I’m going on a little trip around other islands of the Caribbean for a month or so in June and July, and had the idea of inviting you to contribute a guest post to this site while I’m away.
Read MoreDate Archives May 2012
The Body is a Temple by Luke Bitmead
First of all, I should declare an interest. As regular readers will know, I won the Luke Bitmead Writer’s Bursary in 2008, an award set up in Luke’s memory, and winning that award launched my career as a writer. So you could say I was predisposed to like The Body is a Temple, the novel he wrote in the early… Read More
How reading can improve your love life
Have you ever tried reading aloud with someone else? Have you noticed differences in the reading process?
Read MoreBook fairs are dangerous
Do you ever get carried away in bookshops or at bookfairs, and buy far more than you’d planned? Is it consumerism, or bibliophilia? I like to think that, because books are objects of learning, my book-buying binges are a positive thing. But am I deceiving myself? Am I really no different from those people breaking down the doors of Primark… Read More
Test of stamina at Bim Literary Festival, day two
Wow. That was intense. Three hours on a hard bench listening to poetry readings with no break and no refreshments. That’s a real test. Luckily it was an open-air event, on the boardwalk at Hastings (the Barbados one, not the UK one). It was easy to get up and stretch your legs occasionally, and the view helped. The occasion was… Read More
Earl Lovelace at Bim Literary Festival
Trinidadian writer Earl Lovelace was the second attraction last night at Bim Literary Festival. For my report on the first part of the evening, with Austin Clarke, click here. Lovelace was asked about the themes of his writing and spoke about the search for selfhood, both on an individual and a societal level. He said that people in the Caribbean… Read More
Austin Clarke at Bim Literary Festival
After my unintended gatecrashing of a class with Derek Walcott earlier in the day, this was an event I was actually allowed to attend. It was an interview with two major Caribbean writers, Austin Clarke and Earl Lovelace, followed by readings from their latest work. First up was Austin Clarke, a Barbadian novelist and short-story writer who has lived for… Read More
Learning from Derek Walcott: Bim Literary Festival, day one
How often do you get to meet a Nobel Prize winner? That was my main rationale for going along to a Master Class with Derek Walcott yesterday – that and the prospect of seeing Earl Lovelace and Austin Clarke afterwards. The occasion was the inaugural Bim Literary Festival, a celebration of writers both from here in Barbados and elsewhere in the… Read More
Great opportunity for unpublished UK writers
If you are an unpublished UK writer with a novel manuscript ready for submission, I’d strongly recommend that you check out the Luke Bitmead Bursary. Submissions for the 2012 contest are open from now until 3rd August. It’s for UK residents only. This is the contest I entered back in 2008 and, to my amazement, won. Everything that’s happened in… Read More