a minimalistic concept that enables it to fit in one kitchen.

The NBMC is specially designed to encourage and promote the creative and innovative thinking of local students. It facilitates entrepreneurial skills and enhances collaboration and communication between the private sector stakeholders and education.

The competition is presented by the Development Bank of Jamaica, in association with the IDB, National Commercial Bank, GK Capital, Pan-Jam, the PSOJ, the ICD Group and US-based Alta Ventures.

Books: Nine from Five for Bocas Long list

Authors from five territories have made the longlist for the 2015 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, sponsored by One Caribbean Media.

The Prize longlist includes three genre categories: poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction. The winners in each category will be announced on 1 April, and the Prize will be presented on Saturday 2 May, during the fifth annual NGC Bocas Lit fest in Port of Spain. The overall winner will receive a US$10,000 award with smaller awards for the other winners.

The 2015 OCM Bocas Prize Longlist:

POETRY

Sounding Ground, by Vladimir Lucien (Peepal Tree Press)
The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion, by Kei Miller (Carcanet)
The Merchant of Feathers, by Tanya Shirley (Peepal Tree Press)

FICTION

A Brief History of Seven Killings, by Marlon James (Riverhead)
House of Ashes, by Monique Roffey (Simon and Schuster)
Land of Love and Drowning, by Tiphanie Yanique (Riverhead)

NON-FICTION

Not for Everyday Use, by Elizabeth Nunez (Akashic)
King Short Shirt: Nobody Go Run Me, by Dorbrene E. O’Marde (Hansib)
Dying to Better Themselves: West Indians and the Building of the Panama Canal, by Olive Senior (UWI Press)